We’ve had a hard time dialing in an efficient cleaning method. We’ve been doing ethanol/water/ethanol but it takes HOURS. Is this just part of it, having to spend half a day cleaning?? HELP!
We’ve been running with our heaters at 80C (feed), 100C (evap), and 50C (condenser). We’ve also been heating the ethanol to ~70C prior to running it through the system. Motor settings : Stirrer @ 200 rpm, Discharge @ 50-60 rpm, Feed @ 25-30rpm. Now we’ve replaced water with Zep, and it’s definitely removing a lot of sugars and charred gunk.
WHO HAS THE BEST CLEANING METHOD OUT THERE?! Show me what ya got!
I would suggest alconox. My normal cleaning procedure is about 3-4L of an alconox solution, I can’t recall the % concentration off the top of my head followed by a 3-4L run of isopropanol. That’s all we need and we’re good to go for the next run.
As much as needed. Keep going til the input matches the output on each thing minus the zep since you’ll be distilling stuff out of it. This process used to take an entire afternoon on a kD10 but that’s dependant on unit size and contamination level.
As someone else mentioned, canola oil is great. I’ve also run isopropyl w 5% limonene but it will take a few rinses after the fact to get all that limonene out w isopropyl or ethanol.
Follow w water.
Follow w food grade ethanol and then dry it while open to atmosphere.
Raise the PH on the water washes to 10-12 to break down sugars.
For cleaner crude, use high BP oils so you produce a usable tincture as a waste product. Cheap vegetable oil for the residue side that gets tossed and MCT for distillate side. This way you don’t have to vacuum dry the system. This is what I used for a 3 stage WFE that had limited plumbing flexibility for cleanouts.
I would suggest using organic avocado oil as it has a much higher smoke point than canola oil.
I 'd also stick with EtOH over ISO, simply because I tend to avoid the introduction of new solvents unless there is a clear advantage.
If you do not have a CIP (Clean in place) protocol, its a good idea to get in the habit of doing it at regularly timed intervals regardless of whether it “looks” like your equipment needs it or not.
