This is list is under construction and being updated as frequently as possible. If you are a wiped film evaporator manufacturer, and would like your equipment listed here, please reach out to me directly. Thank you everyone who has contributed to this list. As of Q1/2021, These are the manufacturers of WFE systems currently on the market and used in our industry. Please feel free to contribute any of your experiences with these machines. The list is in no particular order. I have only written a rundown of units I have operated / seen being operated. Please do chime in if you have used any of the systems not listed / spec’d here.
1 - CTS / Chemtech / Helderpad (Chemtech Services / UIC and Helderpad, LLC)
2 - Root Sciences VTA / (Verfahrenstechnische Anlagen GmbH & Co. KG)
3 - UCI / (Currently sold by Precision)
4 - Pfaudler
5 - Asahi / AGI (All Glass Innovations) (Currently sold by Cascade)
6 - Aptia Engineering
7 - High Velocity Evaporators (Currently sold by Lab Society)
8 - Prescott
9 - Pope Scientific (Pope Scientific Inc)
10 - YHCHEM ( need info here ! )
11 - TOPTION ( need info here ! )
- Helderpad / CTS (Chemtech Services, Inc.) offer a variety of stills in both glass and stainless that are manufactured here in the USA. They are installed and have their training done by PIVT (@pivt_ca) - an equipment and consumables company that offers onsite consultation as well. Below are the current models CTS offers. For a price, they can customize these to run staged or isolated batches, or basically anything customers need. I have worked with Chemtech and their only certified field tech - and can verify that their customer service, installation, training, and quality are unmatched.
“KD” = stainless
“KDT” = glass
KD - 6 (.06m2 evaporative surface)
KD 10 (.1m2 evaporative surface)
KD 30 (.3m2 evaporative surface)
KD 75 (.75m2 evaporative surface)
KD 150 (1.5m2 evaporative surface)
KD 300 (3m2 evaporative surface)
CTS machines are engineered almost entirely using swagelok for either tube-in-tube or traditional transfer/return of thermal fluid. This ensures for a fully jacketed oleoresin path with no clogging. The still itself is meticulously welded and machined; proudly made in the USA. They are equipped with Witte gear pumps to move fluid. Vacuum is handled by Leybold vacuum pumps (TM and Roots) and Julabo heat transfer units. Some machines are shipped with Mokon HTF for heat transfer. The modularity of the stills that CTS offers is the real value point. For example you can have a two-stage KD 30 built with two full evaporative bodies, so you can either have two stage wiping, or with the option to run two batches at once. CTS stills utilize both wipers and rollers depending on the build. Three-stage machines are configured with the first evaporator having no coldfinger / condenser - as it’s primary function is to terp-strip. Cold trap options for CTS are: dry ice, chiller, or regulated LN2.
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VTA’s build quality and design is exceptional. Their turnkey wiped film evaporator units are 170k on up. The unit is manufactured in Germany and has excellent US customer support. The units are installed by a team of installers who are well known in the cannabis community, which was an excellent choice for VTA. Unlike any other of the companies I’ll list - VTA actually has working factual data based off cannabis oleoresin itself. Currently VTA is sold in the US under the Root Sciences brand. The VTA has a fully jacketed oleoresin path and the most advanced WF cold trap on the market. (As far as cold traps go, BRinstruments takes that award IMHO). For distillate and waste: The system uses either standard, under vacuum flasks; or jacketed spouts. This system relies heavily on the most advanced of liquid pumps to move the warm oleoresin, which is probably why it is open-ended. These particular pumps at waste and distillate end - are called discharge pumps. VTA offers their systems in glass which is created in-house; and stainless. They also offer the capability to connect multiple machines for daisy-chain style, mutistage processing. Their heat transfer choice was Julabo and as of now Huber.
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Pope offers competitively priced stills; Pope from 2" - 4" - 6 “. These are offered with a variety of options and can be built to order. Heat bands, oil jacket, your choice. Their stills are made here in the US. Pope offers their evaporators in either glass or stainless versions, as well as multistage. The Pope offers entry level WFE packages and have a lot of cannabis industry exposure. While the 2” Pope is still the little guy on the block; I’ve had them outputting 2kg a day of D9 with ease. The only downside to Pope is that their glass is ridiculously expensive.
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Asahi is a Japanese glass plant; which produces very high end, fully jacketed glass WFE stills and reactors - distributed by AGI. Cascade now sells them as sadly Asahi is not into the cannabis industry. https://cascadesciences.com/shop/distillation-evaporation/pure-path-100-distillation-system-kit-a-mechanically-refrigerated-cold-traps/ Nonetheless, this is a finely crafted glass evaporator with a much needed Cascade touch.
-Prescott
(Thank you to @MasterOGWan for sharing this info.)
We offer a patent pending hybrid glass/steel system manufactured by our OEM partner in Germany. Our flagship model is our P1000 which we are very proud of.
We utilize an Edwards nXDS15i dry scroll pump for our rough vac, and Agilent AX-65 for our diffusion pump. We are able to bottom out our Pirani sensor at 1x10 -5 within a matter of 7 minutes from activating diffusion. Currently, we are in the process of upgrading our sensors to a model that can read down to -8.
We use a “passive trap” followed by an enlarged 1 meter cold trap chilled by a Julabo immersion cooler to properly catch volatiles that would otherwise get into your pump and challenge vacuum. Each trap has a 500ml collection flask underneath.
Our unit is designed for continuous operation. We use gear pumps to move oil in and out of the system without breaking vacuum. Our feed column and evaporator and both jacketed, and we use PTFE rollers on our wiper basket instead of traditional wipers.
Since releasing our Gen2 models, we now include two vacuum sensors and a vacuum controller located on the control cabinet. The controls on the cabinet have been simplified for ease of operation and we now have a safety circuit that ensures the diffusion pump cannot be turned on or off at the wrong time (a mistake that could potentially damage the system or cause harm to operator).
All ancillary equipment on our machine is top in its class. We use Julabo circulators, a Heidolph overhead mixer, and Lenze motors for our gear pumps. We manufacture our own steel parts (including gear pumps), control cabinets and electronics, frames, as well as blow our own scientific glass in house at our production facility in Germany.
Currently, we offer our P1000, Dual Stage, and Multistage models. The multistage incorporates solvent recovery and decarboxylation, followed by two stages of distillation. More info can be found in the link above to the Prescott website, or reach out directly to @masterOGwan
