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Nitrogen butane push?

TTNT

New member
I've heard of people using nitrogen in a DI closed loop system to push the tane out of the column and into the collection chamber?

Also nitrogen is lighter than butane, so I'm thinking, it'll only work on a flood run maybe? 'Not a top down shower?
Is this efficient? Also what are some pros and cons?

I want to inject after a tane pass, and see if that works better than warming the colums with water, I find we are getting to much fats and lipids in the product with the water.

Thank you any information is appreciated
 

Gray Wolf

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I've heard of people using nitrogen in a DI closed loop system to push the tane out of the column and into the collection chamber?

Also nitrogen is lighter than butane, so I'm thinking, it'll only work on a flood run maybe? 'Not a top down shower?
Is this efficient? Also what are some pros and cons?

I want to inject after a tane pass, and see if that works better than warming the colums with water, I find we are getting to much fats and lipids in the product with the water.

Thank you any information is appreciated

Heating the column and pulling the butane out of the column as a gas, leaves the fats and lipids behind.

If you do an N2 push, you will need to burp it off before recovery.
 

TTNT

New member
I can't help but think that heating up the column pushes the liquid butane into the collection chamber, however if that liquid tane warms up to -10 up to -1 it's still a liquid pulling in fats and lipids, from my understanding-10 down to cryogenic temps help keeps the fats and lipids out. So by warming up the column in theory, it's allowing some fats and lipids in.

So if I was to use nitrogen to push the tane, I would just have to burp the nitrogen out of the top valve on the system before recovery. That would make sense. This should work? What I'm trying to accomplish is comp grade product. Fine screen and cold temps.

sometimes just ice and salt works some people seem to think -10-12 is more than enough it's more gentle on the product. However I think it's all in what you run too. Some buds have a lot more fats and lipids.
 

Old Gold

Active member
Does pushing the gas through with nitrogen also push fats and lipids through?

Not much, but a real baller would surely push cold nitrogen gas....

TTNT said:
I can't help but think that heating up the column pushes the liquid butane into the collection chamber,

Gray Wolf's suggestion was that you valve off the column from the collection pot, then warm it up and recover the vapors from the top.
 

TTNT

New member
That's a good idea, but how much of the goodness do we leave behind?

Also if I did do a N2 push, do you just smell for tane after the nitrogen has left the system?
 

Old Gold

Active member
That's a good idea, but how much of the goodness do we leave behind?

Also if I did do a N2 push, do you just smell for tane after the nitrogen has left the system?

Haha, no, you cool the vessel below the solven't boiling point and vent the pressure down to 0psi

How much goodness do you leave behind?? Not much if any at all if you already extracted it well enough. It's in the collection pot.
 
Haha, no, you cool the vessel below the solven't boiling point and vent the pressure down to 0psi

How much goodness do you leave behind?? Not much if any at all if you already extracted it well enough. It's in the collection pot.

If that was done you would not expel all the nitrogen without bringing in atmosphere.

When the pressure of the nitrogen met the pressure of the atmosphere you'd begin pulling in atmosphere and therefore moisture. Must have some pressure from the solvent, this would then push out the nitrogen (lighter than butane) and then the butane vapor, this is what BVV recommends on their N2 assisted systems. They say to listen for a pitch change when bleeding.

I would assume you'd want to look at your solvents vapor pressure vs temp chart, aim for a pressure above atmospheric pressure to reduce the contamination of the final product w moisture from the atmopshere.


Question I have, in using nitro assist with passive set ups, is it possible to dry your vapor to reduce moisture from the product that gets in the butane? I Wasnt sure if one could use a filter dryer without a recovery pump?
 

Old Gold

Active member
If that was done you would not expel all the nitrogen without bringing in atmosphere.

When the pressure of the nitrogen met the pressure of the atmosphere you'd begin pulling in atmosphere and therefore moisture. Must have some pressure from the solvent, this would then push out the nitrogen (lighter than butane) and then the butane vapor, this is what BVV recommends on their N2 assisted systems. They say to listen for a pitch change when bleeding.

I would assume you'd want to look at your solvents vapor pressure vs temp chart, aim for a pressure above atmospheric pressure to reduce the contamination of the final product w moisture from the atmopshere.


Question I have, in using nitro assist with passive set ups, is it possible to dry your vapor to reduce moisture from the product that gets in the butane? I Wasnt sure if one could use a filter dryer without a recovery pump?

You bring up good points, but I think either method would effectively do about the same thing. If you vent down to 0 psi (or just above, to avoid pulling in atmosphere), you will indeed leave an essentially trivial amount of nitrogen in the tank. However, if you warm the butane/propane to the point of creating pressure, you will inevitably mix some solvent vapor with nitrogen gas. So how could you remove ALL of the nitrogen, and NONE of the butane/propane? A check valve and pressure relief set to a fraction of a PSI should get you as close as you would ever need.

What is the fear of 1 psi nitrogen sitting at the head of your solvent tank? It won't stop you from being able to recover the collection pot to a decent vacuum.

I guess I haven't achieved real baller status yet.. Any tips on chilling the N2?

I guess it depends how fancy you want to be. The cool (hehe) way to do it would be to use liquid nitrogen to cool the gaseous nitrogen. I'm not sure about the heat capacity of nitrogen, but seeing that air is a pretty damn good insulator, it probably isn't the most friendly. This might just be costly baller talk...

Otherwise, you could use a dry ice/alcohol bath and cooling coil, or perhaps just stick your whole nitrogen tank in dry ice before runs.
 

Gray Wolf

A Posse ad Esse. From Possibility to realization.
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If that was done you would not expel all the nitrogen without bringing in atmosphere.

When the pressure of the nitrogen met the pressure of the atmosphere you'd begin pulling in atmosphere and therefore moisture. Must have some pressure from the solvent, this would then push out the nitrogen (lighter than butane) and then the butane vapor, this is what BVV recommends on their N2 assisted systems. They say to listen for a pitch change when bleeding.

I would assume you'd want to look at your solvents vapor pressure vs temp chart, aim for a pressure above atmospheric pressure to reduce the contamination of the final product w moisture from the atmopshere.


Question I have, in using nitro assist with passive set ups, is it possible to dry your vapor to reduce moisture from the product that gets in the butane? I Wasnt sure if one could use a filter dryer without a recovery pump?

Back pressure should be low enough on a properly sized drier that it should work.
 

Sriley28

Member
So I started to try the n2 assist. But I think I'm missing something. Attached are some photos of my cls. Let me know where I'm going wrong.

I put my butane tank on dry ice.

My n2 tank is attached to one of my vapor ports.

Liquid port is connected to the top of my column.

I close my ball valve at the bottom of my material column.

I use the n2 to push the butane (20psi for n2)

Open the valve and push another wash through.

Connect n2 to the tee at the top of liquid port with the valve off to the tank and pump more n2 to clear the line and column.

I close off the valve below the material column and burp off the n2 and start recovery.

But if you see on the last pic this was at the top of my ball valve below the column.

Do I not have enough pressure for the n2? Or am I missing a step?
 

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Gray Wolf

A Posse ad Esse. From Possibility to realization.
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ICMag Donor
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So I started to try the n2 assist. But I think I'm missing something. Attached are some photos of my cls. Let me know where I'm going wrong.

I put my butane tank on dry ice.

My n2 tank is attached to one of my vapor ports.

Liquid port is connected to the top of my column.

I close my ball valve at the bottom of my material column.

I use the n2 to push the butane (20psi for n2)

Open the valve and push another wash through.

Connect n2 to the tee at the top of liquid port with the valve off to the tank and pump more n2 to clear the line and column.

I close off the valve below the material column and burp off the n2 and start recovery.

But if you see on the last pic this was at the top of my ball valve below the column.

Do I not have enough pressure for the n2? Or am I missing a step?

20 psi is low if you have your butane in dry ice. How cold is it the butane?
 

Old Gold

Active member
You need to draw the vapors away from the head of the collection pot, to avoid back-pressure and slow flow. This is what a recovery pump is doing for people...

What pressure did the collection pot see during the dump?
I use two solvent tanks for a similar setup - one to feed ("push") cold, pressurized solvent into material, and the other as an empty, cold reservoir that draws ("pull") any vapors and condenses them immediately, which in turn gives you a vacuum effect. The higher pressure in the solvent tank and material column will continue to flow until they equalize in pressure with the collection and recovery tank vessels.

20psi should be more than enough to force the solvent out of your tank, but might not be enough to drain all the liquid from a full material column. I usually dry my column up to 50-60 psi before recovering from the top of the column. I haven't
 

Sriley28

Member
You need to draw the vapors away from the head of the collection pot, to avoid back-pressure and slow flow. This is what a recovery pump is doing for people...

What pressure did the collection pot see during the dump?
I use two solvent tanks for a similar setup - one to feed ("push") cold, pressurized solvent into material, and the other as an empty, cold reservoir that draws ("pull") any vapors and condenses them immediately, which in turn gives you a vacuum effect. The higher pressure in the solvent tank and material column will continue to flow until they equalize in pressure with the collection and recovery tank vessels.

20psi should be more than enough to force the solvent out of your tank, but might not be enough to drain all the liquid from a full material column. I usually dry my column up to 50-60 psi before recovering from the top of the column. I haven't

When I push the butane, the collection pot seems to be around 5-10psi then once I connect to the tee to clear the lines and column it goes up to 20-30psi. I then burp it back down to what it was befor I connected to the line.

As for the solvent temp I'm not 100% sure. I let my tank sit in dry ice until I see it's pressure drop to zero.

Do you recover the whole thing from the top of the column? Or just recover the column it self from there?

I have been valving off my collection pot and recovering that from the ports in the lid and heat taping my column and collecting that from the top.

Anyone offer any good semi advanced classes? Something that teaches the fine tuning aspects of a cls and how to make the best out of each run and purging technique for the different "artesian" product?
 

Old Gold

Active member
before I start, is that oil globs on the ball valve?

When I push the butane, the collection pot seems to be around 5-10psi then once I connect to the tee to clear the lines and column it goes up to 20-30psi. I then burp it back down to what it was befor I connected to the line.

Sounds like you are burping solvent to the atmosphere, but I might not be understanding what you meant. Are you are at least burping the nitrogen from the solvent tank before you are venting the column/collection through the tee fitting(vapor recovery port)? If not, you're taking 20psi from the solvent tank and going into the collection pot with it until the whole system reaches an equilibrium (in reverse flow, against the liquid fill).

If you are venting the solvent tank prior, then the 20-30psi is coming from a now warming material column full of solvent and nitrogen that you dumped into an also warming collection pot. The warming up is not an issue, as long as you give the higher pressure gases (solvent or nitrogen) a place to go and condense. You can run with continuous flow and fill the collection pot as much as you wish like that. Otherwise, what you are venting is surely a mixture of solvent and nitrogen.

How long does it take from beginning the soak until the time you start to see liquid drip into the collection pot?

When you burp the collection pot, burp it to the empty, cold recovery tank. It will take in a volume full of N2, with a little bit of your solvent. The solvent should condense to liquid pretty quickly. Then, close the valves off, and once you are sure the solvent tank is still chilled and there is no more vapor pressure form solvent in it, you can vent it down to just over 0psi, as not to bring in atmosphere. A check valve with 0.5 psi cracking pressure would help the cause. You may have to do this 2 or 3 times at most to remove full volumes of gas from the material column and collection pot. Now you've effectively removed all of what you can, without eating up the whole nitrogen tank, and go ahead and begin recovery.


Sriley28 said:
As for the solvent temp I'm not 100% sure. I let my tank sit in dry ice until I see it's pressure drop to zero.

Do you recover the whole thing from the top of the column? Or just recover the column it self from there?

I have been valving off my collection pot and recovering that from the ports in the lid and heat taping my column and collecting that from the top.

Likewise, the column alone, from the top.
 

Sriley28

Member
before I start, is that oil globs on the ball valve?



Sounds like you are burping solvent to the atmosphere, but I might not be understanding what you meant. Are you are at least burping the nitrogen from the solvent tank before you are venting the column/collection through the tee fitting(vapor recovery port)? If not, you're taking 20psi from the solvent tank and going into the collection pot with it until the whole system reaches an equilibrium (in reverse flow, against the liquid fill).

If you are venting the solvent tank prior, then the 20-30psi is coming from a now warming material column full of solvent and nitrogen that you dumped into an also warming collection pot. The warming up is not an issue, as long as you give the higher pressure gases (solvent or nitrogen) a place to go and condense. You can run with continuous flow and fill the collection pot as much as you wish like that. Otherwise, what you are venting is surely a mixture of solvent and nitrogen.

How long does it take from beginning the soak until the time you start to see liquid drip into the collection pot?

When you burp the collection pot, burp it to the empty, cold recovery tank. It will take in a volume full of N2, with a little bit of your solvent. The solvent should condense to liquid pretty quickly. Then, close the valves off, and once you are sure the solvent tank is still chilled and there is no more vapor pressure form solvent in it, you can vent it down to just over 0psi, as not to bring in atmosphere. A check valve with 0.5 psi cracking pressure would help the cause. You may have to do this 2 or 3 times at most to remove full volumes of gas from the material column and collection pot. Now you've effectively removed all of what you can, without eating up the whole nitrogen tank, and go ahead and begin recovery.




Likewise, the column alone, from the top.

The glib is at the top of the ball valve that separates the collection from the column.

Let me see if I can explain myself a little better. I have the n2 connected to a vapor port on my solvent tank. And I fill to push what I need for solvent for whatever size run I'm doing. Once the amount of solvent I need has been pushed. I close the valve at the top of my liquid port and connect the n2 to the tee on my liquid port. (Photo below) with that closed off to the tank I start filling from that tee just above my liquid port valve and use the n2 to clear any butane left in that line and column. I hope that makes sense to read.
 

Sriley28

Member
Forgot to attach the photo. Side question is what are you running for filters. I noticed even at 20 psi very small pieces are getting through my screens (40 mesh I believe)
 

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