Butane Residue Test Results

[SkyHighLer]

"On Saturday, June 14, 2014 2:48 PM, xxxx xxxxxxxx <[email protected]> wrote:


Hi John,

Please run a separate test without using the blue charging hose that was included with the kit you received. I've had two separate people tell me that they've run similar tests to the one you ran, and in each case the yellow residue only appeared when when they used the blue charging hose. This let them to believe that the butane itself was clean, but when ran through the charging hose, it may be leaching rubber from the hose into the butane. I'm curious whether you will have the same results that they did."

The EcoGreen butane tank is back in the refrigerator, I hope to run the test tomorrow.

 

[A6 Grower]

Even so I'd much rather use a new full 24# tank than can tap and recover 72 cans of tane....

^^^ This

 

[Kcar]

What kind of connection do those tanks come with? JIC?

 

[Breakover]

Thanks for all the hard work SkyHighler!

Looking forward to more reports!

What kind of connection do those tanks come with? JIC?

1/4" sae

 

[pharmco]

I was about to mention, multiple people have mentioned the hosing to be of poor quality, and to not be butane compatible. Definitely looking forward to the retest, SkyHighler!

I'd be interested to know how the propane tank functions, does chilling allow open blasting with it? I was under the impression that it'll instantly vaporize at atmospheric pressure/

 

[SkyHighLer]

The retest minus the 'lighter refill kit' went fine, but I forgot to shake the tank before starting this time, so I put the tank back in the fridge and will do another test this afternoon, but wow, what a difference!!!

Again I shot to just over the 500ml line on the Mason jar, which is about double the volume I see with a standard 300ml can of butane. The residue was not gummy, and not yellow, rather clear with a hint of white, but still had a fairly strong smell, the weight was 0.003g, or 0.0015g for equivalency to a 300ml can of butane.

EcoGreen butane #2 had 0.0015g of residue (in an ~300ml can's worth)

EcoGreen Industries, China, 30lb n-butane tank


I suggest everyone test their hoses under pressure for residue, unless you're running unlined SS corrugated.

I will do one piece of hose testing myself, I ordered a Yellow Jacket 21624 Plus II 24" charging hose to replace the hose that came with the EcoGreen 'lighter refill kit.'

Do the other common refrigeration charging hoses being included with closed loop systems have a nylon permeation barrier?

"1/4" PLUS II™ hoses are UL recognized assemblies (File SA9737)
The nylon permeation barrier meets SAE requirements J2196 for CFC, HCFC and HFC refrigerants
The moisture barrier provides improved resistance to moisture migration which contaminates expensive refrigerant
1/4" RYB PLUS II™ hoses are rated for 4000 psi (276 bar) minimum burst and 800 psi (55 bar) maximum working pressure and an operating temperature of -20° to 180°F (-28.8° to 82.2°C)
Minimum bending radius: 6" (152mm)
Made in the USA"
http://www.yellowjacket.com/product/700

They also make a heavy duty version of the same hose with a tougher outer coating.

 

[Permacultuure]

What kind of connection do those tanks come with? JIC?

1/4" flare with a dip tube. fits sea or jic

 

[SkyHighLer]

Shook the tank before the test this time, and once again I shot to just over the 500ml line on the Mason jar, which is about double the volume I see with a standard 300ml can of butane. The residue was not gummy, and not yellow, rather clear with a hint of white, but still had a fairly strong smell, the weight was 0.003g, or 0.0015g for equivalency to a 300ml can of butane.

EcoGreen butane #3 had 0.0015g of residue (in an ~300ml can's worth)

EcoGreen Industries, China, 30lb n-butane tank

I don't understand how the hose could be leaching so much... I asked EcoGreen to send GW a 'lighter refill kit' for dissection. ;-)

This was a real treat, being able to turn a valve and have 500ml in just a few seconds is slick.

The EcoGreen propane tank's in the fridge, I hope to test it tomorrow.

 

[SkyHighLer]

EcoGreen's response,

"I'm glad that you retested because now we have conclusive evidence that the refrigerant hoses included with our filling adapter kits are not suitable for extractions. Even though we are going to lose a lot of money on the existing hoses that we already have inventoried, I've decided that the right thing to do is to stop selling them immediately. We will place a new order with another manufacturer for PTFE lined charging hoses, which will not leach into the butane/propane. Once we receive the new hoses, we will ship them out free of charge to everyone that has already purchased the kit from us."

 

[Breakover]

Awesome sky!

Good on ecogreen for stepping up and taking care of customers! That move will buy them lots of goodwill in the market. They'll quickly make up all the money they lost.

 

[SkyHighLer]

EcoGreen propane was tested, once again I shot to just over the 500ml line on the Mason jar, which is about double the volume I see with a standard 300ml can of butane. The residue was not gummy, and not yellow, rather clear with a hint of white and a very minute amount of fine black powder - possibly activated carbon powder from filtering (see pics.) The residue had a chemical smell, not a strong as their butane, but still something to take into consideration if you're open extracting, the weight was 0.006g, or 0.003g for equivalency to a 300ml can of butane.

EcoGreen propane had 0.003g of residue (in an ~300ml can's worth)

EcoGreen Industries, China, 30lb n-propane tank

This was my first time smelling propane gas (without added odorant/mercaptan,) very airy and clean compared the the sickly hydrocarbon smell of butane.

The Mason jar was reading -35F, I used a pair of ice fishing gloves.

EcoGreen's source did an excellent job of keeping the residuals to a minimum, but only poor to ok on the residual smell.

 

[RegisPhilburn1]

2days ago I distilled 7# of the ecogreen R290 and was greeted with this in my collection pot

[/url][/IMG]

It is a white powdery substance with a distinct and unpleasant smell ( hard to describe)

When I distilled this I did not set it up as a test, it was just part of my procedure for transferring gas. So there was certainly some hash oil residue in the gaskets and ball valves through which this gas passed. But I have distilled a lot of different kinds of cans and multiple lp5s of 99.5 and never seen anything like this residue. It seems to be paraffin wax in high amounts. The only materials this gas came in contact with were ss304 ss316, viton, Teflon, borosilicate glass.

A friend and fellow icmag member has distilled other tanks of the ecogreen r290 and r600 and has no where near the amount of residuals that I did. the smell is the same but much weaker in his collection pot. Kinda makes me think it is a bunk tank.

I'm going to try some residual tests like sky does tomorrow when I get back. And compare it to the other tanks my friend has.

 

[SkyHighLer]

Thanks Regis, that appears to be a lot of residue. Did you take it down to a deep vacuum before taking the picture? Here's the basic test procedure (from the head post of this thread,)

How to do the test,

Cheapest generic supermarket one gallon ziplock bag, cut the ziplock off, fold up, place on .01 or .001 scale, record tare weight, fold over the top one inch to the outside, place in a pyrex dish, place the pyrex dish in another dish, squirt a full can of ~300ml butane lighter refill into a quart Mason jar as per the video, pour the liquid butane into the plastic bag, add warm water to the larger dish, after boil off vacuum purge the bag, fold the bag, place on scale, record weight, deduct tare weight from final weight, post result to ICMAG's "Butane Residue Test Results" thread. TIA!!!

Freeze the can of butane and the Mason jar by placing in the freezer for a couple of hours before the test to maximize the amount of liquid butane collected.

Mason jar extraction video,

http://youtu.be/VTVRYk0Zdg4


"with a distinct and unpleasant smell ( hard to describe)"

And the butane is much worse... I'm going to have to put notes on my results lists saying "residue stinks, don't use for open extractions" like I did for Xikar and Smoke It's. EcoGreen's been the nicest distributor to communicate with to this date, I'm deeply sorry, I hope they survive and come back with an improved product.

Please don't use either the butane or propane unless you have some way to clean it up further, I have old friends and lovers out there, and I don't want them (or anyone) to dab crap that would have been fine except for a bad solvent choice that could have been easily avoided if the truth were made public. Kinda' why I do what I do on any level.

If anyone thinks the residue smells socially acceptable, please speak up, I really, really do not want to condemn these products, they rock otherwise.

 

[Permacultuure]

After seeing Regis's residue, which was substantially more than what I saw after distilling 24 lbs of r290 I tried a new tank of r290 and r600.....I distilled ten pounds of each and had very little residue after recovery. Same white film and same offensive smell as regis, just a whole lot less.....I'm thinking bunk tank too!

Any other testimonials out there?

 

[SkyHighLer]

Thanks for the feedback on the smell, I'm going to annotate my residue lists to state that both the butane and propane have residuals that I think no one would want contaminating their oil.

A second point, which I made to EcoGreen is that there was a lot of blow by when I took the sample, as I only refrigerated the tank down to about 40F, and the residue result might have been less if I'd taken the tank down to near propane's boiling point.

Their response,

"Hi John,

I am not surprised that you had a lot of gas vapor with your propane test today, as propane boils at -43 degrees whereas n-butane boils at around 30 degrees. Unless you're storing it in a deeeep freeze prior to testing, it will be very difficult to keep propane in a liquid form at atmospheric pressure and room temperature. Propane is a great solvent when used at low temperatures and under pressure in a closed loop extraction system, but it does not lend itself to open extractions since it won't remain in a liquid state long enough to be a very efficient solvent. I'm betting that you probably released a much larger volume of liquid/gas during your propane test than you do normally in an equivalent 500mL butane test. If a larger volume is being released into your testing vessel than the usual 500mL's of butane is, then we can also expect to see a greater accumulation of residuals, wouldn't you agree? The point that I'm trying to make is that if you're using the exact same testing methods to compare propane residuals to butane residuals, it's like comparing apples and oranges. I would bet good money that the propane I sell is actually more pure than the butane. You may want to consider creating a separate category for the results of your propane residual tests, or modify your test methodology to factor in the higher vapor pressure of propane.

Regarding the odor issue, I would never ask you to compromise your personal integrity so you will have to decide for yourself what the right thing to do is when it comes to posting the results you get from your sense of smell..."

All of these distributors need to do my simple test on their products and future products versus some of the brands at the top of my Best to Worst canned butane list. Why import a container load of who knows what and then have it tested?

Dab Lyfe 7X (Korea,) Mega Plus 7X (Korea,) and Moorpark (China) were sent to me by a cooperative ebay vendor, I intend on testing them today.

 

[jump117]

It is a white powdery substance with a distinct and unpleasant smell ( hard to describe)

Hey RegisPhilburn1!
If you tried to dissolve this with solvent, how it dissolved?

 

[HighStateToke]

Thanks Regis, that appears to be a lot of residue. Did you take it down to a deep vacuum before taking the picture? Here's the basic test procedure (from the head post of this thread,)

How to do the test,

Cheapest generic supermarket one gallon ziplock bag, cut the ziplock off, fold up, place on .01 or .001 scale, record tare weight, fold over the top one inch to the outside, place in a pyrex dish, place the pyrex dish in another dish, squirt a full can of ~300ml butane lighter refill into a quart Mason jar as per the video, pour the liquid butane into the plastic bag, add warm water to the larger dish, after boil off vacuum purge the bag, fold the bag, place on scale, record weight, deduct tare weight from final weight, post result to ICMAG's "Butane Residue Test Results" thread. TIA!!!

Freeze the can of butane and the Mason jar by placing in the freezer for a couple of hours before the test to maximize the amount of liquid butane collected.

I highly recommend using a different material for a testing surface! Perhaps borosilicate or PTFE. Who knows what the plastic bags adding to your residuals!

 

[Jdubba]

I highly recommend using a different material for a testing surface! Perhaps borosilicate or PTFE. Who knows what the plastic bags adding to your residuals!

I second that!

 

[SkyHighLer]

I highly recommend using a different material for a testing surface! Perhaps borosilicate or PTFE. Who knows what the plastic bags adding to your residuals!

I second that!

The bag is to contain the butane and residual, and it does it well. I've never had a leak, and never found even a smidgen of of residue on the outside of the bag or in the evaporating dish. That some brands of butane have non greasy, clear, and smell free residue indicates there is no interaction, and if there was, so what? Are you imagining the residue combining with something in the composition of the bag and then escaping into the atmosphere like magic?



Thanks for following the thread!

 

[SkyHighLer]

Dab Lyfe 7X had 0.027g of residual

Dab Lyfe 7X, Korea, 320ml can, reads on the bottom "131220"



Mega Plus 7X had 0.029g of residue

Mega Plus 7X, Korea, 300ml can, reads on the bottom "130801"



The Chinese Moorpark had very little residual, I'm going to do another test of it tomorrow before posting the results.


The case of Zippo finally arrived. The plan is to shoot several cans to the same bag, dividing the residual weight by the number of cans, this will provide a more accurate and precise result.