Cleaning before distilling. What carbon to use? And how to diatomacious earth?

[G.O. Joe]

The only advice I have is to approach things scientifically and logically, after reading all the prior art.

There are different approaches - a small amount of fine active carbon or a large amount of inactive carbon, or supported carbon like bone char. Of course you can't run THC through a column of active carbon, that would be a flaw in execution. Absolutely, RO prefilter carbon should be tried out - Calgon sells a good bulk product for large systems that works for homemade odor control too.

 

[emeraldcityog]

It should be pretty easy to see which sorbents eats your yield once you have a small amount of distillate to play with.

Wash 10g of your best finished distillate with that silica and I bet you won't be seeing 10g back at the end. Just my best guess about that product.

If it's not eating your distillate yield and there's some other noticeable benefit to the crude (like color change or dewax) then just use it.

 

[mobin]

It should be pretty easy to see which sorbents eats your yield once you have a small amount of distillate to play with.

Wash 10g of your best finished distillate with that silica and I bet you won't be seeing 10g back at the end. Just my best guess about that product.

If it's not eating your distillate yield and there's some other noticeable benefit to the crude (like color change or dewax) then just use it.

So post process distillate for cleanliness? Doesn't that kinda defeat the purpose of distilling in the first place?

I thought the idea was to clean what you put into the load flask so it was easier to separate boiling points/compounds?

 

[MrSpectre]

Yes the idea is to remove as many initial boiling points as possible allowing easier isolation of important fractions. This is why people always do a second pass although not necessary if done correctly.

 

[mobin]

Yes the idea is to remove as many initial boiling points as possible allowing easier isolation of important fractions. This is why people always do a second pass although not necessary if done correctly.

this is what I was making sure of....his post made it sound like it was time to dissolve some almost finished product into a solvent again.

clean up what goes into the load flask before you distill to get tighter fractions/cleaner results.

 

[montroller]

Looking at Cabots full list of activated carbon and it is a little overwhelming

http://www.cabotcorp.com/solutions/products-plus/activated-carbon/powdered

The Norit SA 4 looks like it could be promising for our use but I'm sure we would get the best results with a mix of sorts. Some of these descriptions have me thinking that with the right mix you could filter just about anything out.

Edit: I'm having a hard time finding where you can even buy this stuff... I want to pick up some NORIT SA 4, NORIT SX 2, NORIT SX PLUS C, and some NORIT GAC 1240 A for testing

 

[MEMED]

Montroller, Contact them directly. I use the sa4 PAH fyi. Good luck buddy.

 

[Thomas@LRL]

So post process distillate for cleanliness? Doesn't that kinda defeat the purpose of distilling in the first place?

I thought the idea was to clean what you put into the load flask so it was easier to separate boiling points/compounds?

He was suggesting that you test the silica/carbon with a known quantity of the material you suspect is being sequestered and then analyze the weight of the return to determine the percentage lost. Very basic experiment.