Got a short path unit from BVV...... now what?

[Pastelero]

So how do we go about removing that smell without causing degredation?

winterize

 

[Thomas@LRL]

Wow, lots of info here.

First off, I didn't just rush out and buy this thing.... the long and short of it is that this showed up at my door, and it's up to me to sort it out....... lol?


The couple videos I've seen didn't show anyone winterizing the BHO, but also I can't exactly get everclear so winterizing is an extremely costly option at best.
I also don't really have a filter to winterize anything and I have such a volume of product that I'd likely need to winterize on the scale of about a 5 gallon bucket or more.
but I digress

At this point I have a lot to learn, so getting to know the basics of the machine is going to best suit me right now and then I can worry about improving things.

I don't exactly have anyon who could "train" me perse, so that isn't much of an option, and anyone in my circle who could show me isn't likely to know even half of what I do.....many of these guys are "chimps" just perform steps with no understanding....that's why they dragged me into this lol



one of my biggest concerns here is the smell I keep reading about, as EK calls it "terpschwitz".

I'm seeing people make two passes which to me doesn't exactly seem to be the best way to go about it and would cause more degradation.
So how do we go about removing that smell without causing degredation?

The first pass is intended to remove the lower boiling points before you ramp up to the boiling point of the cannabinoids. Terpenes, Alcohol, Water etc, you want to remove it because heat degraded terpenes literally smell like death. You effectively stop the distillation to remove the contaminated glassware and apply a second, clean set according to Summit's instructions. This reduces contaminants in the second "main body" THC pass.

Think of it like boiling water, but you've got water that boils at different temperature(s). Water A boils off at 120c, Water B boils off at 132C, Water C at 160c and so on and so forth right? THC then comes off (depending on your depth of vacuum) in the 220-240C range. As with extraction, you do not want to "co-extract" other boiling points when you get to 240C, if you haven't boiled them off already they will degrade your THC fraction and leave you with a lower volume of THC per gram, causing smell and discoloration issues. You can re-distill to remove them and try to be more precise the second time around, but the idea is that you will properly pre-process your material to remove as many boiling points as possible so that your "Main Body" pass is as clean as possible, reducing further downstream processing.

 

[toohighmf]

Problem is he's basically a patent troll.

His patents are design patents as opposed to utility patents. Design patents are for the ornamental design of something, like shoes or lingerie and not actual inventions. Useless and impossible to enforce for scientific gear.
Utility patents are used for protecting actual innovation and cover the functional aspects. I guess he hired a good lawyer and found this was a way to "patent" a decades old short path head design.

There is absolutely nothing new in his designs.

RB

I was being a bit sarcastic, in attempts not to slander the man. I know he tries, so I figured I should too. There are many successful people out there that didn't create a registered product.. just registered it and enforced a patent. I would assume it to be near impossible to register a utility patent on something that already exists. I repeat, "near impossible".

 

[BigJohnny]

The first pass is intended to remove the lower boiling points before you ramp up to the boiling point of the cannabinoids. Terpenes, Alcohol, Water etc, you want to remove it because heat degraded terpenes literally smell like death. You effectively stop the distillation to remove the contaminated glassware and apply a second, clean set according to Summit's instructions. This reduces contaminants in the second "main body" THC pass.

Think of it like boiling water, but you've got water that boils at different temperature(s). Water A boils off at 120c, Water B boils off at 132C, Water C at 160c and so on and so forth right? THC then comes off (depending on your depth of vacuum) in the 220-240C range. As with extraction, you do not want to "co-extract" other boiling points when you get to 240C, if you haven't boiled them off already they will degrade your THC fraction and leave you with a lower volume of THC per gram, causing smell and discoloration issues. You can re-distill to remove them and try to be more precise the second time around, but the idea is that you will properly pre-process your material to remove as many boiling points as possible so that your "Main Body" pass is as clean as possible, reducing further downstream processing.

excellent info.

Summit uses a single flask cow, I have a 3 flask cow, and won't be able to purchase a second one of any kind for a while.

So i'd have to do what I see other guys do, and rotate the cow to the next available flask?

 

[G.O. Joe]

Can this mean free path be measured in an actively running system?

Like with a meter probably not. It varies with pressure and molecular size. There are a few equations you don't really want to know - and in one of my posts here, there's a link to a book on molecular distillation that should have them anyways.

There are two kinds of short path distillation. The original meaning is represented for instance by Chemtech's KD's, which are the real deal and have been around for decades if they're still the same. Organic chemists or their glass manufacturers then bastardized the term to poorly fill in a name for simpler more familiar and inexpensive hardware, but otherwise the stuff from stoner suppliers BVV and Summit are distantly related to real short path distillation and the things that go along with that like mean free path.

If there is going to be a pre-distillation distillation, it might be faster smoother and less oil-contaminating to do it with a water or diaphragm pump, instead of stronger vacuum.

 

[G.O. Joe]

I load up the flask with some purged bho/shatter......and then what?

That depends on the severeness of the purging. But residual solvent would help get BHO in the flask, so there's no reason to take it to shatter if it's not already there. Complete decarboxylation and degassing and some removal of maybe reactive light volatiles first thing should help in general. It should be needless to say that 358 grams of THCA produces 22.4 liters of CO2 when heated, but I obviously embrace being the retarded kid who says obvious things.

 

[BigJohnny]

It should be needless to say that 358 grams of THCA produces 22.4 liters of CO2 when heated, but I obviously embrace being the retarded kid who says obvious things.

I did not know this, which makes me curious as to why it "should be needless to say"

Is there like a formula or something I should know to figure out how much CO2 would be released, and more importantly, a reason that I should know this?

 

[Old Gold]

I did not know this, which makes me curious as to why it "should be needless to say"

Is there like a formula or something I should know to figure out how much CO2 would be released, and more importantly, a reason that I should know this?

With the only difference between THCa and decarboxylated THC being CO2 at the carboxyl group, you can take the molecular weight of THCa and divide it by the molecular weight of THC. This is where the idea that after decarboxylation, 87.7% of your THCa remains as THC. The other 12.3% was off-gassed as CO2.

So, 358 g x 0.123 = 44 g (of CO2)
CO2 has a density of 1.98 g/L
So, 44 g ÷ 1.98 g/L = 22.2 L

22.4L is the volume of one mole of an ideal gas (perfectly elastic - no intermolecular forces) at one atmosphere and 0 C (32 F).
G.O. Joe did his math the other way around obviously.

This will explain to your machine-feeders why 2000 g of starting material (crude oil) could really be 1754 g to begin with. It makes a big difference, when the name of the game can be "yield." A consistent 3.5% difference is enough to make someone happily switch processors, especially on something like distillation.

 

[G.O. Joe]

Is there like a formula or something I should know to figure out how much CO2 would be released, and more importantly, a reason that I should know this?

The close-enough value for the volume of a mole of something that's a gas at standard temperature and pressure is 22.4 liters. This might make it more difficult to reach high vacuum.

That figure is V from the ideal gas law PV=nRT - non-ideal gases not being far off. Substitute a P value of 100 microns to maintain exactly for example, during distillation of 1 mole n of THCA, and that's an extra 50,000 (T=200C)-150,000 liters (T=25C) of pumping theoretically. If the CO2 is condensed out with a coldfinger in a thermos of LN2 that changes things and maybe the CO2 actually helps pull THC towards the condenser. No I have nothing you're asking for, this is another thread to butt in to uninvited and continue a long meandering discussion here whether you want it or not sorry sorry sorry one more thing.

Another essential feature of the ideal low pressure system - maybe not sold at present by BVV and Summit for example - is short residence time. All types of efficient short path distillation have a thin distilland layer, and no narrow part canceling out the mean free path effect - molecules have no option but to condense at the condenser soon after becoming sufficiently hot, without any wandering about.

 

[BigJohnny]

ok whoa, I'm going to have to read over that a couple of times.

BVV uses a similar style head to summit or perhaps even the same one, os that where short residence happens?

 

[G.O. Joe]

That was just adding to my post on the last page talking about real short path systems. The really big flask kits for thousand$ I wonder about, with people talking about degradation - are they connected? Maybe it would be best to have just a little to be distilled in a magnetically stirred flask, maybe added from a heated pressure-equalized addition funnel?

 

[Old Gold]

That was just adding to my post on the last page talking about real short path systems. The really big flask kits for thousand$ I wonder about, with people talking about degradation - are they connected? Maybe it would be best to have just a little to be distilled in a magnetically stirred flask, maybe added from a heated pressure-equalized addition funnel?

Isn't that largely the basis of wiped film evaporators? The minimal residence time?
I think you're onto something, bridging the methods together like that.

 

[G.O. Joe]

Falling film or small pot stills from the 30's they're all thin film in some way. I was going to edit my last post. I'd add to it I've never seen a 55/50 condenser other than coldfinger or Soxhlet type, but there are 45/50 and 55/50 RBF's and the wider neck can only help. Not just distilling but adding hot solvent-free decarboxylated product in the first place. Obviously a great cheap setup for small fast runs would be as above but with a very cold 55/50 coldfinger - this would be real short path distillation. Some time soon I'll post a distillation using just a 2-piece vacuum sublimation apparatus I have that's very similar.

An edit to make to another post is - while sometimes starting hot and increasing vacuum is preferable - with mostly THC, starting with good vacuum and very slowly increasing the heat should work well.

 

[BigJohnny]

It’s important to understand why we do not use a transfer fluid like alcohol anymore, this will create a very violent and unstable foaming and bubbling in the short path apparatus. To do this we typically place a large flask with 1.4 or less filled on a hot plate around 180-200c, this will heat up the large beaker. allow stirring to be slow, and sometimes you need to apply hot air at top of beaker rim to facilitate the removal of solvents that would otherwise cool rapidly, re-condense and drop back into solution. this process leaves the solution very foamy, this is why we blow hot air on the beaker rim to rip out vapor via thermal CFM push with a spark proof heat source. do not allow surface temperature to exceed 125-140c. we typically pull the beaker at right around 130c. As these temps to begin decarboxylation they are in no way whatsoever it is actually decarbing past around 1-3%, this process doesn’t take much time at all. If you load too much fluid in beaker this will rapidly foam and possibly run over the top of the rim. once you have removed all the volatiles, now you should have a properly loaded up flask to begin the process.

I've been reading over summits instructions on how to run the thing, but this isn't making a lot of sense to me, mostly because it sounds like it was written by a stoned college student fueled by redbull at 3am trying to make the 8am deadline.

Not to mention that I don't think he's using the correct terms for things.


so do I need a beaker and a hot plate? I load the BHO into the beaker and boil off some volatiles before then pouring it into the large 2L distillation flask?

or is he talking about loading it directly into the flask and boiling of volatiles without any head or cow attached?

This guy isn't making a ton of sense here.

 

[BigJohnny]

oh, the other thing I'm curious about are the stirring mantles. The unit I have is a heated and magnetic stirring mantle but I never received any kind of metal stirring paddle to put in the flask......am I supposed to or does this thing magically stir the liquid somehow?

 

[Roji]

oh, the other thing I'm curious about are the stirring mantles. The unit I have is a heated and magnetic stirring mantle but I never received any kind of metal stirring paddle to put in the flask......am I supposed to or does this thing magically stir the liquid somehow?

You need to buy a ptfe magnetic stir bar or "flea". Buy several. Theyre useful.

 

[G.O. Joe]

You want the egg shaped bars for use with RBF's.

The decarboxylation can be done in the RBF, but you want to be sure it's quite decarboxylated like hot and vacuum purged before the strong vacuum and heat stage. Or you might find out what very violent and unstable foaming and bubbling means.

Summit wants their instructions to be indecipherable.

 

[BigJohnny]

You want the egg shaped bars for use with RBF's.

The decarboxylation can be done in the RBF, but you want to be sure it's quite decarboxylated like hot and vacuum purged before the strong vacuum and heat stage. Or you might find out what very violent and unstable foaming and bubbling means.

Summit wants their instructions to be indecipherable.

RBF? not familiar with that term.

I am very familiar with decarbing though, I can see how it could boil over when decarbing inside the flask under vacuum, so you're saying before I even load the flask I should decarb the oil completely first?

Doesn't decarbing until the bubbles are all gone turn it into couchlock oil? or does that make more THC available when doing a distillation?

 

[MrSpectre]

RBF - Round Bottom Flask. You need to decarb 100% as we are trying to obtain THC not THCA via distillation. If you don't fully you will have issues achieving full vac as it will continue to offgas CO2 until decarbing is complete.

 

[BigJohnny]

ahh ok, that makes perfect sense.