fractal
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I was reading up on the coldfinger extractor and found this on the edenlabs.org website.
"Propane- There is a little known school of thought in the natural products industry which believes that propane is the ultimate solvent for extracting botanicals. Eden Labs has tested this theory thoroughly and we have come to the conclusion that there is something to it. Although propane cannot be as widely manipulated through temp. and pressure as CO2, it produces very similar results, sometimes better. It has an amazingly small loading ratio 1-4 volumes and it can be recovered quickly. This means much faster production times. It leaves no toxic residues and it is an all natural, organic solvent. The material data safety sheet, MSDS, says it is harmless except for the fact that is flammable. Because it works at relatively low pressures, 80-150 psi, the technology costs much less than a full supercritical CO2 system and can be very competitive in terms of quality and speed of production.
The downsides to propane is that it is highly flammable so precautions such as sparkless rooms with powerful ventilation are a must. The fact that is is not widely understood or accepted can also be an issue.
Butane/IsoButane- In some cases where propane doesn't do the job, butane works better. It has all the pros and cons of propane and requires identical equipment for utilization."
Is all propane odorized, or is it easy to obtain clean propane? I don't think it would be hard at all to make a large tube to contain your material, fit a screen at the bottom and a valve up top, and let it rip. You could catch the oil and propane in a glass pan and turn the propane valve shut when the pan is full.
"Propane- There is a little known school of thought in the natural products industry which believes that propane is the ultimate solvent for extracting botanicals. Eden Labs has tested this theory thoroughly and we have come to the conclusion that there is something to it. Although propane cannot be as widely manipulated through temp. and pressure as CO2, it produces very similar results, sometimes better. It has an amazingly small loading ratio 1-4 volumes and it can be recovered quickly. This means much faster production times. It leaves no toxic residues and it is an all natural, organic solvent. The material data safety sheet, MSDS, says it is harmless except for the fact that is flammable. Because it works at relatively low pressures, 80-150 psi, the technology costs much less than a full supercritical CO2 system and can be very competitive in terms of quality and speed of production.
The downsides to propane is that it is highly flammable so precautions such as sparkless rooms with powerful ventilation are a must. The fact that is is not widely understood or accepted can also be an issue.
Butane/IsoButane- In some cases where propane doesn't do the job, butane works better. It has all the pros and cons of propane and requires identical equipment for utilization."
Is all propane odorized, or is it easy to obtain clean propane? I don't think it would be hard at all to make a large tube to contain your material, fit a screen at the bottom and a valve up top, and let it rip. You could catch the oil and propane in a glass pan and turn the propane valve shut when the pan is full.