Spin dryer for ethanol extraction

[Eskander]

I've been playing with various approaches to getting as much solvent out of washed material as possible. Gone from squeezing nut milk bags to using French presses. So far I'm not hugely happy with anything I've tried. When I started looking at commercial units for large scale ethanol extraction, I like the approach but not the price. Poking around on amazon and I found this the other day:


With an 8 inch cylinder this thing would have an RCF of about 2300g at the edge. I figure I could put material in a bag like this:


or maybe something finer mesh like a nut milk bag... Plan is to do the initial soak in chilled ethanol and use that fraction for vapes and whatnot. Then do a clean up soak in room temp ethanol, spin the solvent out and then pull the it through a celite puck with a layer of charcoal to clean up the color and flavor.

Was wondering if anyone has used one of these for the purpose and how it turned out.

-Eskander

 

[Eskander]

Seems to do quite a lot better than I can manage by wringing out flower in a nut milk bag. I put in some flower that I'd tried to squeeze as much out of as possible and in short order a fair amount more came pouring out. I'll try to quantify my solvent recovery from a soak in the near future. Chamber is about the right size for a pound of flower. I'll play with clean up on it a bit more but it seemed to clean up fairly easily with a sponge soaked in solvent dropped in and spun up to spray the walls. The only thing I don't like is it can't be used for the soak as it just drains out immediately.

The bags I linked are way too coarse to be useful. Going to stick with decent nut milk bags unless someone has a better solution.

-Eskander

 

[smokedareefer]

Ive used these in past washes and thought it did pretty good.

 

[Eskander]

Ive used these in past washes and thought it did pretty good.

For the finest in high pressure extruded meats...

How much did it hold?

-Eskander

 

[smokedareefer]

For the finest in high pressure extruded meats...

How much did it hold?

-Eskander

Maybe 1/4 + lb

 

[cronicoldguy]

I been looking for the same solution. I have been using a wine press. I have been looking for quite some time for an affordable centrifuge.

Seems to do quite a lot better than I can manage by wringing out flower in a nut milk bag. I put in some flower that I'd tried to squeeze as much out of as possible and in short order a fair amount more came pouring out. I'll try to quantify my solvent recovery from a soak in the near future. Chamber is about the right size for a pound of flower. I'll play with clean up on it a bit more but it seemed to clean up fairly easily with a sponge soaked in solvent dropped in and spun up to spray the walls. The only thing I don't like is it can't be used for the soak as it just drains out immediately.

The bags I linked are way too coarse to be useful. Going to stick with decent nut milk bags unless someone has a better solution.

-Eskander

So it seems to work pretty good? Capacity is a bit large for me, but interested. What concerns me is the solvent leaching cheap plastic compounds. Or would that not be an issue? What about a hand crank salad dryer?

 

[Eskander]

I been looking for the same solution. I have been using a wine press. I have been looking for quite some time for an affordable centrifuge.


So it seems to work pretty good? Capacity is a bit large for me, but interested. What concerns me is the solvent leaching cheap plastic compounds. Or would that not be an issue? What about a hand crank salad dryer?

Good concern for sure. Seems to be ABS which has good ethanol resistance. I wetted an area on the outside for 10 min and there were no signs of etching. I snipped off a bit from the bottom and weighed it out. I'll leave that soaking for a week and weigh it again.

-Eskander

 

[Zepplinthor]

I've been playing with various approaches to getting as much solvent out of washed material as possible. Gone from squeezing nut milk bags to using French presses. So far I'm not hugely happy with anything I've tried. When I started looking at commercial units for large scale ethanol extraction, I like the approach but not the price. Poking around on amazon and I found this the other day:


With an 8 inch cylinder this thing would have an RCF of about 2300g at the edge. I figure I could put material in a bag like this:


or maybe something finer mesh like a nut milk bag... Plan is to do the initial soak in chilled ethanol and use that fraction for vapes and whatnot. Then do a clean up soak in room temp ethanol, spin the solvent out and then pull the it through a celite puck with a layer of charcoal to clean up the color and flavor.

Was wondering if anyone has used one of these for the purpose and how it turned out.

-Eskander

What is the item you are describing? For some reason it doesnt show. How did it work out? Ive been looking into panda spinner or maybe a 5 gallon restaurant salad spinner or a fruit press

 

[Zepplinthor]

I been looking for the same solution. I have been using a wine press. I have been looking for quite some time for an affordable centrifuge.


So it seems to work pretty good? Capacity is a bit large for me, but interested. What concerns me is the solvent leaching cheap plastic compounds. Or would that not be an issue? What about a hand crank salad dryer?

how does the wine press do? Ive been looking into using a fruit press

 

[cronicoldguy]

how does the wine press do? Ive been looking into using a fruit press

So I tried the wine press. It kinda worked, but is a total pain in the ass.

What worked well for me is a salad spinner. It works much better than the wine press. Biomass could be dryer in the end. But hey, it is only a salad spinner.

I place 4 flattened, unbleached coffee filters around the inside wall of the basket to cover the perforations to about half way up. Three along the sides, then one placed in the middle. Add biomass, then spin the living shit out of it. Works pretty good.

I bought just a cheap-ass one to test the concept. I suggest a stainless steel/glass unit to eliminate any 'leaching' from plastics.

I have been looking all over the internet for a small lab sized basket centrifuge. All I can find is centrifuges for test tubes, or units that are far to large and expensive.

Does anyone know of an 'affordable' basket centrifuge? @Eskander?

 

[voltage]

Use the bicycle tire centrifuge method

 

[cronicoldguy]

Use the bicycle tire centrifuge method

I have come across this in my search. But cant figure out what to use to contain the flower and catch the solvent. I am thinking it would need a 1L-2L capacity at minimum to retain flower and recover solvent, and still fit within the frame. Any ideas?