Super Critical Fluid Extraction (S.F.E.)

Over the years I've had the opertunity to teach several people how to make "honey oil" useing the Supercritical Fluid Extraction method (S.F.E) for short. Many of these people have gone on to reaserch methods of constructing shoestring devices to do the job.


One thing that has always been a concern of mine, is the p.v.c. people use for the main body of these contraptions.
I always felt that this was not the best material for this application.
With this In mind, I went to the internet looking for equipment manafactured to perform this task
I did find one for extracting essetial oils for the holistic healing world.
It had a price tag of $1200! ouch.

The next step was to make a prototype and so I did!
After showing it around a little in the colorado medicinal comunity, I started building them! the parts are fairly expensive to have made up. Cost $380.00 per piece out the door about what a good bubble bag kit costs.

With this device I run all my sugar leaves, fine trim, node scrapings, and underdeveloped undertrash,
I can recover about 7 grams of oil from about 3/4 ounce of garbage. The oil is golden amber in color and drips off a dip stick like honey. So do yourself a favor and treat yourself every crop. Feel free to check out photo album for more pics of extractor and melungeon magic.


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Working fluid? Temps? Pressures? How manage the super/subcritical transition? I see no hardware for that ... cn

The technic is simple the Fluid is butane, get this from a good tobbaconist, calibri is the best. Temps are not an issue do to the fact it is the cold fluid that disgorges the tricrome from the material, pressure not an issue, the two screens in the unit controls the back pressure. Simply use one of the attachments supplied with the can of butane in the hose barb at the top. This creates the orifice to insert the can, then press down on the can slowly to release the gas. don't try to force it all in at once. After the can emptys wait a few for it to run down in the collection beaker.

380 $ hash bags. thats outrageous

Very much so,I bought a 5 bag system a couple of years ago. I seldom ever use them anymore,

cannabineer said:

Working fluid? Temps? Pressures? How manage the super/subcritical transition? I see no hardware for that ... cn

Click to expand...

I was also interested in how you were achieving this?
There are two basic types of CO2 extraction. Low pressure cold extraction involves chilling CO2 to between 35-55 degrees F and pumping it through the plant material at between 800-1,500 psi. Supercritical Fluid extraction involves heating the CO2 to above 87F and pumping it above 1,100 psi. Usually this work is done between 6,000-10,000 psi. Supercritical Fluid CO2 can best be described as a dense fog whereas the first method described uses the CO2 in a dense liquid state.

Low pressure CO2 is often the best method for producing high quality botanical extracts. CO2 has a high loading rate in this state meaning that you will have to pump many volumes of CO2 through a given volume of botanical. The loading rate is typically 10-40 volumes. For this reason, it is important to have a high flow pump and a CO2 recycle system unless wasting high volumes of CO2 is not a concern.

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.

Dimethyl Ether- This is the ultimate extraction solvent. It strips everything out of plant material almost instantly. All of the same equipment and precautions as propane should be used as it is also highly flammable. Has a vapor pressure slightly above propane.

R134a and other refrigerant gases- There has been a lot of talk in recent years about using R134a and related gases in natural product isolation. Our experience has shown that R134a has similar extraction properties to low pressure CO2. It works better than anything for isolating fragrance and perfume essences.

The downsides are that it becomes highly toxic if overheated and there a number of conflicting patent and intellectual property claims regarding its use.

I have a friend that blows glass he made me a butane extractor tube for ten bucks. You can also use a ball jar just poke a hole in the lid shoot the butane in the jar. remove the lid put a filter over the top and screw the ring back on. flip the jar over and it gets washed twice once when you shoot it in and once when you flip it over.

So I'm interested, but is this sub-critical or are you hitting super critical pressure? I'm guessing the butane reaches super critical mass at a round 80-150psi?

I looked it up ... butane goes critical at 150ºc and 38 bar ... about 560 psig. That temp is just too high imo. cn

That's why a pro system costs so much, no one likes shrapnel. I would be content with a reclaim system for now...

Some good info on here, been using 5x filtered butane, with a honey bee extractor for a while now for bho. Always interested in new ways.

sweet ! I got a tamisium extractor last year and love it. only lab quality organic butane, used, and reused over and over through vaccuum recovery. filtered through a wide variety of choices, mine is activated carbon, then sterile steel wool. The first time you use this thing you cant put weed in it. it'll actually extract oils from the stainless steel components, despite being washed. cost 1500$value is pricelss. purity is key, and it's monitored with precision weights, and manipulated with hot/cold temps.
I've blown butane through man different things over the years, and settled on a HoneyBee extractor30$, then got this. it runs 3 0z at once, takes about three housrs to recover 95% of the tane. it pays for itself quickly in butane savings alone, depending how much..., well, if.....you know

I had a alot of trim when I got it so stayed up for awhile doing it all had a blast. now I only run the flowers, as the rest , it turns out is much higher in the sleepy stuff, cbd,cbn, etc. goes to the bunnies. good for some, and rick simpson oil, but not fer me/patients. goes from here to a mag stirrer with activated charcoal for awhile, removes impurities, clarifies, then left alone to cure. it can be whipped for ear wax, oil,jelly and more of the finest extracts. only had a mag stir pic with agar for tissue culture, none with oil, but you'll get the idea.
I had super critical extraction, seen it too, thousands and thousands of dollarrs, super high pressures, and a whole room full of stainless steel tanks and tubes. nice end product, not a whole lot different for me. pure oil, is pure oil. and some bud pic

peace

Nice post on the tamisium thank you! Ive had my eye on one for the better part of a year now. Nearly everyone that owns it swears by it.
you forgot to mention that lab grade commercial butane is nearly 5 times cleaner than any store bought butane in a can, including even vector and colibri. That to me is another huge selling point.
anyhow thanks again, you'll see me posting on here soon with mine!

Humm.... mabey supercritical is not the right terminology? I found the method in Greg Greens book. It was described as supercriticle fluid extraction, mabey the author miss- labeled the process. This extractor that I built, was modeled after the description and illustration in this book. What I did, was take the instructions to build an extractor, and improved on it with cullanary stainless steel, sight glass, cap and downspout, pyrex catch cup, debri screens, and chem stand. If the technech is something other than SFE, then I will need to edit my thread some to give it the RIGHT name. All I'm useing for solvent is calibri butane. The apperatous does build a back pressure. This is because of the brewery screens one stainless mesh that keeps all debri from travelling through the sightglass. And on the lower end of the sight glass, there is a VERY fine silkscreen inccorperated into the gasket, see illustration.
What, the silkscreen gasket does, is restrict the flow just enough to pressureize the material chamber. When enough butane passes through the material, it starts to flow. After the butane is slowly released, it goes to a liquid state then pours through carring all the honey with it. Butane is great solvent because of its easy availability, its low gravity and boiling point is also a plus (it boils off at about room temp.) Also if you place the collection cup in a bowl of hot tap water, the butane evaporates off in about 20 min. I then leave it until it becomes very thick. If it becomes to thick you can cut it back to a "honey" state with a couple of drops of everclear.I hope this further description of what this does and how, was helpfull. I'm sure there is many options to perform this technique.I just didnt like the plastic, pvc method. I did build one with a all glass tube it broke pow! bummer. I've seen the bottle method used what a ugly finish product.same with spraying through a tube onto a plate for scrapeing. MY methode is relatively safe (with a little common sense), Very clean and produces a nice golden product!!! I've re-ran an ounce through and got onley butane back so I guess this thing works super. If your interested in building one alot of the parts had to be fabricated. But some can be purchased.

probem is, we dont want "everything" out of the plant material. mostly waxes and ickys if allowed to extract more than a minute or two. that leaves way more work and time filtering and puryfying it for suitable consumption, unless its just for edibles.

This extraction, from start to finish takes me about 3 min. No filtering needed. This stuff is clean amber honey. No plant material passes through the fine mesh gasket. What ends up in the collection cup pulls like honey off a dripper. Put a couple drops in the vap and rockola, plenty suitable for smoke or vap. Ask me how I know.. Pretty stoned at the moment. peace

love that thing Pharmacoping!! Wayyy outa my price range,,, stilll I gotta have one. not today!! I'm gona keep one keeping on, with improving on the cheep old fashoned methods. I do understnd and appriciate the need for very clean medicinal product My personal needs are not that demanding. The point of the thread was to give people a model of something that has proven to quite usefull. That way, people who like to tinker can play around makeing thier own. And treat themselfs to a little golden honey from time to time. peace be with you and love your extractor. rep to you!

I wish I would have seen yours before I spent the money on this. its really doing the same thing, except for recovery.
when you get curious, check out the next and final step of purification, sulphuric acid....

my extraction takes a minute, but the recovery of 100% of the butane takes two hours. it doesnt need to be baby sat at all. and when done the butane back in the sealed vessel waiting another run, saving $$ each times. not sure how much in a vector, but I use/reuse 400grams of liquid butane per run. I extract with 200grams, wait a bit, run the other 200g. couple cans' savings anyway, every time. I had large tane tank for over a year, just got it filled. if in a hurry, this can be evaporated old style outside also,conveniently with an included mile long little hose that seculey attaches.......and out a window. using up the tane though.

That would be a huge plus. I've been working on a recovery device for my apperatous since I saw yours. Nothing working as of yet but getting close. Also added a petcock bottom spout so I can slow my rate of release,as welll as a top male coupling for sealed co2 line, I will be useing butane through this line, It's just what was handy. I'm also working on a set up for the cans.I can not get tank butane close to where I'm at, if I could this would be easier.