Spinning Disc Reactor for Botanical Oil Extraction Using Water as the solvent
Botanical Oil Extraction Using Water as the Solvent
The New Revolution in Processing using Water as the Solvent
Simple push-button operation and uses only water as the solvent, this amazing system uses technology that was previously only available in the pharmaceutical industry. Process 50-100 pounds per hour, or up to 2,400 pounds (1,200 kg) per day of flower. This system can process an amazing 2.5 acres per day of flower, or up to 876,000 pounds per year (about 900 acres of flower). This system produces a crude oil extract, which is considered a Full Spectrum Oil extraction.
Modular: Built into 5 standard shipping containers (processing, separation, water storage, crew operation cab). Plug and play. 480 V 3 Phase Power.
Build Time: Depends on order queue.
Power: 480 V 3-Phase Power. If you do not have 3-phase power, we can also quote a Capstone Turbine gas or LPG (or even diesel or vegetable oil powered) microturbine system, container mounted. One containerized system can produce 1 megwatt (1,000 kW). In the USA, you may be eligible for a 10 percent tax credit (up to 2 MW up through 2021) to install a microturbine, as well as access to power producer gas rates. If you pay more than $.10 a kwh for power, this may be a consideration.
System Description and Layout:
This system is built into standard 20 ft. shipping containers. Easy to ship to your location (anywhere in the world), and plug-and-play. Connect power and fill up the tanks with water, and you are ready to process. Standard container has a footprint of 8 ft. width by 20 ft. in length. Tank containers hold about 6,000 gallons of water.
Container A: Botanical grinding and SDR processor.
Container B: Flow separation processor (water, fiber, oil).
Container C: Water storage and filtration (water polishing).
Container D: Water storage and filtration (water polishing).
Note: Wisconsin Processors may see a payback in under a month (full spectrum oil wholesale sell price is $3+/gram which produced straight out of the machine). We suggest marketing and selling Full Spectrum Oil since the processed isolate crystal requires winterization and distillation or chromatography separation. Continuous feed, closed loop, silent operation which doesn’t require complex fire code authorizations because it uses water as a solvent. It does not use any ethanol, unlike large ethanol processors where the consumables cost $500,000 to $1 million per year.
High Tech Applications: Use the SDR to produce Silver Nanoparticles and look at sales for this system upwards of $6 million per year. See our information here.
Product: The SDR is a continuous feed botanicals crude oil extractor, using spinning disc reactor technology, which is well proven in the food processing and pharmaceuticals industry. The system is used in this application with water as the solvent to produce a full spectrum extraction. With further winterization processing, the resulting full-spectrum-oil is ready for sale as a concentrate.
Profits: The SDR allows processing of large amounts of botanicals extraction, compared to batch reactors. This allows better processing efficiency, which saves labor and energy costs, and increases your profit potential.
Time: The SDR saves you time. The continuous feed processing methodology gets you finished product faster, and at less production cost.
The Problem With Large Scale Ethanol Batch Extraction: Typically, large scale ethanol extraction has a number of drawbacks. Since recycled ethanol is imperitive to low cost processing operation, the dilution of the pure ethanol becomes compromised (water keeps getting added) which results in poor extraction efficiency. In addition, ethanol has poor turpene retention (turpepes become volatile and simply evaporate). Finally, many ethanol processors who do a quick-turn extraction, end up with lots of bitter green tasting chlorophyll. To filter out that, they use activated carbon filters (referred to as carbon scrubbing), which also filter out most of the valuable components ( source: Romano LL, Hazekamp A. Cannabis Oil: chemical evaluation of an upcoming cannabis-based medicine. Cannabinoids. 2013;7(1):1-11.)
Here is our general information on the SDR: No more loud air compressors, or dealing with supplies of CO2, or ethanol. No more waiting 12-24 hours for your batch processor to complete its cycle. This is instantaneous botanical oil extraction which uses water and shear force to break apart plant cells to give up their oil. Because this is a non-pressurized system and it does not use explosive hydrocarbons (i.e. like butane or propane which needs Class 1 Div 1), this system is much easier to accept for zoning, code, and inspectors. In addition, there is no danger of CO2 gas in a enclosed space, and no venting needed. You’re using water as the solvent.
Continuous Feed Eco Extraction:
We have the first system in the industry that is continuous feed. No more batch runs that take 12-24 hours. Processing is virtually instant using our fast extraction processing. More thorough and consistent extraction. Push button operation and less complex parts means less maintenance. Best of all, there are no expensive, hard to get, high pressure parts to maintain. The overall safety on a low pressure system far outweigh a butane, ethanol, or CO2 system. Simple to use, and simple to maintain.
The Problem Of Conventional Extraction Systems: Existing ethanol or CO2 systems won’t work well for large continuous feed production. Also, with lots of growers and processors coming online for the production of isolate, and full spectrum oil, a organic method of continuous hydro extraction is needed. Large scale CO2 reactors reactors (on a industrial scale similar to ones used for decaffeinating tea and coffee beans) are huge, expensive, and take a very long time to build and install. Big batch systems can only process one variety of a botanical at a time. Our system is disruptive technology which turns that legacy system on its side.
The Solution: Spinning Disc Reactor. Water as the solvent. The system is modular, compact, and relatively inexpensive (payback generally less than two weeks when you have market priced flower acquisition and full spectrum oil buyers). It installs quickly, can be mobile, and can do continuous feed which allows rapid re-integration for using different botanicals, different varieties of botanicals.
Time is Money: The new method and equipment are so efficient that the process takes a few seconds, instead of hours or days, which is common in the industry now. In addition the system uses distilled water as the solvent, instead of CO2, butane, or large batch ethanol, which are the common extraction solvents now.
Design and Prepare for the Future: Ask any industrial user, and they’ll tell you that continuous flow is the wave of the future. With the high cost and low quality of ethanol extraction (poor terpene retention and low efficiency), and the fire codes which need to be complied with for hazardous solvents, water is the natural choice. As local and federal government put in more stringent codes in place, a non-pressurized water based system will avoid any building code issues. Plan for the future.
Other Features: Our system is also unique in that because we use a flow that is continuous, we can put in filters that automatically remove waxes or other compounds which are not desired in the final concentrate products. This type of continuous flow system is also very energy efficient. Much more energy efficient because the reaction time is in seconds, not hours or days.
Off-the-Shelf Components Used in Water Systems: Because we use water, the equipment that we use in the process to a great extent, is already available off-the-shelf. Since we use a large volume of water we want to use a closed loop system. Within that system we will need filters and particulate separators, which are already available and use the widespread in different industries. Water management has been around for thousands of years. Using water, we can avoid many of the fire code restrictions that currently exist for butane extraction systems. Because we do not use CO2, we do not have to worry about expensive pressure fittings or finding a supply of CO2. Same applies for ethanol – we do not use that solvent for the extraction process, which can save hundreds of thousands in consumables per year.
Multiple Use: The concept of a continuous feed oil extraction system is not limited to botanicals such as hops. This technology can also be used in other industrial applications, such as the production of biodiesel, algae oil harvesting, and in the high tech sector.
Hi-Tech Applications – Quantum Dots, Silver Nano Particles, and Graphene: Quantum dots are semi conductor nano crystals which have already been identified for the use of the replacement of silicon solar cells. They have also been identified for use in the medical industry for finding cancer. In the electronics field quantum dots can be used for making television screens, and as a potential power storage media in batteries. Graphene is made from graphite, which can be made from activated carbon (botanical feedstock). Graphene is the highly desired material which is stronger than steel, and more conductive than copper. We are also experimenting with LIB (Lithium Ion Battery) recycling, Cobalt, and gold recovery from integrated circuit waste.
Design Goals: The overall goal with all of the design is to minimize complexity. By doing so, you can minimize maintenance, footprint, and overall initial and running costs. Coming up with an elegant, but substantially simpler design, is sometimes the most difficult. The actual SDR unit is comprised of patented Modular Blocks. Termed the Industrial Lego by the National Science Foundation, these interconnection fluid processing blocks provide rapid prototyping to commercial product in one format.
Modular and Scalable: Our organic botanical reactor is made from our patented modular blocks which are bolt-together, and can be easily upgraded or scaled up.
Dual Flow: Each system has two independent flows, so that one part of the process can be paused temporarily for maintenence. This allows the processor to operate 24/7.
Push-Button Operation: The SDR extraction system is unique in that once you have the parameters set, the operator only has to turn the system on and monitor (also done by a PLC). No need for complex recipes, computer algorithms, PLCS controlling a vexing array of valves, pressures, and temperatures, etc. This push-button system is unique to the industry, and reduces operator input into the success or failure of the process. If your operation now is dependent on its weakest link, then you’ll understand. Our PLC monitors the system, so that you have reports accessible online and by a smartphone, so you’ll have all the metrics at your fingertips.
Solar Powered Option: With continer roof mounted solar PV panels, you can make your operation remote off-grid powered, to further enhance the Eco-Extraction processing.
SDR Goals | Process | Background
The goal of the SDR is to crack open the cell (cell lysis) and empty out the contents. That crude oil extract is then collected using a centrifugal separator. We also are starting to integrate some exciting centripetal vortex separation (see our instagram site for video: https://www.instagram.com/infinitysupercritical/
The goal of the SDR is to efficiently harvest oil, above 90 percent (the target with water polishing is going to be 95-98%).
Primarily in the plant cells: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3736954/
More specifically, we’re targeting the trichomes:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5580781/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2799345/
To do this, we’ve experimented, and found the most efficient and economical way is to blast them with a microjet, which is produced from cavitation (think of a World War II depth charge – it’s not the explosion that breaks steel, it’s the resulting 80,000 psi microjet from the cavitation of the explosion. You may be familiar with a common method of cavitation called ultrasound. Ultrasound is a sonic method of vibrating water until cavitation is produced. On a small scale it works just fine, but not for large scale continuous modes of botanical extraction. Cavitation by mechanical means (e.g. the spinning disc reactor) is a high throughput methodology to crack open the cell to release the valuable oil.
This technology has already been well-proven in the pharmaceutical and food processing industry with the spinning disc reactor (you may wish to Google the subject if you wish to research it).
The fact that resins are hydrophobic is perfect. We want to easily separate them from the water after the cell is blasted apart. The SDR is not a wash-plant per se (think of washing gold in a sluice box – which is not very efficient), but rather a method to blast open cells to release oil, then those extracts are collected. In this case, after the cell is emptied of its contents, this system is like a magnet collecting the contents.
The advantages of a water based solvent:
- Eco-Extraction: pure water is used as the solvent. Produces a more pure product for the customer. Similar sized ethanol processors which use a batch process may spend $500,000 to $1,000,000 per year in ethanol consumable (termed slippage) per year.
- Small Footprint: four 20 ft. shipping containers provide a modular extraction facility.
- Proven Technology: Spinning Disc Reactors and hydrodynamic cavitation is well-proven in the food processing and pharmaceutical industry.
- No Fire Code Restrictions: unlike high pressure and volatile solvents, water processing extraction has minimal code compliance.
- GMP: systems are built to GMP standards.
- Silent Closed-Loop Operation: The extraction system runs with a low audible footprint. The system is closed-loop to conserve water.
- Most Energy Efficient Extraction System Available: Because water is the solvent, the system is the most energy efficient process in the industry. CO2 requires high pressure (and maintenance prone) special pumps, and some require noisy air compressors.
- Better Environment for Workers: since water is used as the solvent, there are no volatile (i.e. flammable) materials to handle. There are also no airborne chemicals to breathe in or need for huge air exhaust systems.
- Full Spectrum Oil Right Out of the Machine: the SDR produces a full spectrum crude oil right out of the system. This can be combined with a carrier oil (i.e. coconut oil) and bottled for direct sale to the consumer. The oil is rich in all extracted components, and may be further processed in to lower value isolate which is in high demand everywhere.
- Push-Button Operation: because high pressure or volatile solvent operation is not needed, the flows of water can be controlled by a SCADA computer system which has lower worker input.
- Rapid Oil Extraction: this is the fastest extraction method available, and accomplished by instantaneous hydrodynamic cavitation. Cell lysis occurs in under a second.
- Dual Flow: the extraction system has a dual-flow processing circuit, which allows either system to be paused for maintenance, while the system is still performing the extraction process.
- Plug-and-Play: the system is build into four modules, which can be shipped anywhere in the world, and set up indoors, or outdoors. The modules are connected together by modular power and water conduits for rapid installation. Typically a system can be ready for extraction in a few days.
- Raw Input: you can back-up your walking floor trailer or other storage system to convey into the SDR hopper, in whole bud or flower format. The SDR does the rest.
- Wet or Dry: we recommend you dry your flower prior processing, so that you can store your flower without any mold or degrade. This gives you a much longer processing window then trying to process out of the field without drying. Longer term storage necessitates drying of flower, then bagging (vacuum bag or freezer) storage to preserve valuable components.
- Fast ROI: the return on investment is fast, due to the larger processing capacity, and lower solvent consumable costs. Payback time is typically a few weeks or less.
- Continuous Feed: this is the only extraction system on the market that is continuous feed. All other botanical oil extraction systems are batch processing (you put into a vessel, where it is extracted over time).
- Wave of the Future: this type of processing is not only good for the enviroment, and workers, it is also good for the consumer. With government and local regulations, it will quickly become the standardized method of pure oil extraction.
- Reduces Bottleneck at Harvest Time: this method of fast and efficient extraction will reduce the bottleneck which batch processors experience at harvest time. SDR processors can use their machines to offer toll-processing (contract processing) for other farmers, or groups with large amounts of .
- Made in the USA: the SDR is developed and manufactured in the USA.
Please contact Infinity Supercritical by email with a short summary of your operation. Infinity will respond with a email that covers most of your questions, and a telephone number for follow-up questions. Email: greg@infinitysupercritical.com