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Demo of automated kitchen extraction machine

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kenishii64

Greenlighter
Joined
Oct 1, 2015
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Hi Bluelighters.

I have spent the past 1,5 years with some colleagues and friends building a domestic extraction unit. It runs on ethanol and automatically extracts, distills and recycles the alcohol. We made a small demo video of the unit here.

I would love some comments from you guys.


If the above link with thumbnail picture does not work, the video is here: https://vimeo.com/258158591


It extracts cannabis really well and should work well for mushrooms, poppies and anything else you can extract with alcohol.

Sincerely
KenIshii
 
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Wow, that is really cool! You planning on marketing it?
 
Thanks man!

You bet well market it. Kickstarter or Indiegogo in summer/spring. Please help spread the word :)

One of those really fun projects that started as a crazy idea, turned into tinkering in a garage and is now turning into an actual product.

Sincerely
KenIshii
 
Yeah, for sure I'll be telling people about it.
 
If you need more prototype testers, let me know! I'm super interested, have a ton of herbs to test it with - thank you Colorado - and a bunch of friends into oils of all kinds, as well. So exciting!
 
This would be something I'd gladly donate to! I don't know the exact mechanism of the extraction and recycling of the alcohol, so sorry if this is completely unworkable, but it would be cool if you could change what solvent you extract with. Maybe that could be something you consider implementing in future models.

Only thing I could say is that you might have some trouble once you've got this on the market. It's sort of a suspicious item to own being that it could be used for so many plant extractions, and if you were to make it available for purchase you might find it banned in more drug conservative countries. You'd have no trouble in the US as it could be described as a tool for use with marijuana only, but even that could have it flagged in the UK. Police can confiscate any drug paraphernalia here, even things with 'other uses', like grinders.

Anyway, if this hits the market, I'll buy one immediately. If you start a kickstarter, please make a post about it so that I can donate
 
This is essentially a portable Soxhlet extractor. Got a couple of questions about it;

1) Can you set the temperature at which you're extracting?
2) Are you limited to using just alcohol as the extracting solvent?


Thanks

Tom
 
Hmm guessing this will get closed down. Pretty sure BL doesn't allow soliciting of anything.

It is a pretty cool idea if you can make it affordable. Most distillation units start above 10k and require quite a bit of knowledge about the technique.
 
Hi Thomas.

Yes, a portable soxhlet extractor is an accurate description.

1:
Yes, you can set the extraction temperature in the range of -10 degrees to +60 degrees celcius. It is done directly on the machine, using the built in jog wheel and o-led display. You can also set the number of extraction cycles.

2:
We have selected all the internal Silicone hoses and aluminium coating based on methanol, ethanol, propyl and iso-propyl alchohol compatibility. You can also use the alcohols diluted with water. I would not recommend putting to non-polar stuff in as extraction medium (such as hexane, benzene, acetone).

Thank you for your feedback.

Sincerely
Peter Selmer Gade
 
kenshii64; thanks for the reply.

As soon as I saw what you were doing, I was interested as I've used exactiors since 1990 when I started as a lab tech. I've been using mostly extractors purchased from Fisher Scientific, so to be honest I'm a bit leary about the quality of a home/personal unit.

Given the material construction of internal components ( at the moment), I understand why you wouldn't want non polar solvents to be used. Changing the internal components might allow this *if* the cost of the different internal components is not prohibitive. And you may have other reasons for using the components you are.

Honestly, I would get much more utility out of a portable extractor if I could use both polar and non polar solvents. I'd even pay more to be able to use both types of solvents. As it stands now, it seems rather like a piece of lab equipment that has promise rather than being something I would use because of limited capabilities.

Tom
 
Another question.

Have you evaluated the efficiency of your unit in the following manner;

Cannabis sample tested for THC/THCA levels > a sub sample extracted with your machine > solid residue from the alcohol extraction tested for THC/THCA levels.

This is going to tell me how efficient your machine is. And then would subsequent runs with the same Cannabis residue and the now THC infused alcohol improve the extraction efficiency?

It sounds nice. Any plans for a portable distillation unit?

Tom
 
Hi Thomas.

Great feedback - thanks.

my personal motivation for this also comes from heavy lab equipment use. I would like to see more normal people getting interested in all the wonders of labwork - in the comfort of the kitchen �� Guess its my way of getting all teenager you-cant-tell-me-what-to-do and spreading kitchen chemistry in a legal framework.

yes, well definately look into using other solvents, capacities etc. Its just important for us to get to market with one product first, evaluate and the launch a ver. 2 based on feedback.

Its funny you mention extraction efficiency the way you do, as that is exactly what im doing at the moment. I grow a little tired of people talking about extraction efficiency as being g oil per g plant matter. It should be mg thc in extract per mg thc in sample(and cbd). I have analytical grade thc and cbd en route so i can quantify this and also optimize extraction parameters such as time, agitation etc. I have made a high precision camera setup for tlc analysis which actually gives super precise readings (+\-2% at 95% confidence interval) for optimizing the hell out of the machine.

Sincerely Kenishii
 
Typically, we would run fat extractions on biological samples using hexanes or petroleum ether. Usually the extractions would run for 24 hours, the sample socks (non reactive containers that would hold the samples; typically a fibreglass cloth sock) would then be dried at room temperature in a fume hood for 24 hours and then chemical tests conducted.

But, longggggg before me they ran the extractions at 6, 12, 18 and 24 hours. As you can guess, efficiency improved up to a certain point. So, this is the kind of testing that I would try. If I end up buying one of your extractors, I would be using a Tcheck analyser to get numbers.

If you ever need a beta tester with 34 years of lab experience, I'd do it for free :)

Tom
 
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