I'm glad you revisited this. your caffeine extraction video was great

thank you from 1 Machinist to another for an awesome job and for a decent explanation of co2 extraction.

I'm so glad I found this channel, your videos are great Ben!

Gotta say Ben, you've really kicked up the quality of your experiments. I'm liking it a lot and I'd like to see you try some older ones again now that you've learned a lot.

Enjoying all your videos yet again. Thank you.

I see a master plan. You're making ingredients for your Cookie Machine. :D Great video as always. More interesting stuff I never knew.

Yet another amazing video! Thank you!

My aerogel video shows a crude supercritical dryer that I made out of pipe fittings.

Any chance of some detailed specs?

No kidding! It would be really nice to have a ductile, machinable, transparent material like that!

thanks for the simple explanation and visual aids!

Well done, thanks for the share!

I did some work with supercritical CO2 in the past, but in a regular lab, with large scale co2 pumps, really expensive equipment. It's fascinating to see basically same stuff done in a home workshop.

this is excellent work brother.

Very cool, Ben.

Could you provide a list of parts so someone can attempt to make this on their own? Thank you

I really enjoy your videos... thank you!

Hi, I have been watching your videos on super critical co2 and I was wondering if you had considered doing this with a shoebox compressor? I thought you could avoid the heating process and maybe get better control? I see one company seems to have made one for sale they call it the super c but it would seem that you could use the same principals you are using and make a better unit. anyways I really enjoy your videos and the range of them

It's a good idea, and probably worth trying. One problem is that the glass is much more rigid than the plastic, so most of the stress will be created in the glass, even if there is a zero-clearance fit between the tubes. However, a heavy plastic liner would contain an explosion, so that's good.

Yes. Specifically, I want to build a solar-powered absorption refrigerator. It involves high pressure ammonia and hydrogen -- should be a blast!

very good video, clear to understand, nice video, great presentation.

IDK if you've ever done a tour video of your shop there, but I would love to see what else you've got in there.

Hi Ben. Thanks for sharing great work. I like your channel. On extraction, I have one question. How you are sure that you extracting only caffeine and not other compounds. In plants usually there are hundreds of organic compounds.

Have you considered modifying your freeze drying set up into a sort of rotary vacuum evaporator for extraction via distillation?

For me you're probably the only person in the world that may use the words high-pressure ammonia, hydrogen, and blast in a sentence without making it sound very dangerous :)

Yay, Ben posted a video!

Technically, wouldn't this be liquid co2 extraction? I know I saw liquid flowing through the chamber. In a super critical state the co2 behaves like both liquid and gas, allowing the co2 to pass through material like a gas, but extract like a liquid. I'm wondering if it'd extract capsaicin from peppers. Anyone know?

I know this was a few years back, have you tried it since? I am curious if there was more surface area of the material you were running you'd get a better yield

I was thinking about this and I had an idea... Could you match the OD of a glass tube to the ID of the acrylic tube, or even a little larger and freeze it to shrink it when installing it, so you would have an internal glass protective sleeve?

What you're lookin' for is transparent aluminum laddie! :)

I don't know if it would work but have you ever thought of coating the inside of the chamber with some non soluble resin (I'm still on the search for one) or putting a "sleeve" of glass tubing on the inside so that the acrylic wall fits around it snugly enough to support the pressure?

This is amazing!

For the acrylic chamber, what kind of stainless-steel pipe would work? I was thinking I could essentially use an unthreaded version of the pipe I'm using for the CO2 chamber (schedule 80), but I don't think the surface of the pipe would be optimal for edible extractions. Under the McMaster's section of tubing > metal > stainless steel, there are no specifications of tolerable pressures other than yield pressure which I don't think refers to the same internal pressure capacity. Could you suggest some options? Great work by the way!

I have always wanted to try this too! I run the Open Sun Harvesting Project which primarily provides open source software and electronics for DIY solar tracking and heliostats. I know the community would love to see some videos on this subject, and I'm sure you could do a much better job than I could. :)

This one is great for anyone who can’t afford to purchase CO2, but can afford to purchase a machine shop.

Hey there, I personally made some experiments with liquid butane as a solvent. I just got a container of lighter refill gas and slowly emptied it into a test tube submerged into a cooling bath of ice and ethanol. Afterwards I used a simple coffee filter filled with a spice (chilis work realy nice for example) and poured the butane onto it. The gas in the resulting extract can then be evaporated easily by putting the container in warm water for a couple minutes. Works nice and is cheap and easy.

Could you perhaps line the acrylic chamber with a glass tube?

Ben, I just saw that you are doing some experiments with supercritical fluid extraction. I bought some hobby-scale steam distillation equipment recently and have been interested in possibly putting together a supercritical fluid extraction setup. I read somewhere that you can extract lilac fragrance with supercritical fluids. You can't steam distill lilac flowers. Have you tried lilac flowers? Do you have sagebrush where you live? That might make an interesting extraction.

You could do supercritical batch extraction in a paintball high pressure system. The tanks are designed and certified to be operated at 200-300 bars, the regulators have built-in manometers and breach valves for a sense of safety. Usually they come with a volume of 0.22 L and 1.1 L. To use them as CO2 tank for continuous flow extraction one has to use non-paintball regulators as their outlet valve is limited to about 55 bar, too low for the gas to stay supercritical.

why not line the inside with glass? wouldnt the outside acrylic support it from breaking? also maybe you could try having it pressurized on both sides of the glass. acrylic outside then a small space you can pressurize then a glass tube inside that. however i dont think that would be easy to regulate having the same pressure or atleast a pressure differential lower then the glass is rated for. if one dropped too low you would implode or explode the inner glass tube. i think just lining the acrylic tube with a glass tube fit tightly would be the best option but to be honest i dont know much about dealing with pressure vessels so i could be very wrong. i would love to know if i am and why

Would a retail CO2 tank, such as SodaStream provide enough volume of CO2 or pressure to be effective?

You are great! Thankyou for the videos!

I don't know what You are doing, but I appreciate it very much Best Regards

I can’t type what the dry ice vessel looks like in the comments section but I am guessing this video could have been demonetized cause of how it looks or KZfaq might have given you trouble. If you catch what I’m not say. Also I love and appreciate all the effort and work you put into your videos and just want to say thank you.

Would you be able to line the inside of an acrylic tube with aluminium using the thermal evaporator that you featured in another of your videos? Would aluminium be sufficiently inert or would CO2 or other stuff react with that at the high pressures involved?

Thanks, I had a feeling it was going to be a little out of my price range, but still worth a look. I think I will end up getting one of those Chinese mini CNC mills.

You make it hard to make fun of you. Ive actually enjoyed all your videos. KZfaq needs more posters that approach their experiments AND presentations like you do. I hope you keep it up.

you can under high pressure in an enclosed chamber

Wait please explain CO2 penetrating acrylic. And could you use polycarbonate?

re: glass extraction chamber It shouldn't be too difficult to melt the glass and put it into a mold. If the mold has a higher coefficient of thermal expansion than the glass, it will shrink away from the glass, allowing for easy removal.

what would be an example of a system that do use a CO2 tank? how do you build pressure into the chamber from that?

Would really enjoy seeing extradition of lavender!

What do you think of the extracts? Have you smelled/tasted them? Did they pick up some eau de acrylic?

I replicate the test using cinnomen. Tried grinding the cinnomen at 1300psi temp 38 deg C. No oil came out, but paste like oily material stuck in samples. Then I used dry cinnomen stick. Not much luck... Must be the time to soak is also the factor

It's my first time viewing your videos and this, and you are incredible. Are you a professional? Like an engineer or mechanic? Cos building that at home is amazing. :)

Could you press a glass liner in to the acrylic tube?

Hi Ben: How about clear Teflon tubing as a liner, if not to permeable to CO2 at pressure? What is the pressure limit of your Acrylic chamber? Cheers, Mark

Could Thermo-electric (Peltier) coolers, running off a DC system be a viable option?

By "i've found" I mean I've done it, it works. I got a glass candle holder from a thrift shop (approx 1" by 2" solid glass with a 1" diameter hole), used 1/4" steel plate for the bottom and top (the bottom with an indent to hold a rubber o-ring) and four bolts to hold the whole thing together. It lost half the volume of co2 over a year due to leakage through the o-ring, but the addition of tubes for the input and output of co2 should leave it perfect for supercritical extraction.

If you want look at the reaction in the chamber the best material to use is aluminum oxide window (sapphire), its kind of expensive but you can probably find one online

Hi Ben, My name is Emilio D'Alessandro, I'm a chemist from Italy, i am working with CO2 in near supercritical conditions and i have some troubles with viton o'ring and gaskets. I saw that in your videos you are using red o'rings, are they made by silicon or are they in EPDM polimers ? Thank you for your help, Emilio.

Apologies if you have already covered it in another video, but what make/model is the CNC mill you were using? Many thanks.

very interesting, thank you

thanks bro for sharing the results....

Did you checked high pressure gas discharge lamps like stadium lights as source for high pressure gas vessels? Wikipedia says they are made for 10 to 40 Megapascal (5800 psi).

It's the solvent in this process and is an ideal one for his purpose. It's not only food safe but readily evaporates at room temperature, leaving the desired product and no residue. You could use many other solvents, such as diethyl acetate, but you would need to have a roto-vap to remove the solvent at a low enough temperature to not lose some of the volatile esters and amine groups in the product.

Hello, I am really interested in this method. Now, I am using steam distillation method to extract essential oil. However, this method takes long time. I want to ask that if I want to build a device like your but larger amount of material and continuous working. Is it possible? Could you help me? Thank you very much

i easily forget this techniques, always is fun to remember it

could you put a glass test tube inside a acrylic tube?

GO Edmund, GO !!!

What ever happened to the cookie maker? This reminded me of it, and that machine was awesome but you never posted another update.

Can you use that glass gauge and cover it by acrylic?

love your vids

waht kind of mill are you useing?

WOULD PURE BUTANE GAS WORK BETTER. I KNOW IT IS DANGEROUS BUT WOULD IT YIELD MORE?

Would this work with the herb Kratom?

It is ok to consume the extract after having acrylic dissolved in it?

Do you know if polycarbonate holds up better to the super critical CO2? I know is holds up better to acids and the like. It looks like one could order 3" dia. rod online.

Tried extracting capsaicin?

Maybe you could improve the performance of a glass chamber by pre-stressing it. Machine some steel rings slightly undersize to the OD of the glass, heat them up and slip them on. 50% open area should still afford significant pre-stress and reinforcement. And then put a blast-shield around the whole thing because fabricobbled glass pressure vessel.

Cool. Can you use this to extra coca alkaloids from coca leaves and distill it into its essence?

How do you get liquid CO2? As to my knowledge it sublimes straight from a solid to a liquid. Or is it a trick using pressure ?

high ben , could you refresh us on the topic of brass compatibility issues, is it cupric acid or cupric acetate or something thats produced?

I was thinking of transparent aluminum from Star Trek.

Are you talking about aluminum oxynitride, or sapphire?

How about a glass vessel inside your plastic chamber. Keep the differential pressure within the limits of the glass.

what happens to blood or other animal tissue when exposed to supercritical CO2

Maybe it is possible to simply glue a glass tube into the acrylic?

Do you think Coffee producers use this method to extract aroma from one coffee source and give it to another and then sell it as a new high priced brand. I got this idea when my parents bought really low quality coffee when they had a vacation. I thought this can't really be coffee?

you can usually dilute the oils in ethanol for cooking. I dont undestand why the test tubes dont explode under pressure.

I ask for your permission to emulate the test using similar designed equipment?.

So this is all doable from home? How much would this set up cost?

What about using the boiler glass tube as an insert inside of the acrylic? Pressing glass into a plastic bore sounds not-so-easy, but maybe it could be bonded into the acrylic (to take up any air space and make them intimate.)

you may want to use a waterproof coating on the acrylic. i.e. a bath is not waterproof until they coat it with gel coat or something.

would you sell this extraction set of yours?

I'm just interested in what the extracts are made up of. The process seems not to have any differentiation in the yield. So basically whatever dissolve in supercritical co2 will be extracted. Anyway, it's a nice work.

How about a glass laminate instead of just pure glass?

I've found a candle holder works great for a large hollow glass structure. I can send a video if you need it.

Bridgeport R2E3 with original control.

So, did you taste any of it? Did it smell good in the "lab" that day? I'd be a little concerned that some nastiness from the acrylic came along for the ride; I'm looking at you, BPA and your ilk. Anyhow, nicely done video, Ben.