Thousands of years ago Roman alchemists were distilling concentrated essential oils from plants using steam. Getting every ounce out of our harvest is an endeavor as old as farming itself. Technology is finally allowing us to reach the pinnacle of harvest efficiency. Through the use of chemical solvents the cleanest extracts ever available are creating a new market for growers to break into.
We recently met with Across International, a 25+ year supplier of industrial grade degassing ovens for commercial applications. They answered our questions to help evaporate some of the mystery surrounding the hardware you’ll need to be safe and secure when turning that trash back into cash.
Vacuum ovens reduce the pressure of the air around the extracted solution. The lower pressure decreases the boiling point and this helps the solvents used to extract the oil dissipate. Having a vacuum oven is better because it allows for all of this to happen quickly at a safe, low, temperature.
Every Across International oven comes with unique internal shelf heating technology. Each shelf in these ovens has its own heater, in-shelf temperature sensor and temperature controller, with great thermal-conducted aluminum and low proportional controller technologies. Together the result is perfect uniformity, accurate temperature, super-fast heating rates, minimum heat loss and very low power consumption.
When it comes to choosing a pump for the oven we’ve come to find that every extract artist has a slightly different process but it all boils down to these two questions:
How fast do you need to reach full vacuum?
How deep of a vacuum level do you need?
The higher the CFM (cubic feet per minute of air being pumped out of the chamber) the faster the chamber will reach full vacuum, but this doesn’t mean a deeper vacuum. For deeper vacuum levels you’ll need to choose a pump that has been rated with lower microns.
Oil based pumps do require frequent oil changes as well as oil filters for venting to prevent pump oil from contaminating the air, just like a car. The maintenance on oil-free pumps is much less substantial, but they come with a higher cost, and less strength on both the speed (CFM) and depth (micron) of the vacuum. They typically only require once yearly maintenance of replacing the tip-seals. It is very easy and can be done rather quickly using a kit. For ovens under constant use all day, every day, we suggest the Edwards brand Chemical-Resistant Dry Scroll Pumps.
Eliminate the guesswork by ordering your pump and oven together from us. Any adapter that might be needed will be automatically included for free.
Note: If you plan to use your own pump, make sure it is either KF25 compatible, or get an adapter that converts from KF25 to the same fitting as your pump.
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