The Costs of Large-Scale Ethanol Extraction Systems

Ethanol Extraction System

So, you are looking for a manufacturing facility that will enable you to extract thousands of acres of hemp or other plant material? What easier way than with ethanol extraction systems? You get some food-grade ethanol, mix it up, wait a while, drain and then remove the ethanol and shazam! You can do tons of hemp every day. Right?

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Well, yes – but that’s only part of the story. There is still a long list of important things to consider when scaling up your ethanol extraction systems to a larger scale. The following list contains only some of the items that need to be addressed in your planning:

  1. You will need lots of ethanol and a way to store that ethanol and then a way to get the ethanol out of the extract. This necessarily involves heating the ethanol up beyond its boiling and flashpoints.
  2. You will need to store that ethanol in compliance with NFPA requirements for storage. You will also require permits, planning, engineers, and compliance people.
  3. Ethanol is flammable as a liquid and a gas.
  4. You will need to consider the high power consumption associated with cooling large amounts of ethanol to very low temperatures.
  5. You will need to consider the large footprint and space requirements to accommodate a facility.
  6. According to Hybrid Technologies, a two-ton-per-day facility will require about 30,000 ft sq with buildout costs ranging from $350-500/sf for C1D1 and hazard class designation.
  7. You will need to comply with OSHA and your local and state fire marshals and building inspectors.
  8. Your business plan should have included the high cost of food-grade ethanol with excise tax included. Manufacturers are responsible for paying this tax even if they source ethanol that has a special, easily removed denaturant.
  9. Facilities and infrastructure should be designed in compliance with NFPA special case for flammable liquids and gasses processing.
  10. You should consider that ethanol is non-selective and does a great job at extracting any and all pesticides from plant materials.
  11. Also, keep in mind that ethanol extracts a great deal of chlorophyll and xanthophyll from the biomass. You’ll want to refine the dark-green extract to give it a more pleasing flavor and appearance.
  12. You should consider the quality of the extract and the time required to achieve your desired quality.
  13. You should consider the impact of low recovery as a function of throughput.
  14. You should consider that your facilities are going to require specialized sprinkler systems utilizing foam.
  15. Your plan should accommodate corrosion and API 653 inspections.

It’s also important to remember that flammable liquid leakages, like ethanol, are catastrophic. Fires and explosions from flammable chemical leaks have the potential to seriously injure those people near the occurrence, as well as destroy the tank, the building it is in or near, and any other object nearby. The risk factor only increases as you move to large-scale production.

As you can see, there are a lot of hidden costs to large-scale ethanol extraction systems that many producers don’t consider. Fundamentally, you need to ask yourself if you are ready to build the equivalent of an ethanol refinery. If you are, then ethanol is for you!

If you want to skip most all of this pain, you might consider deploying high-throughput supercritical CO2 extraction systems. Compared to ethanol, CO2 systems:

Flammable Liquid in a Plastic Container
  • Are relatively low in cost, including buildout cost
  • Have a small footprint – 1,000-2,000 ft sq for 2 tons per day
  • Consume only a tiny amount of power – 500-700 amps
  • Do not require special infrastructure
  • Deliver superior quality oils with fewer pesticides
  • Are over 99% efficient
  • Are generally less expensive per gram produced compared to ethanol
  • Can be scaled in a very small space to process thousands of acres of hemp

Contact extraktLAB to Learn More About Supercritical CO2 Extraction

Whether you’re interested in scaling up your ethanol production, looking to refine your ethanol extracts, or want to know more about the benefits of supercritical CO2 extraction, extraktLAB is here to help. Our extraction experts can help you formulate a plan to minimize your operating expenses and maximize profit, no matter the desired scale of your extraction lab – even up to one ton per day!

Call us at 651-600-0036 or complete the contact form below for more information.

Frequently Asked Questions

extraktLAB’s supercritical CO2 extractors are highly efficient and increase overall extraction yield. They are also capable of decreasing your yearly operating costs and leave scale up opportunities.

No, the material does not need to cure. Our methods complete the final drying step in a vacuum oven to bring the water content down from 10% to the 1% – 1.5% range for efficient CO2 extraction.

There are several drying methods used by growers to accelerate drying, but this is outside our scope of solutions. We recommend researching the agricultural methods to find what works best for you.

Harvest drying methods are outside the scope of our solutions; however, you want to dry the biomass to roughly 10% water content for quality storage to prevent mold or mildew.

Typically flowers and leaves – no stems or stalks. Some producers will sort out the flowers and process them separately, but most processing includes the leaves and flowers.

Yes, ethanol can become contaminated during ethanol extraction. It is important that you address the contamination with testing and reuse protocols. guidance for solvent reviews have been published by the FDA in 2010. Please refer to the many articles in this blog for more information on cross-contamination with extraction.

Due to the risk of chemical contaminants that are found in 25 to 30% of ethanol extracted oils, we recommend that CO2 oils be used for Vapor Products.

It is absolutely possible to make a solventless extract with CO2. Solventless extracts are typically made with subcritical CO2 extraction methods.

Hemp processing equipment can be scaled for 1 to 5 tons of extracted hemp per day. It’s generally not a fair comparison to compare the throughput on an instrument from two different companies. What is fair is to specify the throughput At the tonnage process per day and then look at the operating cost for that process. You can also look at the equipment and Facilities cost to accommodate that level of Production. after you have all of your costs accounted for including the hidden costs, then you can calculate the net present value for each investment.

Denatured ethanol is a mixture of denaturants and pure ethanol. Chemical companies add the denaturant to Pure ethanol so that they will not be consumed as a food. Denatured recipes are published by the ttb that is administered by the National Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms. There are many different recipes. one of the most common denaturants used in ethanol extraction is heptane. However there are other substances that may be used including acetone, isopropyl alcohol, methanol and other longer chain alcohols. Is very limited data on the safety of heptane over the long term exposure. In fact the limit that the FDA has placed on the amount of heptane in a tincture for example was established in the 1990s on the basis of a single study published in 1981. That study the effect of heptane on Sprague dawley rats. That is why there are many disclaimers and the general guidance from the FDA is to limit the amount of solvent in any drug that is consumed.

No. Approximately 5 to 10% of the ethanol is left in the biomass and is counted as a solvent loss. These solvent losses add up to operating costs. This is especially true if organic ethanol is used or food grade ethanol is utilized as the extraction solvent.

Ethanol extraction typically destroys the terpenes when the ethanol is removed from the extract or is distilled from the winterized oil. Many ethanol extractors are seeking a way to preserve the terpene profile of the plant in the output oil. To this end people have tried techniques such as Steam distillation, CO2 stripping, and vacuum distillation. Certainly, CO2 can be used to strip terpenes from Hemp biomass Prior to ethanol extraction. However, vacuum distillation is by far the most gentle and effective way to harvest the terpene profile prior to ethanol extraction.

Yes. A pound of food grade ethanol when purchased in bulk is $4.71/lb at current price. A pound of food grade CO2 when purchased in bulk is about $0.04/lb at current price.

There are many grades of CO2 including industrial and food grade and medical grade. We typically use food grade but medical grade is also highly desirable. the specifications for each of these grades are published by the Compressed Gas Association or by your gas supplier.

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