As far as solvent loss; my friend has very little loss in his 1000ml soxhlet with 5 bulb allihn on a 24hr pull.

More efficient as far as extracting the goodies would be nice (ie: 12 hours instead of 24)

trickster, from your previous thread I was under the impression you designed a new type of extractor. So its called a twisselmann?



As far as reloading. Also very easy with the soxhlet, my friend does it regularly.
Never had a clog. Always put a cotton ball in front of tube.

I would like to see a side by side comparison of the 3 types (Soxhlet, Gregar and Twisselman). The Soxhlet flaws IMO are: only preforms one function and time to extract. So the Gregar looks to cure my only two complaints.

you want more efficient, use a PC (unless the compounds are heat-labile, like psilocybin)
extraction under pressure is much quicker than fiddling with glass.

How about a Mac?

nah, macs are for n00bs

It would seem that one would have to be conscientious of azeotropes with an extraction device such as the Twisselmann. IPA and water forms an azeotrope somewhere around 80C if I'm not mistaken. Which might be the key to your "IPA extraction went wrong" thread.

Warmer solvent will decrease extraction times, but provides more variables. Is your extractable sensitive to temperature (such as psilocybin) for example as well as azeotropes... again not necessarily an issue with the subject extractable at hand but something to consider.

For what it's worth, your device is functioning more like a warm soxhlet. With Twisselmann, the hot vapors pass THROUGH the bottom of the thimble/biomass thus producing a near/at boiling temp in the thimble. With the vapors passing up the side of the "inner" glass tube, your not heating as effectively/efficiently as in a Twisselmann extraction. While this is still going to produce a warmer extraction enviorment, it's not as efficent as the PDF file your quoting (50% over standard soxhlet). However it is most likely efficient to form an azeotrope with IPA

Oh... and I like my MAC for what it's worth
but then again... I do enjoy my PC with an open source OS

Please, forgive SWIM's ignorance but it seems, to remove the extracted material SWIY would have to disconnect the soxhlet as well.

btw.. swiy's extractor does cycle, or else there would be no point in using it.
it just doesn't use side-arm siphons.

It is a matter of definition. Here's SWIM's understanding of the definition of cycling. In a soxhlet there are 2 distinct stages: filling the extraction chamber and syphoning. These 2 stages are called a cycle. Such cycles are repeated until heat is off. If that is a definition of a cycle then in a twisselmann there is no cycling.

But if by cycling we mean that solvent is cycling between the boiling flask and the extraction chamber then you are right - twisselmann is also a cycling extractor. So why one is called a cycling extractor and the other one is called a continuous extractor?




SWIM mentioned that out of lack of first hand experience with soxhlets. They just seem to SWIM prone to clogging.

SWIM just finished extracting kavalactones. It took 1.5 hours and another 1 hour to distill IPA.

It takes 2 hours to extract 50 g of mhrb in SWIM's extractor.

Yes, SWIM thinks that efficiency(extraction speed) is a serious advantage of her extractor.



It is obvious from that post that SWIM's friend designed the extractor. When writing that post SWIM was not sure if there are any similar existing extractors. Later she did a research on the subject and has found that there is a commercially manufactured extractor that is very similar to what she has. Its name is Twisselmann extractor. That is why there is a confusion. She is still doing patent research to see if there are some unique features in her friend's design. Atm they seem to be very much the same.




It seems to SWIM that when extracting from solids gregar's efficiency is the same as soxhlet's. Therefore, it is expected that timewise twisselmann is going to be more efficient, but gregar could be more versatile.

SWIM suspected that boiling solvent could be not that good, but this is beyond her.



You're right, just a bit simpler.



Yes, it should be less efficient comparing to an extractor where the solvent vapor goes through the biomass, but once the device reaches thermal equilibrum, the solvent inside the inner tube does boil.



But, according to your reasoning, it is less efficient than a proper twisselmann.

yeah, i guess you can define it in different ways
but we can both agree, both systems cycle on two thermodynamic states.. boiling point, dew point.

the condenser connects via 24/40 to 45/50 reducing adapter to the top of the soxhlet, this assembly can be removed. coffee filters are removed with tweezers