How to clean the machine

To clean piping and exchanger effectively we need a mix of supercritical CO2 and another co-solvent. If apolar or medium polar compounds were extracted, then we use Ethanol, while if polar compounds were extracted we use Water. It is important for the user to remember that ethanol is a Flammable fluid, therefore the quantity of ethanol used in the process is very important.

There are two method to clean the Frits:

• Use the basket during the cleaning. Fill the basket with glass marble, from 8 to 12 mm diameter. If not available, use SS balls, same diameter.
• Use an ultrasound bath. If the frites are not perfectly cleaned, remove them from the basket and put the discs in the bath.

The small ball will help the ethanol to go from the bottom to the top of the extractor. Use the valve installed on the bottom flange of the extractor to purge ethanol if present at the bottom of the extractor into a safety container. Typical parameters  are: Pressure = 300 bar  and Temperature about 60° C/140° F. The process is fully automatic, there is a sequence written in the program recipe to clean the extraction vessels in the same cleaning process. Separators are only partially cleaned by these procedures. Depending on the quality of the raw material, it may be possible you need to open and Clean Manually the inner wall of the vessels with ethanol and a brush. Check the inner wall of the separators after the automatic cleaning in order to check the status of each separator.

If they appear Yellow and Sticky, they will need to be cleaned manually.