Home Cosmetic Science Talk Formulating General Off Topic Filtering an Oleo resin

  • Filtering an Oleo resin

    Posted by graillotion on January 11, 2021 at 8:03 pm

    My next project will require making some oleo resins that need to be filtered.  After one run with a funnel and coffee filter paper, I have concluded I need an upgrade.

    Two questions:

    1) What is an ideal setup for filtering something thick like syrup (Jojoba + lots of dissolved solids)?  (Yes I filter while still hot, so at lowest possible viscosity.)

    From my preliminary research, I like the idea of a Buchner filter, with a hand operated vacuum (as I do not have a full lab set-up).

    But open to any ideas…that was just a preliminary search.

    2) Filter media…. I am not sure what micron filter media to purchase with whatever system I go with.  I think some of the solids passing through is OK, so do not need mega filtration.  I don’t want to get so fine, that filter is almost immediately plugged.  With coffee filter…I wildly guessed…that I was filtering out about 1% of total product…which was fine…..but not efficient.  I had to switch to a 2nd filter paper half way through an 88 ml batch.

    Cafe33 replied 3 years, 2 months ago 2 Members · 1 Reply
  • 1 Reply
  • Cafe33

    Member
    January 12, 2021 at 6:48 am

    Hand operated vacuum pump will be fairly weak for a hard to filter item, unless perhaps on a small scale it would be sufficient.  I would use coarse/fast filter paper with buchner funnel and possibly a filtering aid like celite might be required. If you plan on filtering hot, make sure you use a ceramic buchner funnel and not plastic. You would be surprised how some of these strong “lab grade” (ie lab priced) plastic buchner funnels start to bend and distort with temperatures as low as 45C. You might lose some product in the celite if your vacuum is too weak but that should be okay by the sound of your post .

    That’s how we did it in the lab to filter even something as small as carbon in a high density liquid (1.25g/ml or so).

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