A Diamond Springs manufacturing company that makes hemp processing machines to produce CBD has developed a process to remove the psychoactive compound THC from the final product.
Entexs Corp. is a 2019 startup that builds equipment that can process CBD from hemp at a rate of 20,000 pounds of plant material per day.
Its newest product is a separate module that can work in line with the company's processing equipment, or it can be fed separately and independently with customers' own extracted CBD oil, said spokeswoman Sheree Carella.
"At Entexs, our goal is to always be on the leading edge of remediation and extraction technologies. It's an especially exciting time as we introduce these advancements and have further disruptive technology on the horizon," said Entexs CEO Ali Rashid, in a news release.
The new THC removal equipment uses a proprietary process and a proprietary organic solvent to remove THC from CBD to an undetectable level, Carella said.
The removal is important for the industry because CBD products must contain no more than 0.3% THC to be federally compliant.
The cleaner the CBD extract is, the more it is worth, she said.
Entexs’s CBD extraction method loses less than 5% of the input CBD, which Carella said is far lower than other existing methods that can lose 10% to 25% of the input CBD.
“Yield loss is a big issue in the industry,” she said.
The company announced it was selling the new processing technology on Wednesday, and “our phones and email have been ringing off the hook,” Carella said.
The processing units start at $450,000 with the capacity to process 70 liters of crude per day. The company makes units large enough to process 450 liters per day.
Entexs has about 15 employees. Some of the founders had been working with extraction technology for years, and they designed the new equipment to increase quality and speed by developing and engineering a specialized system that features continuous feed and full automation.
Entexs's small hemp processing systems start at around $500,000 and the large systems sell for $6.8 million, but the prices can vary depending on site planning, certification, engineering training and custom features. The CBD purification equipment can be added to the hemp processing equipment and it also can operate fully automated, she said.
The company delivered its first hemp processing system last year during the pandemic. Potential customers are global, but the big markets so far are Alabama, Michigan and Oregon, as well as South America, Carella said.
Most companies that make this kind of equipment outsource components, Carella said. Entexs fabricates and engineers its systems using proprietary technology and intellectual property to build systems to order. They feature touch-screen controls and allow the user to extract crude CBD or distillates. The spent biomass can then be used for paper production or other products.
The hemp processing systems use ethanol as a solvent and then put distillates through a -80 degree Celsius chilling system to remove impurities, which stay with the spent biomass.
The company has a dealer agreement with San Diego-based Scientific Solutions Inc., a supplier of laboratory equipment to the hemp and cannabis industry.
