May 23, 2025
Use of kratom has been common, in Southeast Asia, for centuries. However, it is only recently that its popularity has blossomed in the United States.
Kratom is an evergreen tree which grows in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand. The people there use its leaves, commonly called kratom, for use as a home remedy. They brew it into tea, chew it, or even consume it in powder form. It is popular for boosting energy, relieving pain, or as a mood lifter.
Today its popularity is soaring in the western world. Kratom is found being sold in the States in health food stores, vape shops, and even filling stations. It is also available online. Almost all of the kratom products being offered are made with extracts from the leaves, principally mitragynine and 7-hydroxymitragynine.
There is confusion and uncertainty about kratom, principally due to sparsity of scientific research. In general, kratom is regarded as an opioid-like substance. In low doses it is a stimulant used as an energy booster, making one more alert. But, in higher doses, it is more likely to be used to relieve pain and relieve anxiety. Controversially, it is used to ease the symptoms of quitting opioids, which carries the risk of addiction.
Vincent ran initial tests with kratom in 2019. We ran powdered kratom leaves in our screw presses in order to develop the presses suitable for recovery of solvent. The solvent is used to extract the valuable alkaloids. Recovery in extraction from Kratom leaves runs from 0.5% to 1.5% alkaloids.
Recovery of the alkaloids is a Chemical Engineer’s playground. Every customer we have seems to have developed his own tweaks to the process. But they all involve running kratom leaves, along with a solvent, through a screw press.
Most of our testing for this nascent industry has been with our Model CP-4 lab presses. Commercially, sales of the CP-10 screw presses have been the most successful. These will process from 400 to 500 kilos per hour of kratom leaves, along with the process solvents. Below is a photo of such an installation.
Here are links to kratom videos on the Vincent YouTube channel:
2025 KRATOM PROCESSING – Video link: https://youtu.be/sR7_Z60Cd0w
2020 KRATOM II – Video link: https://youtu.be/BLzDTSp-2po
KRATOM – 8 TESTS – Video link: https://youtu.be/hsnWHJcyssA
