About B/R Instrument

B/R Instrument was founded in 1966 by Roger Roark Sr. and Harry Brown. The name B/R comes from the first letter of each founder’s last name, Brown / Roark – B/R. Originally a manufacturer of general glassware, the company began to specialize in the manufacturing of spinning band distillation systems in 1968 under a DuPont patent.

From the beginning the company saw interest from both domestic and international customers.

B/R bought automation to the world of distillation in 1980 with the addition of our first programmer to the staff. The new automation greatly reduced the amount of operator attention needed for distillation along with the addition of important safety features.

In 1986 B/R saw the need for recycling solvents in histology laboratories. Solvent recycling helps hospitals and labs reduce their solvent wastes by 85%, reducing health care costs and environmental impact.

In 1991 B/R built a dedicated facility in Easton Maryland on the beautiful shores of the Chesapeake Bay to accommodate the need for larger production and office facilities. This dedicated facility allowed us to expand production, accommodate additional office staff and facilitate training programs for our customers and distributors.

In 1990 B/R expanded into the petroleum market, introducing crude oil distillation systems, followed by ASTM D1160 vacuum distillation models. During this time B/R also introduced mini and micro distillation systems for distilling amounts of crude oil as small as 7ml.

In 1995 B/R introduced a completely new set of solvent recyclers for the histology market made of metal. The all metal systems enhanced safety and durability. Around the same time the histology product line was expanded to include the first formalin recycler. Formalin recycling reduces formalin costs for hospitals and labs by 80%, improving the bottom line and the environment.

In 1997 B/R was an early adopter of integrating a PC into the control systems for distillation control.

In 2005 B/R expanded further into manufacturing distillation systems completely from stainless steel. The company began to offer custom designed pilot scale distillation systems.

In 2015 there was a sharp increase in the use of our spinning band distillation systems for the purification of cannabis oil and hemp oil. In 2016 the 9200 was introduced. This design offered significant improvements to producing high purity cannabinoid in the cannabis oil market.

Higher throughput cannabis/hemp oil distillation systems were introduced in 2018, keeping up with the growth in the marketplace.

2019 saw the introduction of crystallization equipment for making CBD isolate as well as winterization, decarbing and liquid/liquid extraction systems.

In 2020 B/R started selling solvent free THC remediation equipment for CBD oil.