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Mister E
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Cannabinoid concentration
Living in a state where I can legally work with cannabinoids makes this an exciting time.
I'm getting read to do some short path distillation using d-limonenne as my solvent. I know it is possible to isolate cannabinoids using this method
however due to the secretive nature of the cannabis world there is little in the way of actual documentation of this.
I see a few problems that I'm sure I will have to overcome.
First up is the questionable information regarding the most well known cannabiniod, tetrahydrocannabinol or THC.
The commonly excepted BP for THC is 157C however pubchem lists the BP for Drobinol (brand name Marinol, pharmaceutical grade THC) as 392F (200C) at
0.02 mm of Hg
https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/Dronabinol#section...
If the pubchem is correct then the true BP of THC would be 514C not 157C. However this huge difference between temperatures makes me question the
BP's for all cannabinoids.
What I do know is yhe BP for d-limonenne. That is well know to be 176C.
Many people say it's overly hard or impossible to use limonene to extract cannabinoids because of their similar BP's but one person in Canada, Horatio
Delbert, claims to not only do so regularly but has won several awards for his product.
Now Horatio has both answered some questions I have and added many more. He does not seem to be aware of the discrepancies in BP's nor is he willing
to share detailed information. As I said the cannabis world is rather tight lipped. However he has made mention of a few things that expect I will
have to figure out on my own shortly.
I know he uses a rotovap, I'm just starting out and only have a stir mantle. I'm hopeful I will be able to at least provide proof of concept with
the mantle.
He has mentioned azeotropic distillation as well as having to add water to his rotovap. Could water form an azotrotic bond with limonene and reduce
it's boiling point? If so does anyone know the calculation needed to determine the new BP?
I hope to be able to post my experiments here and have others who understand the science behind it do peer reviews of my work. As more and more of
the world legalize cannabis use we need to have firm scientific methods to make sure concentrate products are not put on the market that are unsafe.
The current levels of secrecy around production has led to too many amateurs who are not able to learn how to progress.
If anyone has any information they wish to share or any questions for me please do so. I will be starting my extraction as soon as I receive a new
boiling flask, hopefully within a week.
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Tsjerk
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This might be true for the cannabis world, but it is not for the scientific world. Cannabis and its compounds are very well studied because of the
obvious. Try to have a look around here:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/
Usually it is a good start; not all new articles are in their databases, but after a year or so most articles end up in there. Material and methods is
often a rich source for protocols.
I found scientific articles completely un-understandable at first, but just hang on and keep on reading, at some point you will get the hang of it.
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Crowfjord
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Mood: Ever so slowly crystallizing...
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I believe limonene is steam distillable whereas THC is not, so steam distilling would probably separate the mixture. Regular distillation would
probably work too, since the actual boiling point of THC is much higher than 157 °C.
After cannabis became legal in my state at the request of a friend I made a distilled extract for him from his home-grown plant material. I first
extracted the coarsely ground buds by gently swirling in -12°C 99% isopropanol (3x100 mL or so for about 14g IIRC). The solution was filtered,
distilled until most of the solvent was collected, then the last solvent removed under aspirator vacuum and heating with a hot water bath until all
traces of solvent were removed. The light brown extract thus acquired was then vacuum distilled through a short path at about 1 mm Hg. A clear
colorless oil came over around 180-200°C. It was very viscous but not quite solid, and yellowed and darkened over time. I don't know about THC
concentration, but it was judged to be very very potent.
[Edited on 11-3-2018 by Crowfjord]
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violet sin
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Pacific northwest eh? I'm in California and adult use is legal. I however don't know the legality of making your own concentrate. As far as I can
tell, medical patients are allowed to use safe extraction methods and adults in general can use/have up to 8g, but nothing about making it as a
private citizen. You surely couldn't transfer it for any kind of trade or sale b/c of the huge fines for unlicensed manufacture, transportation,
distribution and sale of a controlled substance(at least not here). They would bag and tag your ass quickly given the chance, with prejudice since
there are legal routes.
I'd say it is pretty weird change of pace. A friend just remarked only two days ago "it's so strange to be able to drive to town and buy pot as if
your getting a gallon of milk... Crazy". Still not allowed to smoke in public or drive of course, but if it's in your pocket no problem.
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Texium
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Thread Moved
10-3-2018 at 18:53 |
Morgan
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Off topic but just wondering if this is dramatically effective or not?
https://therooster.com/blog/keep-calm-and-listen-neil-youngs...
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Tsjerk
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https://sci-hub.tw
Copy the DOI number from any article too here in order to avoid paying for articles. Maybe not completely legal, but hé, we are not making any money
out of it anyway right?
[Edited on 11-3-2018 by Tsjerk]
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ave369
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What are you trying to make: cannabinoids as chemicals of reasonable purity for experiments, or cannabis concentrate for personal use?
Smells like ammonia....
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NEMO-Chemistry
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Critical extraction with CO2 is the most effective and safest route, plums use Butane but CO2 gives a very clean extraction and is generally the
preferred method. There is a forum named after a date in March (cant remember it all now!!) but some date connected with cannabis, the forum is an
excellent source of information.
Where i live its totally illegal so obviously the above info came to me via someone else dream who passed it on to someone else and i then overheard
it etc....... 
[Edited on 11-3-2018 by NEMO-Chemistry]
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brubei
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Here again, critical CO2 is the best known method. Extraction result in a clear oily wax.
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Tsjerk
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Are there any examples of amateurs (ones that don't buy a ready to use system) getting a super-critical CO2 extraction done?
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Sidmadra
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OP I think you are getting some things mixed up.
The procedure you describe with the limonene sounds like it is being used as an azeotropic distillation agent. In simple terms, it is being used to
entrain the terpenes and carry them over out of the mixture. This allows higher boiling terpenes to be removed without raising the heat too much. In a
rotovap, this would likely be very efficient. Since rotovaps have such a high surface area of evaporation, and tend to have lower separation
coefficients, this method could quickly leave behind relatively pure cannabinoids in the evaporation flask. You'd probably still want to recrystallize
them in the end though. To reiterate, in this procedure, the cannabinoids stay in the evaporation flask, you are not distilling those over.
A rotovap is doubly useful in this regard because they often have the ability to continually add solvent as the evaporation progresses, without having
to take the apparatus apart or remove much of the vacuum.
Some notes, you would definitely need to do this under a vacuum, and I definitely I wouldn't do this procedure with a heating mantle, as it relies
upon controlling the heat source well, so it'd probably be more wise to use an oil bath.
This of course isn't the only way to obtain pure cannabinoids. They could probably be isolated very easily by recrystallizing from the right solvent
combination. Since terpenes tend to be liquid and having lower boiling points than the desired cannabinoids, they should be able to be easily
separated by crystallization, owing to their higher solubility.
I miss living in a medical state and being able to try things like this. Personally, I don't know why people want to remove the terpenes. The
terprenes are primarily what give the strain its unique profile and effects.
[Edited on 12-3-2018 by Sidmadra]
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Morgan
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Quote: Originally posted by Sidmadra  | OP I think you are getting some things mixed up.
The procedure you describe with the limonene sounds like it is being used as an azeotropic distillation agent. In simple terms, it is being used to
entrain the terpenes and carry them over out of the mixture. This allows higher boiling terpenes to be removed without raising the heat too much. In a
rotovap, this would likely be very efficient. Since rotovaps have such a high surface area of evaporation, and tend to have lower separation
coefficients, this method could quickly leave behind relatively pure cannabinoids in the evaporation flask. You'd probably still want to recrystallize
them in the end though. To reiterate, in this procedure, the cannabinoids stay in the evaporation flask, you are not distilling those over.
A rotovap is doubly useful in this regard because they often have the ability to continually add solvent as the evaporation progresses, without having
to take the apparatus apart or remove much of the vacuum.
Some notes, you would definitely need to do this under a vacuum, and I definitely I wouldn't do this procedure with a heating mantle, as it relies
upon controlling the heat source well, so it'd probably be more wise to use an oil bath.
This of course isn't the only way to obtain pure cannabinoids. They could probably be isolated very easily by recrystallizing from the right solvent
combination. Since terpenes tend to be liquid and having lower boiling points than the desired cannabinoids, they should be able to be easily
separated by crystallization, owing to their higher solubility.
I miss living in a medical state and being able to try things like this. Personally, I don't know why people want to remove the terpenes. The
terprenes are primarily what give the strain its unique profile and effects.
[Edited on 12-3-2018 by Sidmadra] |
Might the terpenes in beer/hops have any marginal effects if indeed the terpines modulate paranoia/anxiety?
Another curious tidbit (if true). Not really a scientific source and all.
"Oh the other hand, some terpenes life Myrcene from mangoes seem to turbocharge THC, which could be a good or bad thing. Possible one's effective
dose might be reduced."
https://mmjdoctoronline.com/health-news/black-peppercan-cure...
[Edited on 12-3-2018 by Morgan]
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NEMO-Chemistry
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CO2 super critical is really easy at home, a plastic tube used to clean aquarium gravel, a CO2 cylidar with the tube going to the bottom so it makes
dry ice, cap off both ends the plastic tube, one end make loads of 1mm holes and the other make one hole with a barbed pipe fitting.
Fill plastic tube with the erb and fill tube with liquid CO2, let it all find its way out the little holes (put a bowl under it). Simples and cheap,
its done alot with Lighter gas in tins but dont do that!! really bad fire hazard in my dream.
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OldNubbins
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What kind of plastic tube should I use to hold roughly 73 atm. of pressure? "Little holes" and "super critical" don't sound like they go hand-in-hand
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Mister E
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| Quote: Originally posted by Tsjerk |
This might be true for the cannabis world, but it is not for the scientific world. Cannabis and its compounds are very well studied because of the
obvious. Try to have a look around here:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/
Usually it is a good start; not all new articles are in their databases, but after a year or so most articles end up in there. Material and methods is
often a rich source for protocols.
I found scientific articles completely un-understandable at first, but just hang on and keep on reading, at some point you will get the hang of it.
|
Sadly thanks to very repressive regimes of yore even the scientific data is often contradictory. But I'll dig through the link you sent and see if
there is anything decent on the subject however the discrepancies around the BP I mentioned in my OP do not come from the grower world but from
reputable scientific sources.
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Mister E
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| Quote: Originally posted by Crowfjord | I believe limonene is steam distillable whereas THC is not, so steam distilling would probably separate the mixture. Regular distillation would
probably work too, since the actual boiling point of THC is much higher than 157 °C.
After cannabis became legal in my state at the request of a friend I made a distilled extract for him from his home-grown plant material. I first
extracted the coarsely ground buds by gently swirling in -12°C 99% isopropanol (3x100 mL or so for about 14g IIRC). The solution was filtered,
distilled until most of the solvent was collected, then the last solvent removed under aspirator vacuum and heating with a hot water bath until all
traces of solvent were removed. The light brown extract thus acquired was then vacuum distilled through a short path at about 1 mm Hg. A clear
colorless oil came over around 180-200°C. It was very viscous but not quite solid, and yellowed and darkened over time. I don't know about THC
concentration, but it was judged to be very very potent.
[Edited on 11-3-2018 by Crowfjord] |
Nice, short path purification of a RSO. Sounds like you were making a version of the product being marketed in Colorado as "the clear"
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Mister E
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| Quote: Originally posted by violet sin | Pacific northwest eh? I'm in California and adult use is legal. I however don't know the legality of making your own concentrate. As far as I can
tell, medical patients are allowed to use safe extraction methods and adults in general can use/have up to 8g, but nothing about making it as a
private citizen. You surely couldn't transfer it for any kind of trade or sale b/c of the huge fines for unlicensed manufacture, transportation,
distribution and sale of a controlled substance(at least not here). They would bag and tag your ass quickly given the chance, with prejudice since
there are legal routes.
I'd say it is pretty weird change of pace. A friend just remarked only two days ago "it's so strange to be able to drive to town and buy pot as if
your getting a gallon of milk... Crazy". Still not allowed to smoke in public or drive of course, but if it's in your pocket no problem.
|
Every state has there own set of rules. I'm able to grow smoke and do whatever except sell with my own stuff here. The state limits commercial
production to "butane, CO2, and any other solvent the MCB (marijuana control board) approves in the future".
CO2 does not make a decent shatter. You can get honey oil and pre-loaded cartridges but nothing resembling a decent dab unless it has gone through
further processing. Also Supercritical systems start in the mid 5 digit range.
Butane has the obvious issues with hydrocarbons and some peoples refusals to have anything to do with them. his goes so far as to there being
lighters that have a piece of hemp wick attached so you use the lighter to light the wick then the wick to light your weed.
I want to follow in he footsteps of the few how have made LHO shatter. I know there are limonene isolates that reduce it to 99% pure THCa and while I
would like to be able to do that my main goal is to produce a hydrocarbon free shatter that contains a decent terp profile. If this ends up by using
steam distillation to create full profile terp solutions and reintroducing it after my LHO shatter has been vac purged so be it.
After I have my legal home pilot plant running I will take it before the MCB and get the approved to move forward with a legal commercial operation.
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Mister E
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| Quote: Originally posted by ave369 | | What are you trying to make: cannabinoids as chemicals of reasonable purity for experiments, or cannabis concentrate for personal use?
|
Yes. I would love to be able to create pure refined cannabinoids of a large variety to experiment with as so little has researched so far beyond THC
and CBD. Also I want to create cannabis concentrate that is free of petrochemicals and can be added to the list of approved commercial methods.
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Mister E
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| Quote: Originally posted by Sidmadra | OP I think you are getting some things mixed up.
The procedure you describe with the limonene sounds like it is being used as an azeotropic distillation agent. In simple terms, it is being used to
entrain the terpenes and carry them over out of the mixture. This allows higher boiling terpenes to be removed without raising the heat too much. In a
rotovap, this would likely be very efficient. Since rotovaps have such a high surface area of evaporation, and tend to have lower separation
coefficients, this method could quickly leave behind relatively pure cannabinoids in the evaporation flask. You'd probably still want to recrystallize
them in the end though. To reiterate, in this procedure, the cannabinoids stay in the evaporation flask, you are not distilling those over.
A rotovap is doubly useful in this regard because they often have the ability to continually add solvent as the evaporation progresses, without having
to take the apparatus apart or remove much of the vacuum.
Some notes, you would definitely need to do this under a vacuum, and I definitely I wouldn't do this procedure with a heating mantle, as it relies
upon controlling the heat source well, so it'd probably be more wise to use an oil bath.
This of course isn't the only way to obtain pure cannabinoids. They could probably be isolated very easily by recrystallizing from the right solvent
combination. Since terpenes tend to be liquid and having lower boiling points than the desired cannabinoids, they should be able to be easily
separated by crystallization, owing to their higher solubility.
I miss living in a medical state and being able to try things like this. Personally, I don't know why people want to remove the terpenes. The
terprenes are primarily what give the strain its unique profile and effects.
[Edited on 12-3-2018 by Sidmadra] |
So your suggesting the Limonene forms an azotropic bond with the terpenes and helps in removing them to purify the final product?
I know the initial extraction from raw plant material is being done under vacuum with limonene.
Furthermore there is a recrystallizing method referred to as "winterization" using ethanol. I also know this is being done to the extract after the
limonene is removed.
I agree with the idea of keeping terpenes in he mix as much as possible and plan on experimenting with steam distillation of terpenes separately so
that I can reintroduce a full profile after the concentrate is purged.
I know a rotovap would be a huge help. It's at the top of the list of things I want to add. I have a mantle and I know it was done with a mantle
before however it seems to be much harder. that's okay, I'll put in the hard work with what I have to form my proof of concept.
Yes everything will be done under vacuum. Both my fractional distillation and a purge in a vac chamber after.
And yes my plan was to distill off the limonene from the THC not the other way around despite the claim from some sources that THC has a lower BP than
Limonene.
[Edited on 13-3-2018 by Mister E]
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Mister E
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| Quote: Originally posted by NEMO-Chemistry | CO2 super critical is really easy at home, a plastic tube used to clean aquarium gravel, a CO2 cylidar with the tube going to the bottom so it makes
dry ice, cap off both ends the plastic tube, one end make loads of 1mm holes and the other make one hole with a barbed pipe fitting.
Fill plastic tube with the erb and fill tube with liquid CO2, let it all find its way out the little holes (put a bowl under it). Simples and cheap,
its done alot with Lighter gas in tins but dont do that!! really bad fire hazard in my dream. |
What you speak of is known as open blasting. While it does work with butane (your "lighter gas) it does not work with CO2 as there is no way to put
the CO2 under the pressure needed for it to reach a supercritical state and effectively strip cannabinoids.
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ave369
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| Quote: Originally posted by Mister E | I want to create cannabis concentrate that is free of petrochemicals and can be added to the list of approved commercial methods.
|
With this I can help. Use extraction with liquified gases. The industrial method is using CO2, but this requires high pressure. For home lab, butane
is the most convenient gas. It remains liquid at relatively high temperatures at standard pressure yet completely boils off, not leaving any
hydrocarbons behind.
Treat cannabis with liquid butane at lowered temperatures or elevated pressure. Once the extraction is complete, lower pressure or raise the temp, the
butane will completely evaporate, leaving you with a viscous concentrate that could be used for both personal use and further purification.
Smells like ammonia....
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Mister E
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My last package showed up today but sadly one piece is broken =( so it's another week or so now till I'm ready to begin but I will check back in and
post updates of my work soon.
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Mister E
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| Quote: Originally posted by ave369 | | Quote: Originally posted by Mister E | I want to create cannabis concentrate that is free of petrochemicals and can be added to the list of approved commercial methods.
|
With this I can help. Use extraction with liquified gases. The industrial method is using CO2, but this requires high pressure. For home lab, butane
is the most convenient gas. It remains liquid at relatively high temperatures at standard pressure yet completely boils off, not leaving any
hydrocarbons behind.
Treat cannabis with liquid butane at lowered temperatures or elevated pressure. Once the extraction is complete, lower pressure or raise the temp, the
butane will completely evaporate, leaving you with a viscous concentrate that could be used for both personal use and further purification.
|
I want to avoid butane. There are already a handful of labs here manufacturing with butane. I've seen the test result, every one of them has
residual butane let over. The states requirement of a concentrate "passing" a residual solvent test is not the same as it having no hydrocarbons
left behind.
My goal is to re-create the LHO (Limonene Hash Oil) product that is manufactured in the British Columbia area. Outside of that one lab I do not know
of any commercial LHO manufactures. Thus the hard time finding reliable information unlike BHO where there is a ton of information and relatively
inexpensive closed loop machines that are shipped out as turn key operations.
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Bert
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Mood: " I think we are all going to die. I think that love is an illusion. We are flawed, my darling".
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| Quote: | | For home lab, butane is the most convenient gas. It remains liquid at relatively high temperatures at standard pressure yet completely boils off,
not leaving any hydrocarbons behind. |
Technical butane is NOT a food and drug grade material. The cheap stuff happy home hash oil extractors frequently use is contaminated with various
oily hydrocarbon crap, which does not boil off into the atmosphere so readily. Even the slightly better stuff some cigarette lighter companies tout as
not wrecking the electrical ignition systems of fancy lighters is nothing you want contaminants of in your lungs.
I use butane for stage flame effects, from what I have learned maintaining the ignition systems and burners, I wouldn't be using a non FDA tested grey
market product that began with a cheap butane for extraction. Cheap, easy, good: choose any two, as usual.
I have no idea what grades are available, or what contaminants will be found in cheap d-limonene. Hope being an early adopter is not something you
will regret later in life. Lungs: Only two issued per customer.
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NEMO-Chemistry
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I have seen it done using a soda stream CO2 bottle, it didnt work as well as a large CO2 cylinder but it worked fine.
The only time i seen CO2 not work was with a CO2 cylinder used for Beer in pubs, these dont have the tube inside the cylinder going to the bottom,
they take the gas from the head space.
This isnt my thing, but I can assure you i seen an amber potent liquid drip like nectar using CO2. And i am told (yes seriously i havnt tried the
stuff) that it smokes better than Butane extracted.
Dont shoot the messenger, i am only telling you what is apparently a very common practice in some areas of the town nearest to me. Known locally as
weed world .
The other one i have heard about but not seen was the cream fluffer gas stuff, I think they were on about Laughing gas but hard to tell with that
particular group of....acquaintances
[Edited on 13-3-2018 by NEMO-Chemistry]
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