So, I got back a test that 1. was really low on potency (73% tac, 50% thc d9) 2. had 20% conversion to d8.
I’m assuming my ph was way off as I didn’t test for that cause it’s never really been an issue before. But there were no powders in the boiling flask and I used less powders than I normally use. The solvent used is heptane denatured ethanol. I’ve normally always used 190 proof, but the new location was using this and so that is what was on hand.
What powders did you use?
Bentonite, hardwood activated carbon from carbon chemistry plus de. All filtered cold.
It only takes a little bit of bentonite making it past the filter and in to the bf to cause that
A 20% conversion? Seriously?
Sure, both t5 and t41 will do it even in small amounts
That’s odd, cause I’ve been using both of those and I’ve never seen this happen before. Seems like I’m going to have to change the filter setup so this doesn’t occur again.
Is this using an SPD? Was there any blues/purples coming before the main fraction? If so, some powder got through into your flask. A simple PH imbalance would not have caused these types of numbers. In my experience, PH being off only matters when it’s drastic, and just running product through a powder is not enough to change PH. I used to put 1% by volume citric acid in alcohol that had crude dissolved in it, filter it, distill it without a PH balance, and would only see a couple % at most conversion to D8.
I saw no blue or purple, only the green fraction just before mains. Nothing out of the ordinary for the run, other than I’ve gone up to a 20l and by doing so have had to turn the temp up to 210c in the bf, cause the setup is using gl14 connections, so the vac is throttled like crazy. Other than that the run was done over several days because I couldn’t do it all in one go, due to it being so slow.
Citric acid is very weak in comparison to the acid used to activate bentonite. 1% t5 in a boiling flask will do exactly what happened to op. I’ve never tried as small an amount of t41, but it has a lower ph than t5 and most likely requires even less to cause isomerization.
Now throw in a bad vacuum and cooling it down and letting it sit til the next day more than once. I’ve gotten 18% d8 with 1% t5 in the bf and that was run straight off. I can only imagine the result if that was cooked at 210 for hours, cooled, heated again for hours, cooled again, and then heated again for hours.
Your starting material could have been treated with something (on purpose or accidental).
This has happened to me (except 1% THC lol)
Ok, at 1% I’d understand, but there wouldn’t have been more than a couple of grams of leaked powders into the bf cause the filter. 1% is 200g. I would have noticed if that much got through.
Actually about half that unless you have figured out how to cram 20l in a 20l still.
The prolonged run time, repeated heating and cooling, bad vacuum, any possible leakage of powders to the BF, as well as possible issues with your starting biomass are all possible causes especially when all are combined together.
Gl14 for the vacuum on a 20l still is a bad idea. Get that upgraded asap
Same happened to me. AC scrub in ethanol at 50C, filtered, distilled and got like 75% d8. Now I don’t scrub anything that will be distilled. Never checked pH before distilling tho.
Yeah, true. It’s only half. I’m trying to get the HB setup from dabs, waiting for the higher ups atm. So I’m on that. Not going to do anymore runs with the gl14s.
Yeah, that’s one reason I’ve be cold filtering now. Never seen this much conversion before regardless of hot scrub, so I was confused, but now it’s making sense.
As stated above its residual getting into your product from whatever the media was washed with from the factory which is usually acidic.
So since it’s white powder and the bentonite is beige the only thing I used that is white is the diatomaceous earth that we stopped using as soon as we saw the deposits.