Long time visitor to the site, first time poster. I work for a cannabis laboratory. Recently, with new regulations, all vaporizer oil must be tested after already being filled into carts. A few of our cartridges came back testing positive for lead. For clarity’s sake, we fill with distillate and a 7% cut of Abstrax terpenes, nothing else.
I have read anecdotal information suggesting that this could be due to acidic terpenes and/or cannabinoids leaching the toxic metal. Because we fill with distillate, no acidic cannabinoids are left, and so the culprit must be from the terpenes. Unfortunately, I haven’t found much information to support them having strong acidic character. I majored in O-chem but it has been a long time since I’ve practiced any of the nitty gritty, and am having trouble identifying which protons would be likely culprits for donation. I would assume alchoholic terpenoids are more acidic than their purely hydrocarbon counterparts, but the only information I can find still gives them a relatively high pKa (in the range of 15-20). I suppose this could be enough to leach lead into the material but I am not sure. Does anyone have any first hand knowledge or references that can support this?
Furthermore, just out of pure curiosity, how dangerous is it to have lead in the oil? From what I was reading, lead puts off fumes at around 900F and all carts should not get close to that temperature. Would the lead even make it into our lungs and pose a health risk? A couple of caveats: Firstly, I think that number assumes that the lead is in elemental form (or maybe an oxidized form, its unclear from the source). If the lead is forming organometallic complexes, however, then the vaporization point might be different. Secondly, I am assuming a perfect cart that doesn’t leak into your mouth when you inhale. Obviously, if that shit is getting into your mouth and ingested, that’s a huge problem. Clearly no cart is perfect, and therefore there is always a possibility of ingesting whatever metals leach out. This paragraph’s question is completely hypothetical. Ultimately, no lead should be present for the safest possible product.
Let me know what you geniuses think (and hopefully you can help remind me of some O-chem knowledge). Let’s make this industry as safe a freaking possible!
I’d look more closely at your hardware than your oil pH. If there’s no lead to begin with, it can’t leech.
Check out vapor state pH as a topic - liquid pH doesn’t always equate to vapor state ph. Also know that because terpenes are most commonly oil, finding a pH will be an indirect measurement of the oil in a water solution.
Unfortunately, I have no control over the suppliers we use. I can make suggestions to management but I have no decision-making power. Currently, our supplier claims that no lead is used in any of their products.
Sorry, that reply was supposed to be for the comment below. I will definitely look into vapor state pH, though it is unclear to me how that would affect testing, since leaching of lead would occur in the liquid state. Finally, yeah, pH is used for aqueous solutions which is why I referenced pKa values specifically.
This is honestly a hardware issue. Have a lab do a nitric acid digestion of your hardware and find out exactly how much lead is in it. Remember that’s it’s possible for lead to come from the glass components. I have tested carts 6 months after filling that still pass the CA requirements. Unfortunately the performance of those carts was terrible.
This is a good idea. Definitely something we considered, but we were having trouble figuring out how they would do a test like that. Corroding the whole thing down in nitric acid seems like a solid start though. Not sure if our testing facility has procedures for something like that but we will give them a call. Thanks
Ah, because I use these products as well and am genuinely interested. Not my exact job but definitely could be my job in the future. Plus, as typical, management is asking the lab people to do the legwork on the research of what could be causing this.
The typical workaround for this issue is filling the carts and sending them for rush testing the same day. That’s the SOP of most of the big cart manufacturers here in CA. Sadly most of the carts on the shelf would fail if they were randomly pulled and tested 6 months after being filled.
Does anyone have specific/direct information on my questions? Are terpenes or terpenoids acidic enough to leach lead and if so, can the temperatures used in a vaporizer even cause harmful lead vapors/fumes/particulates?
Pretty gross that’s the SOP for california carts. We got some of ours tested that had been sitting for a couple of months and only 2/13 came back testing positive for lead. Honestly, it could be an issue with the testing lab as they consistently give us wildly varying results. Unfortunately the number of testing facilities in this state approved for Adult-Use is quite limited and we do not have a lot of other options. We are having trouble finding a lab able/willing to test an empty cart
From what I understand, distillate carts with no terpenes can still leech metals from the cartridge itself. If the distillate tests free of heavy metals without having been in a cartridge, but, fails after being inside the cart, your issues most certainly lie in your hardware.
I don’t use distillate, but can confirm full spectrum non distilled extracts leach metals. I’ve never looked in to the reasons why. As far as the heavy metals being a health concern, I believe they are. I can’t force someone to use a cart at a set temperature. I’ve encountered customers ripping our carts at 30 watts. I bet the actual coil wire is hot enough to cause issues. Don’t necessarily look for cannabis labs to test empty hardware. Any lab with an XRF can do it. We test all new orders of incoming hardware with a lab that mainly tests paint.
Thanks for the info. True you cannot guarantee what temps people are using. That question was more for my own curiosity, I definitely do not want to sell any carts that have appreciable amounts of lead in them, regardless of whether that lead is actually being vaporized or not. On testing, we will look into labs with XRF capabilities. Hadn’t even heard of that analytical technique before. I appreciate the information!
We definitely know the problem is in the hardware and not our material. Every sample of distillate (with terpenes, without the cartridge) we have sent out for 2 years has passed Heavy Metals testing with no contaminants detected. I am just wondering if it’s specific acidic terpenes that are of issue or just the nature of the beast when filling any carts that potentially have lead.
That’s very odd. Have you reached out to Abstrax or CCell?
I’ve seen strange stuff with pods. Are you using glass CCells, resin CCells, or darts? I’ve seen more than one pod completely split in half and it was from a licensed producer that was known for adding too much terps to their oil. You could smell a disgusting amount of linalool if you even walked by a tote of their “Grand Daddy Purple”. It might not be a ph issue necessarily but I’ve got a theory on something else going on.
