A client has requested we manufacture capsules containing their proprietary blend of supplements along with 10mg of D9 per capsule. This is relatively small order, 2000 Units or so, so all I was given by the client was a 100ct capsule filler. My plan of attack is to create an MCT oil solution that will come out to 100uL = 20mg D9. The capsules are large, however I need to leave room for their proprietary supplement blend which takes up a lot of space.
Here are the R&D results from my rudimentary first attempt eyeballing 2 drops of the solution( 22g of Distillate dissolved in 100ml of MCT.) from a 10ml syringe into the capsule.
Now either I messed up creating the formulation, or eye-balling two drops from a syringe into a capsule is far too inaccurate for this small of a dose. My solution was to order a micropipette. In theory, this would allow me to accurately dose each capsule with 50 microliters.
Is what I’m attempting even feasible? I tried to look into powdered D9 but did not have any luck. I got my hands on a powder(emulsion?) but it ended up containing more THCA than D9 and it was not concentrated enough. Are there any powdered forms of D9 that would be much better suited for this task I could acquire L2L in CA?
Is it possible to up your drops to 4 even 6 per capsule?
Also how are you mixing the D9 and MCT, are you homogenizing it? I know some say it is not necessary but I always did it. 180f mct / disty solution temp and a minute or so homogenize, depending on volume. 20 liters (10L disty / 10L mct) id do like ten minutes
Their blend is a mix of powdered supplements. I could probably get away with lowering their desired content of these in order to accommodate more drops. The powder ideally soaks up the small amount of MCT so that the likelihood of leakage is low(Gelatin capsules).
The D9 is thoroughly mixed with a mag stir & hot plate(because these batches are small scale for R&D, but I also have a powerful overhead stirrer that can mix larger batches of MCT and Dist.
Seems to me that a couple of things my be affecting this. First of all what was your 22g of distillate tested at? Unless it’s 100% THC then even 22g to 100ml will not give you 20mg D9. If it tested around 90% you’re looking at 198mg and the lower the potency of your distillate to start the less mg of D9 you’re going to have in your final solution.
This is a great second step to make sure you’re actually testing what you think you’re testing. Most of the time when we’re formulating and using regular pipettes a single drop will weigh at most .2g. That’s using terpenes so I imagine your MCT/Distillate blend will end up a little heavier.
Are you attempting to fill capsules with a liquid solution or press powder into pill form? Personally I would be aiming for the liquid filled capsules. If you can make an oil that is analytically 100uL/20mg then you should be able to incorporate their proprietary blend into your oil, fill into capsules and voila!
If you do end up finding powdered D9 be sure to let us know! But as far as I’m aware most of the powders out there right now are either THCA isolates or conversions. Good luck!
The Distillate tests at 91% D9 so I should be good on that front. The capsules are 00 Size and their blend is powder, unfortunately I cannot fill them solely with liquid or solely with powder. So it looks like it will have to be a mix of the two.
Interesting! So basically, this holds 1ml total and can dispense 50uL at a time? It’s cheaper than a quality micropipette, so it seems like this would be the best option so far.
So is it not feasible to create a nano-emulsifed THC solution and then vacuum spray dry it for a powdered THC product to mix with their blend so you are only filling the capsules with only powder? If you only need a small dose of THC per capsule then maybe a vacuum spray dried product would be suitable and more easily mixed into their proprietary blend and it could all fit into the capsule?
Is it not possible to atomize the distillate and spray it onto their proprietary blend to have a homogenous infused proprietary blended powder infused with THC?
I guess if it’s a one-off request then investing in this type of process or technology may not be ideal and it may just be a painful single batch run that you’ll have to manually inject your THC into each capsule.
I would use a coconut oil blend so that it’s not liquid at room temp, but liquid when you are working. If it’s such a small batch I’m sure that they are just getting gelatin capsules off Amazon, so you want to plan for them potentially not being high enough quality not to leak a liquid.
Yeah mct oil will end up leaking out of the capsules. Unrefined coconut oil is better for this.
Is the proprietary blend a powder blend? Is it homogenous?
I think if i were to try and tackle this, i would spread the blend over the 100 capsule maker, tamp it down, spread again and tamp down once more. After that go thru with a cart shooter and put some medicated unrefined coconut oil in there.
If that doesnt work, id probably start looking into powdered thc. It should just be maltodextrin mixed with d9 using a solvent, then spray vacced back down to a powder.
You can make ur own spray vacuum with a nozzle, pressure pump and any sort of vacuum chamber. Your gonna want to pull way more vac than u think u need, and dial down the incoming liquid to get it to devolitize mid air as it drops down from the nozzle
I’d try this out. Mix some THC with ethanol and then a suitable amount of some dry substrate like sugar or cornstarch or maltodextrin (you’ll need much more of the dry portion but if you’re only using 10mg what’s 100mg of some powder?). Blend it all well while letting ethanol evap until you have a dry powder. I don’t think you even need a spray dryer necessarily. Then get it tested (and test for homogeneity!) and fill the capsules appropriately.
I just made a second batch and dosed each capsule with a 100 microliters into the powder using a micropipette. Sending out the R&D tomorrow so we will see. If this doesn’t hit the necessary mg content, I will definitely be trying this next.
Update, I tried infusing distillate with cane sugar based on some of your suggestions and it seemed to create a usable powder.
I took 100g of sugar, mixed with 50ml of water and let boil until reaching 250 F. Upon reaching that temp, most of the water had boiled out and added a solution of distillate and ISO(Not ideal, but no one will be consuming so I used it as a stand-in for Ethanol) while spinning on the hot plate. I poured the molten mixture onto wax power and let cool in the freezer. Came back hours later and the sugar had fully recrystallized. I crushed up all the powder, mixed it thoroughly and here are the R&D results:
I performed the same steps today, but tripled the amount of distillate attempting to reach 100mg/g of THC/Sugar. It worked somewhat, but that amount of distillate clearly didn’t homogenize as well as the smaller amount. There is visible hotspots of gooey distillate in some areas. 50mg/g seems to a more likely choice. I also had the sugar tested for pesticides, solvents, heavy metals, etc as due diligence.
