from a chemistry standpoint, saturating those double bonds to slow in-vivo degradation/elimination, combined with added sugar moieties to give water solubility seem like very reasonable tweaks. They also seem like crossing the line into the realm of big pharma as far as regulatory issues go.
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and don’t worry about the NDA, I promise we’ll forget it ever happened 
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Distillate is a good target to reintroduce the carboxyl group. Especially if all the cannabinoids can be isomerized back into d9 thc before hand.
Yeah?
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- What is our overall purpose of REcarboxylating?
- I disagree, distillate would not be the best form, thc isolate would be the best assuming this is what we are trying to achieve in the end of the process is THCA. The reason for isolate over distillate is more control and you wont be carboxyling other molecules or causing side reactions from the harsh conditions needed to perform the reaction.
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doesn’t one get THC isolate by crystallizing THCA and decarbing?
if that is the proposed route, even the loon who likes going in circles is going to ask why?
did I mention I love this place 
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Lol yea but is there a particular purpose for it or do people just want to do it for fun?
Can you not isolate thc when not in its acetate form? Ie: when it is decarbed?
I assume that’s a typo, and you’re not trying to suggest making THC-acetate in order to crystallize out of say water as an isolation method 
my reading has not yielded a method for crystallizing THC. I have to admit I haven’t explicitly gone looking for it.
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Thc distillate is an isolated cannabinoid. Most thc isolate you see is in fact thca cryatals. I don’t see where you’d add the carboxylic group to? Or the need to add it?
The purpose of adding the group to a distillate product is to grow bulk lots of more desirable crystals . These have a much higher market value than the distillate, adding the carboxylic group also increases the weight of the product. One gram of distillate will produce more than one gram of thca isolate.
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That part
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right…diamonds are precious. even sans sauce.
although making diamonds and decarbing seems like less work than distillation at some level. remind me again why we’re here?
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Thc distillate is somewhat pure but i have never seen “thc distillate” as a 99+ thc mix usually there are several other compounds in the mix as well as 80% thc.
You have the propensity to carboxylate several other compounds and cannabinoids in the distillate mix.
The overall purpose of this process is to increase the amount of crystals able to be grown from decarbed thc distillate correct?
Can you be more specific on your last statement on yields?
In my experience after the carboxyl group leaves thc has no method of attaching itself to one another. So adding the group is the only way you could actually achieve crystalline growth.
Your yield question: the carboxyl group has mass, adding it back would increase the mass of each molecule. Try this as an experement, take some thca isolate record the weight, decarbed it and record the weight. Note the difference.
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Yes of course when decarboxylating the CO2 will not attach to other molecules most likely, however when adding CO2 back onto a mix of molecules contained in thc distillate you run a risk of carboxylating other molecules in that mix.
Right right this would add an additional 44 g/mol onto the thc molecule.
Have people been able to crystallize thc when it is decarboxylated or is that the problem we are trying to solve? Because if we can isolate thc in its decarboxylated form we should do that then REcarboxylate to avoid the risk of side products/reactions.
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I beleive @Soxhlet meant that once decarbed, THC looses it’s attraction to other THC molecules. aka “it won’t crsytallize”.
yeah, I think so. I have not explicitly scoured the interwebs, but I have not stumbled across it, and that does seem to be the consensus of the opinions I’ve read.
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I see! That would make more sense.
If we cannot crystallize thc in its decarboxylated form I would suggest trying to attach a sugar onto the free alcohol with a 1:1 molar ratio of sugar to thc. Purify this reaction. Crystallize. Remove the sugar then REcarboxylate if necessary!
Or instead of sugars, could use a sulfate/phosphate group, may be even easier to attach and remove!
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What sugar structure would you suggest? I have a variety of cyclodextrins, dextrose, sucrose, fructose.
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I would start with Dextrose, mannose. Simple 6 member ring sugars. I may have to look into some carbohydrate literature if you are really serious about trying this im super down. I would steer you away from fructose because it is a non-reducing sugar.
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these guys are using biology rather than chemistry, but the end point is presumably similar…
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