How are you ?
Any sop on cbn-d ?
My next mission hhc and cbn-d
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Is it just me or is there going to be a big increase in demand after this dies down?
Scientists using electrochemistry to oxidize thc. Has anyone tried electrochemical conversions?
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I’ve been wondering about that. I know very little about organic electrochemistry.
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If I had the time I would be working with one of these https://www.ika.com/en/Products-Lab-Eq/Electrochemistry-Kit-csp-516/ElectraSyn-20-pro-Package-cpdt-40003261/
Thing about electrochem is there has been a lack of standardized bench equipment for R/D, The ElectraSyn seems to be the first bench kit for this kind of work. Not that expensive either considering what one could do with it!
Garg and co workers developed an electrochemical oxidation to convert Delta-9 to delta 9 quinone, not to cbn. The quinone is useful because it has an explicit and measurable change in photophysical and electrochemical properties. Considering now pot breathalyzers cost alot because they are most analyzed via mass spec this may provide a cheaper uv-vis based analytical technique to detect the quinone.
I will quote the authors in the org lett paper on the limitations of these experiments. “Our studies have shown that Δ9-THC (1) undergoes facile oxidation to its p-quinone counterpart, Δ9-THCQ (2). In turn, 2 displays dramatic differences in photophysical and redox properties. Moreover, we have found both chemical and electrochemical transformations can be employed for the oxidation, with the latter performing more efficiently and providing an exceptionally simple means to manipulate 1.
Although this transformation validates our strategy, it also prompts further efforts. More specifically, the present study stimulates the need for many future endeavors, such as
assessments of the substrate specificity of the oxidation reaction, studies regarding limits of detection and interaction of metabolites, evaluation of false positives, and device optimization using electrochemistry, colorimetric assays, or combinations thereof. Nonetheless, the ability to oxidize Δ9-THC (1) to a product displaying different photophysical andredox properties using simple electrochemistry lays a
foundation for a marijuana breathalyzer that could be used
independently or in combination with existing technologies to
address a growing societal problem.”
This is excellent and novel, yes… However they run the oxidation on delta 9 thc only and they say they have limited understanding about the substrate specificity of the electrochemical oxidation.
Electrochemistry becomes exceedingly difficult to control when you have a complicated mixture of compounds like cannabis or hemp derived consumer products. They present novel information but are a long way away from launching any sort of product or before this becomes adapted to industry for electrochemical oxidations. Interesting stuff by a well known organic chemist and his group. I will let Professor Garg know this ended up on the forum next time I see him.
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What do you mean by lack of standardized equipment for R&D ?
There are many electrochemical tools for R&D, as much as many existing methods, some are very specific and widespread like pH or EC meters, and some combines most methods in one (provided you get the right electrodes) such as potentiostats-galvanostats.
Still, it’s true electrochemistry is a peculiar field. The cost of equipment is actually pretty low compared to other techniques, mainly spectroscopic. On the one hand I think since the 70’s/80’s, big brands pushed researcher investments toward fancy spectroscopic methods, which cost more in terms of consumables, than electrochemical ones. Still, since the time, electrochemical supplier found various ways to make it cost a little bit more (30 year old German pH meters and electrodes still work well, with simple analog output, totally removable case, change of internal battery, standardized simple connectors)…
On the other hand, electrochemical method are not that difficult to execute, you can lead a lot of them in series, automated, in very tiny reactors, combined with other fancy stuff… so you easily end end up generated too many data that are in addition very difficult to interpret. Plus you venture a lot into interface chemistry, which is a still very mysterious field. There is a lot of thing to do in this domain.
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There is extreme lack of standarized equiptment in echem especially for electro-organic synthesis. It took a true scientist (phil baran) to begin to fix the mess the ingrates in the international electrochemistry fields have created over the years. Electrochemists often disagree with this but it is indisputable, when every other fields (organic, inorganic, pchem) starts to collaborate with echemists all of them have the compliant… Its probably the echemistry community fault not the rest of the world.
The biggest issue is no standardization in experimentation and date reporting. Examples include using different electrode materials, solvent, temperature, equiptment and trying to measure the same redox potentials of the organic substrates. The electrode materials and solvent are the biggest source of variance.
The ease of tinkering and scientists natural ability and curiosity to tinker made for many rigged up devices with little standardization which have led to inconclusive results. This gives us little predicting power with redox potentials and has limited the use of in silico calculations for rapid calculations for predicable redox potentials.
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Electrochemistry is not specifically messy, it turns just more complicated as the probed system gets complex too, and there is still very high potential for development. But there many electrochemist acting in various fields, developping methods, electrodes, mediators, widespread applications in medicine etc…
I guess what you mean is the lack of standardized methods. But at some level of research, or in specific cases, lots of existing standard approach do not apply any longer. During my PhD I could show that, regarding a method for measuring the CEC of clays. This method cannot be applied on reduced samples or preserved samples comming from the undergound or from space (which is the case of samples in more and more modern studies)… and here we are just dealing with a “simple” colorimetric method. At the moment I’m doing the same for the methylene blue method for meaduring sulfides. These are methods from the 70s.
In fact most of the methods I use in my research are not very standard (but most apparatus are).
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To be more concise, the methods used to study redox potentials of organic molecules are not standardized. These non-standardized methods include but are not limited to the material of the electrode, solvent, and instrumentation. These methods can lead to different, inconclusive, and erroneous results when studying redox potentials of organic molecules.
I keep my discussions to studying redox potentials of organic molecules because those data are arguably the most useful information an electrochemist can generate besides electrochemical cells and batteries. Also my chemical experience lies in organic chemistry with interest in electro-organic chemistry.
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I did not get your point on lack of standardized method (e.g. is cyclic voltametryc for such electrolytes wrong ?), tools, and refference electrodes (classic Hg/KCl sat, Ag/AgCl are solid ref) and counter electrodes (eg. classic Pt or carbon). There are serires of organic molecule commonly used as mediator sun as quinones… Off course when it comes to to the working electrode it turns more complex, either it is often the object of the study, either there are contact issues with the analyte, either the analyte itself is unclear, weither it is organic or inoganic…
I feel you when you state that redox potential is a crucial parameter. I look exactly at the same kind of thing regarding clays structural iron. To me, the issue you are pointing is more related to a widespread issue in reporting of experimental work, which often lack series of crucial details and parameters. Plus if you had messed up equation and sloppy experiments… This is not only the case in electrochemistry.
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I cannot make it more simple than saying for years electrochemists have been piss poor experimentalists. For the above reasons I have already stated. Yes exactly, reference electrodes, electrolytes used, and solvents. It sounds like you have a good background in measuring…are you an analytical chemist or what?
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Man, also, if they forgot the electrolytes and used the water from the toilets… 
I’d say I am a lab rat. Mainly looking at Fe in smectites (a type of clay) but also in a whole range of oxides and hydroxides, and since few years also at cannabis. I do a bit of everything, almost all by myself so that is from experimenting to analyzing, thought various methods, chemical, physical, spectoscopy etc… and also modeling then. In fact these last years I don’t do that much electrochemistry (besides pH measurments). I preffer to use oldschool approaches, especially whith colorimetric analysis.
Now that you say it like this, it is much more clear.
And look, in the domain of clay chemistry, there is a whole branch of clay electrochemistry developed since the 80’s, going in various direction with very fancy designs… many work that was all irrelevant regarding that infamous redox potential of structural Fe, the objective was either elsewhere, either fails (which is still a bit useful). The real significant advance in electrochemical probing of structural Fe redox potential came only like 10 years ago, when someone successfully applied mediated electrochemistry. That required a knowledge, not only of methods, but of the object itself, coming from other approaches. This was indeed missing before.
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Has anyone tried this method:
Its very simple, refluxing with palladium/carbon heterogeneous catalyst. I’ve been playing around with it. Starting with THC distillate testing at 92% total cannabinoids. I’ve created oils up to 65% CBN with all cannabinoids converted, so clearly there is some unknown isomerization happening. Still working on dialing in temperatures because the paper is reporting almost 100% conversion rates.
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Was d8 also tested ?
-the main unknown you got here could be d8 and the intermediary between d9 and d8.
It might not only be dealing with temperature, but rather a combination between temperature, reaction time, redox conditions, and content in catalyst. By only increasing temperature, you may increase the rate (it gets faster), but not the yield (it eventually produce the same results).
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There were no recordable levels of d8. I’ve only run 4 trials thus far and most have been based around temperature while keeping the amount of catalyst and duration time somewhat similar. I imagine it would take 10-20 trials before I can trust the method. Would you mind explaining how redox conditions could vary? I’m not a professional chemist by any means and am using this patent as a foundation for learning the techniques, and hoping to develop a novel method.
The way that transition metal on carbon catalysts are made varies greatly depending on application. Just like the various carbons you see being used for CRC around here, the grade of carbon in the catalyst will differ. Make sure you get the same catalyst… the patent says they obtain it from Aldrich. My best guess is they’re using this catalyst: https://www.sigmaaldrich.com/catalog/product/aldrich/205699?lang=en®ion=CA
The reaction still needs oxygen to proceed so maybe try bubbling air through. Be very careful when attempting to do this at 300 C (PS I highly doubt 300C is necessary but again that’s a guess).
Further to Dr Jebril’s comment, increasing temperature may increase reaction rate, but won’t necessarily minimize other degradation pathways. You will get faster conversion but likely the same yield as the same amount of THC is degrading vs converting to CBN.
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I have been using this method for quite some time and yield of 80 % are normal 100%
Not so often please be aware that
This can produce a special cannabinoid at temperatures over 220 C
In specific HHC at yields of 20-30%
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I’ve run the hotplate anywhere from 300-400C for 35 minutes with a flat bottom boil flask/reflux setup. I don’t have a thermo probe for inside the flask so I’ve been assuming there is some lag between the plate temperature and the oil in the flask.
@Roguelab - if you don’t mind sharing, what are your time and temps on this? I will need to read about HHC- Does this co-distill, are there HPLC standards available?
Reflux at 200 inside the flask
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