CRC of disty in heptane (question)

Hash and Stuff Pre/Post-Processing
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Just wondering if this will work or if any one has tried it. I am about to try it in a few days so… somebody stop me if this is a really bad idea.

I have some first pass distillate which I want to run through acid/base washes in heptane before its second pass. I was thinking of adding all my CRC media after draining the water of the last wash and stirring inside the sep funnel, then passing through a 1 μm vac filter. I can’t imagine why this wouldn’t work but that doesn’t mean it will. LOL

Thanks.

Intended media:
T5
silica gel
activated alumina
activated carbon

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Add the alumina to dry the heptane, but run through silica and t5 column. Mix and filter isn’t the best tek

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A few things that I would consider:

  1. making a slurry with heptane/oil/media and then removing all of the oil portion from said media is going to be hard. Making a slurry will require a lot of additional solvent to flush the system.
  2. consider why you’re adding each of those media, what purpose is it serving and does that outweigh the added process time?
  3. how strong is your vacuum? if you pull the heptane/oil mixture through the chromatography column too quickly, the flow path of the liquid phase will get messed up and may create channeling issues. This is especially true with extremely fine media like carbon.
  4. utilize the different pH modulating effects of the media to ensure that you’re as close to neutral as possible when exiting your media column.

Also, that’s a great point from @Apothecary36. Drying your solvent is always a good step.

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Well hes talking about a sep funnel, so i imagine this isnt a big batch.
Perhaps dump it into a container that is easier to mix in. Go ahead and mix the powders in if u dont have a column. (Column is best)
Then i assume u mean a 1 micron paper, buchner funnel, which is fine as long as u can fit all of it in there, if not make sure u rinse ur powders with fresh heptane to collect everything before emptying ur buchner to filter more of ur slurry.
Reduce ur recovered tincture so its at ur original volume of diluted crude, and then do the acid base washes.

While your at it, when ur done, mix some molsieves into ur collected solution, swirl a bit then buchner funnel it again. Should have very little water in it now :+1:
Searching “scrub” or “scrubbing” will give u more info

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And that Boys and Girls is how we ALL learn!

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Thank you to every one for your replies. In the end I decided to follow to advice that removing all the media from the slurry without losing cannabinoids would be too difficult.

I did both distillations without any media and still managed to get some really light colored product. This was maybe the 15th distillation I had ever done so learning this was pretty cool for me. CRC is apparently not necessary for good distillate but it does help you achieve that extra last bit of clarity if you want to put in the effort.

I agree that building a column with media sandwiched between DE layers will be the best thing going forward. I am thinking of just setting up a spool with a sintered disk and feeding it with a peristaltic pump.

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The advice about including molsieve and doing CRC before the washes is also duly noted.