Lol I think I’m ignorant to the joke being told here…
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Is the reason that you’re worried about isomerization? Due to the co2 produced?
I’ve always been partial to decarb under pressure, but that’s because I want to save the lighter notes of the profile. But tbh I haven’t tried decarb with evacuation so I couldn’t say one or the other is better.
Shoulda stirred the pot in this thread lol
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No, not necessarily. I don’t believe the co2 would cause isomerization in the reaction (at least in my process I’m referencing could be completely off elsewhere).
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With MgO, it is about 3 hours at 90c, and getting up to 2-3 days at 60c.
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I have run 10:1 ethanol:crude oil through a column and the whole thing began steaming and it got noticeably warmer the further the material traveled through the column.
It was room temp when I started the process, the catalytic decarb generates heat
You need to use a fine grind activated alumina though, the grainy stuff that is typically sold to cannabis folks is huge and chunky- get it from American elements or a sandblasting supplier and get a fine grind, more surface area=higher efficiency
The THCa decarbs at a higher rate than the cbda so if you pull fractions you will end up with a thc heavy side- you can pull off a fraction of compliant crude oil this way if you dial your process
Adsorption in general will cause heat… do you think it could be possible it was the the water being adsorpeded
Activated alumina reacts exothermically with water.
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Maybe it was the water being adsorbed generating the heat, but it definitely was decarbing on the column
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Supporting metal oxides with zeolite is the ticket.
If I recall well some test I did with MgO, at 150°C, it sill takes 20 minutes for complete decarb.
You may have reached quite high heat in situ to get an on-column decarb.
Do you have an idea of the residence time of the product in the column ?
Long long time, flow rate was low
Interesting… there was plenty of water and water r soluble to be adsorbed by the alumina too
I have a smaller BPC column that is v similar to the one I ran this process on and I’d love to replicate that experiment
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Thus it makes sense.
If temps reaches somewhere above 80c and the product takes hours to go though the column, then it should happen. The high solid to liquid ratio also improves the process.
Also I read here that that type of alumina is suitable for thermal energy storage. 
Like all the heat generated by the sorption of water is kept in situ, in the column.
In your next experiment @Rowan, you should put T probes at various point of the column.
This is crucial data.
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