All three of those are somewhat problematic to remove from one’s extract post decarb. A solid catalyst or one on a solid support would be better suited to the task.
MgO for instance…
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Interesting. does this mean MgO is not a good drying agent for solvents…when working with the cannabinoic acids…
When one is trying to be GRAS compliant …your choice is basically EtOH and Et-O-Acetate……So MgO contamination from use as drying agent is catalyst for decarb. I need to run a few tests. Comparing to Sodium sulfate…water, ethanol, MgO…all problems. do you really have “problems dealing with H20 in THC? thanks …
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This is the way
You can certainly get food-grade MgO!
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The point is not whether one can get GRAS MgO or MgSO4, but whether one wants to avoid it using these compounds as a drying technique when it comes to dehydrating usable GRAS solvents:
those solvents being known to be have considerable H20 that one may wish to be rid of. the problem being catalysis of decarboxylation which one does not care for if isolating cannabinoic acids. If you want to decarb…well throw it in the mix.
Perhaps, neat solid phase surface promotes decarbing…I’m just not familiar with this usage of MgO as suggested above. I don’t know about the solution/suspension chemistry?
I just want to check to see if drying EtOH with MgSO4 enhances decarbing with trace contamination.
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Ah, I totally misinterpreted your previous message.
I know nothing of using MgSO4 to dry ethanol. Didn’t even know that MgO is a contaminant.
Back to your original message, a solution of THCA in ethanol in my experience decarboxylates far quicker than solid THCA. For example, an ethanolic THCA solution will absolutely decarb significantly at ethanol’s boiling point. Sadly you still need to remove the ethanol afterwards.
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If you’re working with a solution that is almost entirely THC and ethanol once you’ve completed the decarboxylation, wouldn’t a simple vacuum distillation be adequate to remove the remaining ethanol? I guess the point isn’t how difficult it is, but more how much additional work it would add to a process negating any time savings.
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yes I believe that would be all you needed. I am wondering if OP wants to retain terpenes or something, which would be hard to do when implementing an ethanol distillation step
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Hi cyclopath
(Sort of) asking for a spoon - how long did you see it taking at 100C to decarb diamonds?
Trying to get to >95% D9, with <2% D8, <1% CBN. I’m waiting on a diamond miner from killa so can also just run it ourselves. But figured I’d ask you anyway.
This is supposed to happen from ethanol crude for us btw.
Ethanol “crude”?!?
And you’re asking in a “decarb diamonds” thread?
Getting to diamonds is likely to be the hard part.
As far as how long decarb will take: that’s about reactor geometry and heater flow rate.
HX happens at the surface, so surface to volume matters. See: Optimizing Processes with Engineering Fundamentals to understand how flow rate plays in.
There is even math for how much energy need be provided…although sci-hub doesn’t want to give it up right now. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0022286010009270
See instead: Thc-A decarboxylation rate (which as a couple of papers linked).
Thanks for that, i should scrolled further down in the dirty diamond tek as well as found the decarboxlation rate in the search bar (thought i looked thorougly, but guess not). So thanks for that.
I am definitely the wrong guy to ask these questions, but the chemists are all tied up. We have the analytics and cant/dont want to set up butane extraction. So left with ethanol extraction (or chucking heptane in there…maybe that makes it easier, but id prefer to keep it dedicated).
BTW i thought i asked this on DM not in the thread itself. oh well.
So hot the diamonds are decarbing right in front of you. Just show them this picture of the master Diamond
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Did you also stumble across “ethanol as decarb catalyst”?
Not saying you can’t get there.
Just that worrying about how long decarb is gonna take isn’t particularly productive until you have something to decarb…at which point, the question is “how long with the bits I have?” …then “how do I detect end point”…THEN “faster?”
…end point detection has been explored, and “faster” is about understanding what’s going on (hence refs).
There are absolutely ways to achieve thca from biomass via EtOH.
If you have “chemists” (plural), it is perhaps they who should be digging…
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A common thing said amongst crystallization is that what is being crystallized must “be like so.” in short -----
A good solvent for crystallization should have high solubility for the solute as well as high potential recovery. This means that the solvent for cooling crystallization should be such that it should have high solubility for the solute at a high temperature, and relatively low solubility at a low temperature (i.e. high [temperature coefficient]
As in if you are trying to crystallize something polar it is ideal to do it with a polar solvent, so opposite here with cannabinoids(ethanol is polar) crystallization can occur but never at a rate you would find worth. The only thing ive found interesting for crystallization on the polar side is 1-butanol. Its a type of alcohol that highly rejects fats/lipids and does have some non polar characteristics for it. Before going all out on the project id buy some crude some solvents and see if you can even crystallize before you buy a failed project 
The guides to pentane recrystallization are there for good reason. Heres an info sheet on random crystallization solvents. http://ccc.chem.pitt.edu/wipf/Web/Crystallization%20Solvents.pdf
and just because i said it doesnt work well in the 2 methods ive tried doesnt mean it cant work well with several other crystallization process’ not commonly used amongst our industry.
For example you could try something along the lines of so with the exception of needing something more miscible in non polar compounds to be your secondary solvent. THere is also the passive infusion route where you surround the solution and cover it with another contained jar surrounding where the volatility results in the gasses mixing and slightly adding to the original solute.
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125c under vac you should be able to do it over night no problem. but getting there from ETHO will be a challenge like cyclo said. might be able to pentane crash them out but it might be easier to just have some turn it into distillate
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free spoons below:
maximizing the THCA:THC ratio in your ethanol extract is a must. The more it decarboxylates, the harder it will be to crystallize. This means selecting freshly dried and minimizing temperatures during solvent recovery.
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I should mention we want to crystalize in heptane. ethanol is for the biomass extraction
Thanks for the soup spoons.
