Decarboxylation under Vacuum?

[cyclopath]

@Ak_keith

Doesn’t this mean pulling a vacuum would achieve decarb status faster?

does this mean that you started at other than the top of the thread?
if you want to understand the conversation, you might want to head back up there…

eg

@Lincoln20XX

From this paper, my read is that the vacuum doesn’t substantially affect the decarb time. There are time/temp graphs about half way through. They look not dissimilar to ones from non-vacuum processes.

@SoStupendous

The reaction depends on an input of a particular amount of energy per mole of material to be decarbed. The vacuum removes CO2, but would not really accelerate the reaction in any practical sense, nor would it change the activation energy required for the reaction.

@Beaker

Here is a quick study from peer reviewed literature. It is not much but nowhere are they concerned about the pressure in a study concerned with kinetics. Only time and temp and various other factors but no references to pressure itself as would be the case in a boiling temp chart.

I cannot envision how lower pressure could initiate decarboxylation the same way I can envision vacuum lowering the boiling point of a compound.

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Plot-of-lnD-9-THCA-0-D-9-THCA-as-a-function-of-time-at-different-temperatures_fig2_251476768

…and from another thread should you wish to explore this further.

@borysses

Agitation helps with heat distribution and vacuum with degassing. Movement of gas bubles could be considered agitation but the same bubles affect the heat transfer in a negative way. The energy reguired for decarb is the same regardless of pressure.

unlike boiling point. where you are adding heat until vapor pressure = ambient pressure. so lowering ambient pressure lowers energy requirement.