We plan on decarbing under vacuum for the very reason to remove terps and vols. Does it do a complete enough job that I won’t need to do a 1st stage distillation on our short path wiped film to remove terps? We only want the highest quality oil so if vacuum decarb doesn’t get it all out I don’t mind doing it still.
I guess you’ll find out soon enough yourself! 
My first pass stuff comes out pretty good. I typically test in the high 80s THC percentage. It does remove some volatiles but certainly not “all” by the time it goes to SPD there is basically no solvent and it jumps straight into pulling volatiles out.
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I pretty much knew we are going to have to do a 2 stage distillation. We have 3 wiped film shorts and wanted to make sure before we dedicate 2 of them to distillation. Using just one and doing 2 passes won’t work for us, changes in temps and vacuum plus needing a continuous process. The other wiped film will solvent recover on a loop until most is out before decarb in the reactor.
Check out the setup of the decarboxylation system below. The vacuum pump will connect to the collection vessel, and pull vacuum from condensor and decarb vessel all together.
This is a good large-scale solution. The decarb vessel is 100L, though. The condenser is basically a glorified cold trap. Neat concept which is just a large scale version of a lab scale set up
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Good ! Hmm
Water heater so 100C max not much
Vacuum line a tiny tube hmm
O well for those that have money to spend i will get the job done
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i am wondering if decarbing Co2 oil in a vac oven will prevent oxidation after the distillation process is complete?
it will definitely prevent oxidation during the decarb step. Maybe because the oil will have less dissolved oxygen, the distillate may take longer to oxidize? Could be…
the beauty in decarbing under vacuum for crude destined to be distilled is that you lower the BP of many volatiles and these volatiles get stripped off during this time. this makes for a quicker ramp up to heads fraction and less chance of gnarly reactions during this ramp up that might cause a bump. If i were after a decarb process to “prevent oxidation” there are probably better methods though im unsure how this would effect the body fraction “distillate” from taking longer to oxidize.
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Isn’t it the case that because CO2 is lighter than air, it forms a protective layer against oxidation, especially in an oversized vessle?
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Co2 is certainly not lighter than air.
Edit: I think what you’re getting at is the possibility for a cloud of co2 to form above the sample and between the air above it, assuming there is air that has not already been displaced/removed by other means.
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I’m not sure you would see much blanket gas effect as the decarboxylation offgasses while pulling a vacuum. If you want to preserve volatiles as much as possible during decarb I would decarb under pressure using n2 or another inert gas in the headspace
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Agreed. Any blanketing you might achieve I would imagine being rendered useless by being constantly drawn out of the system towards the vacuum source. Sticking a co2 sniffer in your system inline somewhere above your boiling flask might make for a real time decarb monitor.
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I totally want to try that.
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I decarb under deep vac up to 150c and once in the spd i get nothing until about 140c. My spd roughing pump goes a lil deeper but it saves so much time cant imagine doing it any other way wxcept a lle with methanol like beaker use to talk about which works awesome in case anyone cares
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Yeah no.
If it were lighter than air, it would not do that, it would leave the vessel in search of the ceiling…
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It’s still occupying the head space of the oil don’t you think?
If you don’t winterize first your waxes will be an antioxidant. But @Concentrated_humbold suggests that decarbing before winterizing will dehydrate your fats and make them smaller in size therefore more difficult to filter. You could perform hydrolysis to re-swell your fats and waxes and even chlorophyll according to @Beaker
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can confirm fats/waxes being decimated by decarb. they are nearly impossible to filter.
Christ! Please substitute “lighter” with “heavier”…