EHO Color Remediation

Good stuff gets stuck, rinse it out. Bing bang boom.

The pore sizes prefer chlorophyll. Like any reaction it’s imperfect, so you’ll get some loss, but I think it’s way overstated.

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I would also recomend to all
To try to find a different filter aid than a buchner funnel
Deu to their size we use to much filter aids
For the volume we want to filter
A smaller filter plate in diameter needs less filtermedia and iT is Packed thicker
I. Personaly now use crc type of columns as my filter appparatus

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Cold filtration makes sense I think. Ethanol acts less polar the colder it is. The clays work best with non polar solvents.

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I do not have any empirically validating data to back up the idea that AC will strip cannabinoids. My former employer had had it happen to some of his earlier experiments when using AC as a filtration tool in large quantities. Again, having not been able to afford the loss of cannabinoids, I never got the chance to experiment. When we saw it worked and there were negligible losses, we went with it.

Maybe it’s just another old wives’ tale. Probably has some validity. Hopefully one of these days I get a chance to figure it out.

Edit: Damn spelling, again.

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Cold filtration makes sense I think. Ethanol acts less polar the colder it is. The clays work best with non polar solvents.

I don’t think it’s so much that ethanol acts nonpolar when cold. After all if it was nonpolar when colder, it would be more liable to extract waxes, which is the opposite of what we actually see. The answer is that when using carbon, there is an equilibrium: carbon is constantly adsorbing chlorophyll out of the ethanol, and ethanol is constantly extracting chlorophyll from the carbon. Therefore the weaker the solvent, for the compound of interest, the more the equilibrium will lie with the adsorbent. This is the same reason they generally work better with nonpolars, because the Van der Waals forces that they solvate with are much weaker than the hydrogen bonding ethanol has.

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The polarity of ethanol is more tied to water content, in my experience.

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How does the initial chlorophyll content change based on the temperature of the ethanol if it’s not polarity? Is there another mechanism at play?

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Water. Chlorophyll isn’t really soluble in ethanol. Water is. The chlorophyll comes with the water. If you keep the biomass and the ethanol below -40 the water remains occupied and doesn’t carry over. Therefore, minimal green. The only reason to go as cold as I go is selectivity. Ethanol is particularly selective for oleoresins below -68c. @Photon_noir has a lot to say on the subject of ethanol selectivity.

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@tweedledew, ethanol extraction, according to what @Photon_noir has observed, believes, and has shared with me, is more mechanical than chemical when done at cryo temps, and works less with van der Walls forces than those of basic hydrogen bonding. The epicuticular wax and cell walls of the plant are unable to be penetrated by the highly dense and viscous ethanol (when at cryo temps). That is the 3 second version of what could be many, many hours of pleasant discussion.

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The basic answer is that adsorption is exothermic, while the dissolution of cannabinoids in endothermic. That means that as you get colder, the former is more favorable while the later is less. This would also occur with say hexane as well, that the equilibrium of adsorption would be further on the adsorbent side when temperature is cold.

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I so agree.
I have an ethos.
I run everything at room temp.

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Well, guess I’ll see for myself how well this works when extracting “warm” (0c) and filtering at -70c. Had a bright idea to extract bagless and filter through bags when my ball valve broke on me, forcing me to scoop out into bags to throw into the centrifuge. Of course it happened just as I ran out of dry ice, ended up having about 30% of my ethanol sit on biomass to -5 to 5c despite my best efforts to hurry. I can’t wait to get a legit fuge that I can extract and spin in. I’m thinking 3:1 ethanol to extract should suffice for filtering with a 1L rinse? It’s only 2L of crude.

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This is warm washed ethanol. On the right is just carbon scrubbed once.

On the left was AC heated at 60C for about 20 minutes. Then poured through a diatomaceous earth puck once.

Had we continued I’m sure we could have gotten it lighter with another cycle.

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So AC/clay works at… Cold… And hot temps… But probably not room temps…?

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Which are those ? Can you provide a link by any chance ? Thank you !

What is the red red color everyone seems to be picking up during extraction?

Is it anthocyanin?

Is this from amber trichomes?

Thanks, in advance.

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Not sure what it is exactly, but from my experience it’s way more apparent in older material.

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Oxidative degression products of various pigments maybe, maybe certain xanthophylls

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Tannins?

Is there a lab test that could identify the colored compounds?