Has anyone had any experience with heavy metals and Solventless extraction? How does the bioaccumulation affect trichomes specifically? When producing ice water extracts, is there potential for contamination from the water used?
If water is used for extraction, it has to be free of heavy metals otherwise they could potentially end up in the extract. EPA defines that a list of primary metal contaminants should be less than the maximum contaminant limits (MCL). For Pb it’s 15 ppb …for As its 10 ppb, for Cd it’s 5 ppb, and mercury its 2 ppb.
Raising the pH will help, but why did they have to do it. …it sounds like it was done, because they were getting high Pb levels. I’d get the water tested… should be less than 15 ppb.
For sure! We are running a GrowOnix EX1000T for our RO water. I was almost certain we also got the KDF85 filter to help remove metals but I will have to double check now.
I will also send the water in to be tested. It threw us way off as testing for the bubble hash came back high in Lead with no cadmium whereas the flower did not test for lead and was higher in cadmium. We are also getting the product retested through RM3 and Phytatech.
Definitely get your product and the flower retested for heavy metals. Also suggest testing the water before and after filtration. If results are confirmed and water is clean, Pb must be coming from an external source…perhaps a contaminant in the extraction process.