Help me solve this chemystery problem

[HashyLarry]

So I’ve been running B80 powder filtration and the first couple batches I did I messed up the packing, long story, won’t get into it, got it going correct now. Took all the old slabs that came out bad colors, weird shit like red, purple, pink, grey, brown, as well as any slabs that sugared up or I just didn’t like the quality of and combined them to rewash.

Put 500grams at a time into a sock and washed room temp isobutane over it several times, aprox 10-20lbs of tane over each sock. Two socks (1000g) nasty oil through 1000g oven baked B80, prewet with solvent. The result was amazing quality slabs!

Ok, here’s the mystery. When I pulled the socks out there were to my surprise crack rocks in there!! Pure white powder rocks with the consistency of chalk. I can crush them into dust by hand. Sifted some into all dust for fun.

25% of the original weight (250g) of this white powder remained.

Couple interesting finds with it: the powder instantly dissolved in ethanol, does not dissolve in water, apparently does not dissolve in butane and has no smell.

Sooooo here are my questions I need help with:

what compound did I isolate here??

Is it fat/lipid/wax?

Why did it dissolve with cold solvent (isobutane ran through dry ice coils) but not in room temp secondary wash?

Could it be powder from B80? Problem with that is B80 is tan, this is pure white. B80 does not readily dissolve in etoh, it just makes an ugly brown sludge.

If this is present in the original slabs, is it something we want to remove anyway? If I’m losing 25% of my oil weight, is the thc potency of my slab going way up? Have not gotten any potency tests done in a while so I’m not sure what they were at before the rerun.

Lastly, if I were to snort a line of it, do you think it will kill me? Asking for science, not for pleasure.

Planning to get some lab tests done on it, but until then I’m curious what the community thinks of this process. Possibly a new way to increase the potency substantially as well as redo any mess ups that happen.

[FicklePickle]

Looks like thca isolate to me. Try heating it.

[Waxplug1]

It looks like u stripped all the Terps off with the wash and that was the more dense sugaring product that didnt fully dissolve. Sugars take a bit longer to dissolve. What im guessing happened here is kinda like washing dirty diamonds with cold solvent.

[BG305]

Have you magnified it to see if it has a crystalline structure?

[Bearschoice710]

Are you able to take a melting point of it?

[RockSteady]

Heat it; if it starts forming tiny little bubbles before it starts boiling/vaporizing then its decarbing; if it decarbs then it’s an acidic compound.

This a great way to test for acidics like CBDA and CBGA

The decarb test is clutch

[cyclopath]

+1 on probably thca.

I’ve certainly seen thca, confirmed on GC, that looked and behaved very much like that when pulled from the lab trash can by @Photon_noir.

Baring actual analytics, melting point is your best indicator (then check for decarb as @RockSteady suggests).

@Roguelab, what temp would you expect this to melt if it’s thca?

Edit: if you know your quartz banger well enough you might could do the melting and decarb there…and then bioassay if convinced it melts and bubbles pretty.

Not a brilliant strategy for dealing with unknowns, but based on the ethanol solubility & how you got here, it’s not appreciably less safe than dabbing any of the slabs that went into the sock…

[Apothecary36]

@HashyLarry

apparently does not dissolve in butane and has no smell.

You barely used any butane… Looks like you created a cool trick for isolating thca.

[TheGratefulPhil]

Probably 400+ C at atmospheric pressure.

The ol nomograph says 425C

[cyclopath]

Pretty sure that’s the boiling point.
Not melting temp

My understanding is that CBD melts in the 62-67C range depending on purity.

But thca doesn’t melt till closer to decarb temp.

[TheGratefulPhil]

Oops, duh!

[cyclopath]

The all knowing one gives 72-78C…

Still prefer confirmation from someone who has actually tried it.

[TheGratefulPhil]

What's the melting point of THC-A?

Any body know? I searched for THC-A Melting point and nothing came up.

Someone in this thread makes the contention that “there is no melting point” simply a transition from acid to activated form. An interesting perspective, because once decarbed its a “liquid” just a non-Newtonian one.

So, either I’m stoned on a Sunday, or decarboxylation temp = solid-liquid phase transition = melting point?

Edit - Forgot a question mark.

[Future]

You can definitely melt THCa without decarbing it, that’s how the solventless guys make the THCa silicone mold diamonds. Idk any more details than that, only that’s its being done

[Apothecary36]

Yes my buddy used a toaster oven

[cyclopath]

Look what just showed up…

Mechanical separation TEK. (Solventless diamonds)

So before I get into the actual process of making solventless diamonds, I wanna start by saying the THCA made in this process isn’t a true diamond. It’s a high concentration of THCA in the shape of a diamond. Just wanted to get that out of the way so nobody gets hung up on semantics. So first things first this will only work with crumble or sugar. Sugar will usually yield a larger terp fraction. Crumble seems to be higher in THCA. Also important to note, this will work with any kind of crumble …

[Apothecary36]

Please tell us more! that sounds like Chinese to me

[cyclopath]

please enlighten us @agentbrown

had to poke harder than usual at the the all knowing one to get this far.

as a professed not-a-chemist, even if I chased that down, I’m not sure I’d catch your drift.

[Tivali710]

Had a similar result a few years back. Unfortunately I was open blasting so no CRC for any powders.

[Tivali710]

Was negative temps outside and it almost fell out instantly lol. Back then i thought I was dewaxing pretty sure was just pulling thca and destabilizing my extracts.
Long time reader 1st comment love the discussions here alot of you are def killing it I def appreciate the knowledge.