If extract is 80% cannabinoids, what is the other 20%?

Testing and Analytics
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So this might feel like a stupid question at first, but the further I try and delve into it, the more complex it becomes.

When you buy a gram of solvent-extracted product - let’s say, Live Resin, made from butane/propane - from a dispensary, it will say on the packaging “70% THC, 80% Total Cannabinoids”. What is the other 20% of the extract comprised of?

Before you jump to your first answer, it is worth mentioning that the “80% Total Cannabinoids” is only calculated using the 12-15 cannabinoids that a state-licensed testing company will search for (THC, CBD, CBG, CBC and their acid forms, CBN and CBNA, THCV and THCVA, D8 THC…maybe one or two others?). So the extract may contain several % more cannabinoids than listed, of which we do not have sufficient and sufficiently cheap tests to reliably identify them.

So other than cannabinoids, what are the major plant-based biochemical groups that are (even partially) soluble in non-polar solvents?

Terpenes? That’s a few %, especially from FF product.

Waxes? Presumably primarily from the plant’s cuticle.

Fats/lipids?

Colorants? Flavonoids (and its subgroup Anthocyanins)? Carotenoids? Chlorophyll?

What else is there? What else am I not thinking of? Obviously there is variability based on a variety of factors (e.g. genetics, grow tech, extraction tech, soak time, solvent temp, etc etc.) but there should be known groups in this field.

What we smokin, eh?

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I was pretty proud of this the other day. Id guess terpenes and fats

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@MagisterChemist @Photon_noir

You dem smart bois.

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@donald_rumsfield. This guy knows unknown unknowns.

Sorry, wish I had a more serious answer, but I would like to know everyones thoughts on this as well. We will hear and entertain many theories, but then someone will data dump on us a few paragraphs that’ll leave us 99.5% satisfied.

Then, in a few months, some advanced protein discovery will tell us about the remaining fraction lol. We will finally learn it was rea;;y just magic all along…

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Its essentially a matrix of plant materials, fats waxes, terpenes, flavanoids, and anything that doesnt show up on the standard potency test.

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Please search, this has been discussed a million times. its still unresolved and requires more funding to figure it out.

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I think delta 8 unknown byproducts are slightly different than bho byproducts

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Yes they are but the question is still unsolved for general canna extracts.

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@thesk8nmidget I appreciate the links and am reading through them. I understand the point you are trying to make, but I feel it might be a bit hasty.

There are definitely some heady boys on this forum who can point me in the direction of, at the very least, categories of molecules that I am not thinking of. Guys who works in hydrocarbon extraction of…daffodils, for instance…and can push me towards some theme I’m missing that is applicable to the cannabis field.

SURELY - we can be at a point where we say “in a high quality extract, >95% of the material should be these 10 compound categories”, no?

And furthermore, knowing the functionality of how solvents work, shouldn’t we be able to do this for each major solvent in the industry?

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What it extracts is based on polarity.

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This is a thing? I’m super interested

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I have some insight on the type of compounds found from doing a lot of GCMS scans a few years back. I wish i still had access to that for i could do a chromatogram breakdown for you all if i did. Besides the obvious waxes and terpenes, untested cannabinoids are a big contributor. Sterols are also found in large amounts, as is phytol. I don’t think pigments could be any more than 1% and probably much less.

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Yes thank you!

I got forgot my other phenolic compounds: Lignans, sterols, stilbenoids

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Thinking outloud, isn’t phytol polar? Chlorophyll has a polar Mg-N bond surrounded by a hydrophobic polyphorin ring with a hydrophilic phytol side chain.

Why is phytol such a large component of non-polar solvent extraction? Any insights @MagisterChemist? I know butane can dissolve a small amount of water with it, would this be playing a role somehow?

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Phytol is very nonpolar. So that premise is just incorrect. I don’t know what causes you to say it’s hydrophilic as it’s an extreme example of a oily alcohol, more nonpolar than octanol and others

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I’d like to know this but for RSO specifically so we can figure out why RSO cures cancer better than dist

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Do you have actual proof of that or is just hearsay

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Thank you very much man, I was mistaken. I thought I had read this in some recent papers, went back to check, and I was very much confused. Thanks again homie, keepin me on point

Do you know if there is a lot of phytol floating about naturally in the plant, or if the bulk extracted is created via chlorophyll degradation? I know cleaving the phytol chain is a step in natural chlorophyll enzymatic degradation, but I don’t know how active those enzymes are post-harvest (especially if the plant is frozen)

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I have no idea. I just know that it was a prominent signal in GCMS. It certainly could have been caused by chlorophyll breakdown.

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What about sugars. I always thought that’s why it has different consistencies at different temperatures. Kinda like caramel or taffy.

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