Inert gasses to prevent oxidation

Nitrogen is extremely cheap.

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N2 or Argon is your best bet :ok_hand:

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you can use CO2. it will not react with the THC and also its purpose is to displace the oxygen that is in there already. so you would have a mix of nitrogen and carbon dioxide instead of nitrogen and oxygen. O2 is what reacts with the unsaturation in the THC molecule

Argon is heavier than air which is why it is beneficial, however more expensive than nitrogen

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Ad 0.4% vitamin E maybe? It’s what we do in our labs to preserve proteins being transferred that are very oxidatively reactive and need their pigments kept in tact.

rumor has it this has been tried, and it affects the taste.

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Does anyone have any stability data (6 months/1 year) on storage in Nitrogen vs Argon? Bud or extract.

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The important question should be, what is stability like when stored under inert gas vs air, not which inert gas provides the best stability

From an engineering perspective, inert gas is inert gas. You think at room temp and atmospheric pressure that nitrogen’s triple bond would ever give a shit? Hell nah :wink:

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Agreed would be happy to find stability data on nitrogen vs air as well if anyone has this analysis on file.

If distillates made proper it won’t oxidize regardless of the gas you put in the jar. I have jars 2 years old that have been open and closed numerous times with no inert gas that have yet to oxidize.

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sort of yes, sort of no. There is a difference between nitrogen and argon from an engineering perspective whatever that means (I guess from a facile perspective)?

They are both indeed inert in this context, sure. But argon is heavier than both nitrogen and oxygen and has the property of settling over time beneath any remaining oxygen left behind during an imperfect purge. So if your BOP is “flow inert into mason jar of distillate at X L/min for 20 seconds before sealing” and an operator does this and does a reasonably good job at displacing most of the oxygen with an inert gas, whatever remaining oxygen will mix pretty uniformly with nitrogen whereas in argon the oxygen concentration will be lower at the liquid/vapor interface and higher at the top of the container because argon settles below oxygen by virtue of its density difference.

Long story short, argon offers more robust protection from oxygen but is usually a little more expensive. Both work good enough.

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Sounds like a very impure product if you haven’t seen any oxidation after 2 years.

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Argon is the way to go, I have had no issues with it.

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Are you willing to share how you “make distillate properly?” Specifically, which parts of your SOP eliminate oxidation?

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“From an engineering prospective” in this case would be something like “neglecting finer effects” :wink:

You have given a good and correct description of some finer effects.

My solution…purge violently! lol

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What does your purge rig look like and what is your purge SOP? Can I safely assume your are referring to purging distillate, as opposed to purging at an earlier stage of the process?

It’s still as gold as the day it came out of the still.

There was a ph trick mentioned about 6 months ago in a thread. Is this a ph thing to help mitigate oxidation (red ring)?

Gauging oxidation visually is far from sufficient. Your eye will not detect the presence or extent of creation of CBN, the oxidative byproduct of d9 and its isomers

He is talking about the “red ring of death” oxidation ring most distillate suffers.