Who is having issues with the chalky THCA?
we should start by listing solvent and nitrogen suppliers
Also what crc media are you using? Supplier?
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Never thought about the nitro being the cause. Good idea…
At this point I feel like it’s going to be something no one expected…
Of the top I know @Coldknock and @johnbigoilco are dealing with it.
Here is the original thread about it: Diamonds turning into chalk post separation
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has anyone winterized them yet to check if its fat?
has anyone dissolved and recrystallized slower?
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Have you done analytics on the chalky diamonds? A before and after would be best but at least some analysis would be helpful.
Stuff has been recyrstalized with pentane and seemed to be ok but we lose a bunch of yield doing this process. So all of this started around the time we switched from canna gas to west air. We also went from n2 gas to ln2 dewar and make our own pressure. We originally thought it was the ln2 causing all sorts of issues so we switched back to n2. We then went back to canna gas as still had the same issue. Supposedly canna gas and west air both have the same product. We use carbon chemistry t5 and bake the media. We are going to be testing all of our gasses now still looking for a lab that will take the raw gas without having to mix it with anything. Giving solvent direct a shot and will report if their gas makes a difference. We will be distilling the gas prior to use like we do with all of our solvent.
As for it being a fat, I have made diamonds back in the open blast days running room temp solvent on really fresh material. I have not found fats to act like this. It has to be a solvent or impurity that slows the rate of evaporation, causing beautiful growth of the diamonds, then over time It evaporates and leaves behind voids in the structure causing the chalk look. These structures all look like they were made in a heavier hydrocarbon then butane but nothing shows on the coa’s which lead me to believe it has evaporated by then and no longer in the product.
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So I have a jar making similar formations to what you and dred posted. One thing that I immediately noticed was off is before any nucleation had started my very wet pour was behaving very strange. I was able to literally take the lid off of a room temp jar of butane mother liquid that was so wet it flowed like water. No rapid boiling or anything, it just sat there and reduced peacefully. That tripped me out and makes me think there is definitely an impurity in the solvent causing it to evap slower. Mine are not seperate so it remains to be seen if they chalk out but I suspect they will.
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if your getting rapid growth and super square formations, you will see this end result im almost positive. We can confirm now solvent direct gas is doing the same thing as west air and cannagas. That means diversified’s gas has something in it that was not there before. I have a friend using cortland on the trap and he is not having these formations. Guess we will try gas supplier number 4 now!
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I got some 2-3 year old tanks in Oregon you can use as the control group
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My 6 month old solvent direct tank isn’t doing it.
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Lmk if I can help you get setup. Happy to facilitate.
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we need a solubility table of most common solvents and thca
at multiple temperatures.
I can not find one and I know between all of you guys we can make one with out it
costing the earth.
trust me get the solubility table down and get the right solvent and you will be walking
a different walk.
of course any impurity in the solvent will co-crystallize with the thca.
if its done right there will no longer be questions about different solvents as you
will find the correct solvent and everyone will use it.
hidden tech in hidden tech.
I know people have to earn the knowledge but then again I think its what people
who have the knowledge want not the others.
we need to have a list of solvents then make solubility tables.
then I think we need to work on how to purify solvents to a point that no impurity
will be captured in the crystal matrix.
the fact we are still talking about this means it needs to be done.
the crystal cooks had this down ages ago as we all shared info and did the tests together.
I doubt your getting chalk from dirty nitrogen though.
after all its a distillation of pressurized air.
I would think solvent or oil that contains THCA was not as pure as thought.
truly solid crystals come from slow crystalization that is done from a single
pure solvent with a large difference in solubility over a temperature range.
I know heaps here are using low boilers and leaving the acid in the solvent
for a month or so but I still find it hard to believe that this method is the best.
through evaporation we create nucleation sites as the liquid breaks its meniscus
making for terbulance in the solution.
It all goes against every ochem class I have had.
that is unless your using pressure and then again I still have not seen solubility
tables of THCA with multiple solvents so it may not even be needed if we use the right
solvent.
my bet is on cyclo hexane or one of the other alkane rings.
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I would like to build a saturation curve, that’s an interesting thought for sure
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yep thats the key my friend
as many solvents as we can find too as really we have no idea in science.
just ask a few canna chemists to describe whats happening when I make delta 9
from CBD 
you will get a different answer from each.
we need to map this out like we were sailing tall ships as there is so much that is not
known about our favorite hetrocycle.
in return I can nearly guarantee a nobel prize as we do not understand
some of the mechanism when this compound is formed and then its pathway
to CBN.
we have ideas but not proof to my knowledge and this is worthy of a prize.
something is happening that we do not understand at the moment.
solvent is just one small piece of the picture.
when we find out why cis isomers finish at delta 9 and trans at delta 8 we will
get closer too all of the possible analoges we want.
even doctor jebril had probs finding the transient compounds and that was with a full
university behind him.
there is much to find here and if we keep playing empire building we will never find it.
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imagine we had no ego.
we found the discovery and atributed the finding to the entire communtiy.
no longer a single person for noble prize but a group of people who think the same.
no single person finds anything it was all done on the backs of giants and the prize
is disrespectful of all before.
it should go to a community rather than a person owned by a pharma organization.
really what is there that is more dope than sharing a nobel prize between us all.
stop trying to make money guys better to make history.
at least your immortal then
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So my current theory is cyclopentane getting caught in the crystal. I reached out to my lab to find out if cyclopentane or isopentane would be picked up in the residual solvents test and am waiting to hear back. My current theory is there may be one of these contaminants going undetected because it isn’t being looked for. Will report back after I chat with my lab.
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This is probably it even if you don’t have the exact contaminant correct.
Something other than butane is making those shapes
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I don’t think cyclopentane is the culprit. It’s a whale of a molecule with very low vapor pressure, < 7 psia. It would accumulate with other heavies during butane production.
Isopentane comes in at about 11 psia. That might be close enough to butane @ 17 for a little to tag along through separation.
Is this problem occurring only on the surface of the product or is it distributed throughout?
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Cyclopentane can be reformed from isopentane can’t it?
@GasGuy-QEG
They both have 5 carbons, but thats where the similarities stop. It could happen, but I can’t imagine the process to make cyclo from iso. Rearranging the carbon chain, lopping off the terminal hrdrogens then tying the ends together… Lotta work there with h2 bubbles all over the place.
Then again you guys are chemists who rearrange molecules like nobody’s business I couldn’t do it.
Well I’m about to climb down the rabbit hole to figure out what this is and I need some ideas as to what to look for. Something is funny and there is for sure heavier hydrocarbons in there and they are not ones usually tested. The jar I have doing this is incredibly wet and I could take the lid off the jar when it was room temp. That was my first sign something was up. That and it dropped out a ton of thca for seemingly no reason when there was no way it was at super saturation. Some hydrocarbon contaminant is making it super stable even when very wet, immediately spit off a ton of thca right after pour well before super saturation, and causes rapid crystallization of bar shaped diamonds that chalk out after seperation. @johnbigoilco @Dred_pirate would you agree with these observations?
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