I can not get a straight story , is the butane sourced as the head space of a well, “natural gas” or is it sourced a crude liquid pumped out of ground. I think the contamination levels for each source are different and the treatments are different.
Your comment concerning thermal decomposition in the injection port, of standard THC for example, would be followed by ESI MSMS…vs temp port degrees…is necessary at this time. Look at the guys from PSU that did GC-MS on vaped products ,…there should be a bit of data already out there…say at 500-600…
1 Like
Butane is present in both crude natural gas deposits and in crude oil deposits.
2 Likes
Just because I have it… as well as a PID that can go in series. The FID is what I have only used in the past, would be interesting to see some other data is all.
I know that but natural gas clean up (see reference above for great review) is so radically different from crude oil processing, it deserves mention. Any contaminants introduced by the clean up process would be different.
But you still haven’t answered my primary question, do you know which feed stock YOUR gas derives from…that is my question. It is highly probable your suppliers don’t let you in on this detail? I think solvent direct may have approached this question…if we can get them to fill in some blanks?
Just curious
1 Like
It makes perfect sense that the chemical footprint of outputs will vary depending on the starting material and procedures used to separate into marketable components.
Will be difficult to swim upstream, but I’ll investigate.
2 Likes
@Zack_illuminated
Posted two great references on the subject matter: clean up of Natural Gas
Run your gas through activated carbon as a vapor before compressing…
Activated carbon can selectively absorb benzene from butane, propane, & isobutane.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1383586615303725
B enzene, T oluene, E thylbenzene, and X ylene removal:
BTEX%20Removal%20from%20Natural%20Gas.pdf
I found them very helpful…and it is why I asked the question. Have your chemist read them. A lot of this stuff is highly technical…you guys really have no control of any of this.
5 Likes
ChatGPT came up with this bit of info:
"Residual benzene contamination is more commonly associated with propane derived from crude oil rather than natural gas. This is because benzene, along with other aromatic hydrocarbons, is more prevalent in crude oil and its byproducts.
During the refining process of crude oil, benzene can be present in various fractions, including those from which propane is derived. Although efforts are made to separate benzene and other aromatic compounds during refining, trace amounts may still remain in the lighter fractions such as propane.
On the other hand, natural gas, being primarily composed of methane and lighter hydrocarbons, typically contains negligible amounts of benzene. Therefore, propane obtained from natural gas processing is less likely to be contaminated with residual benzene compared to propane derived from crude oil refining processes."
I’m not really sure if it’s possible, but could you (gas suppliers) try to specifically source propane derived from natural gas over crude?
4 Likes
Just saw benzene appear in one of our COAs for the first time.
We strictly use @SolventDirect
We luckily passed our test, as the limit is 1ppm and we were at 0.6ppm, but still very alarming considering I recently saw this post claiming that this is happening pretty regularly again.
@SolventDirect what’s going on guys?
Not here to trash anyone’s name because everything has been great with SD up to this point. But is this going to be something that is happening regularly now? What are you guys doing to avoid this in the future? Any sort of recourse for your customers that get fail tests for benzene?
Again, not trying to start shit with anyone. Just trying to avoid this in the future.
1 Like
Also depends who you test with. Our normal lab seems to not be as sensitive as our biggest clients lab. And now we have to pause our largest contract due to it showing up. They wont take product if it pops at all.
Also we used SD little tester they sent and it didnt seem to pick up any benzene in the tanks. A good source that runs insane amounts of product in CA has said they tried individual testing of every tank that comes into their facility and it never showed for benzene. But final product would every now and then. Seems to be in to small of concentrations in bulk tanks but when you use a full 100 lbs of solvent in a batch it seems to concentrate into the final product and then be at a level that its detectable.
2 Likes
Yeah, SD provides COAs for their gas but like you said, it doesn’t seem to show up when it’s a test of a giant batch of gas, but can get concentrated in peoples oils.
I just want to know how to avoid it in the future. If testing the gas by itself doesn’t work, what can we do? Just try to keep batches of oil from being too big and hope for the best?
I prey every day to the butane gods to have our batches be clean LOL. Its been the single most frustrating thing about processing in the last 3 years. Between medusa and Benzene ive had to spend more money and time then ever thought.
2 Likes
The gas industry has failed the cannabis industry miserably. Anyone supplying the cannabis industry has no idea what’s going on and are powerless to change anything
If benzene was vitamin E there would be 10s of thousands of deaths and they would still be posting pics of coffee cups
This is worthy of lawsuits for any companies involved in selling gas that doesn’t match their COA
2 Likes
well, fuck. not the answer I was hoping to find lol.
I’ve been lucky enough to not be effected yet. we just make badders so the medusa stones has never been an issue for me.
but after seeing benzene pop up in one of our badder COAs, I definitely have a horse in the race.
I guess all we can do is cross our fingers and hope for the best? 
1 Like
I think this is the part that makes it tough.
apparently the gas does match their COAs. I’m not sure anyone has been able to send a butane sample that shows benzene in it… but after it gets concentrated in batches of BHO, it eventually reaches the LOQ.
So, the gas supplier can say “our gas is clean” and technically not be lying, but then we get fucked when batches of extract fails for benzene.
2 Likes
Xtractor Depot has been selling gas since 2016 with zero cases of benzene contamination. We’ve seen some medusa issues come up here and there, but zero benzene so far (fingers crossed!). We provide money-back guarantees on all of our gas if you have any issues as well! DM me if you want to give us a shot!
2 Likes
Hey ZizzleB, sorry to hear about the failed test. I definitely want to discuss this with you further to gather all the details so we can fully investigate this. I will reach out to you directly to go into more detail.
It’s hard to say for sure if this if becoming a trend towards a bigger issue, or if it is just a few isolated instances. All COA’s from our suppliers indicate gas free from benzene. Perhaps more sensitive testing may be in order, or some other methodology where the sample is concentrated before analysis is needed. My point being that with current testing methodology, would we even know if there is a problem? This is why we are constantly working to improve standards that define product purity and the testing to confirm.
2 Likes
Hey ZizzleB
I don’t really know that much about this topic but I heard a theory that if the testing lab is using a GC with the injection port temperature setting up high enough it might be possible for thermal rearrangement or breakdown of the cannabinoids/terpenes to occur inside the machine.
Since most of these compounds are cyclized, meaning they contain the aromatic benzene ring, it could be possible for this breakdown to show up as benzene in the test results when there wasn’t any in the original sample.
I don’t have any proof at all that this is what’s happening, I just heard the theory awhile ago.
Is there any way for you to ask your testing lab what temp setting they used when they tested your sample?
This quote from John also seems to fit with this theory:
3 Likes
Perhaps?!?!?
Fucking clown show
John I don’t know if this problem resolved itself yet.
I thought your note is important:
“Seems to be in to small of concentrations in bulk tanks but when you use a full 100 lbs of solvent in a batch it seems to concentrate into the final product and then be at a level that its detectable”
That idea has some legs…however another competing interpretation would be you are extracting benzene (or a molecule that gives a similar parent ion on ESI-MS) from the BATCH biomass. The latter seems more likely. What type of container do you ship your sample in for analysis? If you are using any CRCspools, I would do blank butane extracts of those material as well. Any thing associated with your “batch process”…biomass to CRC to glassware= all batch. if you are doing fresh frozen and the material is stored in large (poly) bags of some sort…the insides of poly bags like baggies are all sprayed with an extractable anti static compound. So I would take a sample of the inside of bag-container using HPLC grade cyclohexane as well.
Best…
PS…we all await your market analysis of the impact of DEA and FDA rescheduling marijuana at federal level.
Do you still sell this filter? Can you link me to it?
1 Like