I’m curious to know the cleaning fluid that companies are using to clean the cylinders because I feel like there’s no way those cleaners you see in cleaning videos are being completely washed out 110%, especially when all you have is that tiny 1in hole in top to work with. Carbon steel is highly porous as well.
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what temp is your collection at?
Who dis?
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That makes sense & I would really like to see the SDS on the cleaning fluid as well.
Talking to my gas supplier (distro by GI) they claim they vacuum dry the tanks after cleaning then rinse with water and vacuum dry again. If that were to be true and some of the compounds in the fluid were to be drawn into porous cavities in the steel, the only way we can rule out the cleaner is to have someone show us the SDS for it, since its less than 1%, I dont think they have to disclose it but it sure would help both business models. Since we have never seen the inside of these tanks we can not assume there is no residue from the cleaning fluid & just cant confirm its not sloppy cleanouts or the fluid being used to clean em … its not Iso-butane or the gas …imagine that! lol
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I usually run my heater at 120f.
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Heat is so overrated… Even with a cool / barely warm to the touch basin, still experienced melting point changes.
Seems like the carboxylic acid is reacting with something in the gas, possibly forming a carboxylic acid salt (which are more stable than the free acid form and would account for the higher melting point). A salt would still show as THCa on a potency test and grow into a crystal lattice. Have a good bit of experience with that from our work with CBDa.
Typically, chemical reactions do not require heat, that only accelerates them.
Maybe consider both an acidic & basic media before the alumina 150 to strip out any potential contaminates, followed by a water wash. As a hydrocarbon, the acid and base is not soluble and can be easily scrubbed should it carry over with the final water wash step.
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After the research, it seems that this is what’s happening, and why I’ve mentioned it seems to be specific to only acidic cannabinoids. Interesting to read this in your reply, very exciting actually that it confirms the plausibility.
ASTM 2163 is the usual standard of analysis being conducted by the packing plants, whatever heat stable salts that form don’t seem to be detected in this type of test either.
We’ve identified a method of analysis and are doing the current field research to establish proper documentation and reports. This will take us a small bit of time…
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Does pentane undo the salting if that is the case? You can dissolve Medusa in Pentane and it forms normal stable crystals apparently.
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Shouldn’t… need to introduce an acid to de-salt the molecule as it has technically attached something to itself, typically a metal.
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So if pentane works is it a thca salt issue?
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It has always appeared to me that some compound is getting trapped in the lattice and then evaporates when the crystal is taken out of the mother liquor creating pockets in the lattice and causing opaqueness.
Once this chalky thca(similar to what I get from cold crashing it appears) goes into pentane the problem no longer occurs so that’s when I’m thinking that something was in the solvent and was trapped in the crystal and then evaporated and it doesn’t cause an issue with the recrash
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Could still be… the alternate solvent may allow the lattice to form stronger.
When it turns white, seems it is basically forming many micro-bubbles that opaque it out as something is trying to release. If allowed to soak in water clear terps, do they eventually change in clarity (kinda like how you fix a cracked windshield)?
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very interesting about the terps. Thanks for adding that.
Something leaves and then the terps replace the cavity.
Is anyone still thinking some sort of ammonia related compound? Something caused by the fractioning or distilling or sweetening of gas and the catalyst may have changed due to pandemic supply chain issues
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first time i’ve heard of this nuance, that’s interesting. if there’s no difference in the high or safety between medusa crystals and normal, that isn’t a bad thing i think? unless this higher melting point makes them an unfeasible dab. anyway a nano-grid of THCa with terps filling in the cracks would make for a nice even evaporation in a banger. same reason i prefer a bunch of tiny crystals swimming in sauce vs. big diamonds, the terps leave way before the diamonds get a chance to melt, then evaporate
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I would like to know that myself. @standardoil do you remember when the call was? I would love to look it up and give it a listen for quality and training/coaching purposes.
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I also work at a lab and have seen no real change at work using 13x as well. We go through like 100 pounds a gas a day. Still will crash out if you run to many bags in the pot. Have to push it to a holding tank midday to stop any issues.
That must be a saturation issue not a contaminant
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Well yeah it’s saturated lol but no! never had the issue prior…so it’s from the gas.
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Thanks again, @SafeLeaf.ca !
Please let me explain my hypothesis (POST 337) again, @Zack_illuminated & @standardoil . Also see post numbers 243, 267-269, 289, and 312 (pretty much EVERY post in this thread from @SafeLeaf.ca) as background on the subject. As you can guess, the idea is the THCa forming a complex “salt” with a secondary or tertiary organic amine compound, such as diethanolamine (DEA), diethylenetriamine (DETA), or methyldiethanolamine (MDEA).
NOTE: This is NOT a typical ionic or covalent bond, but what is known as a complex coordination or dative bond… and it is literally as simple as one of each of the WHOLE THCa & organo-amine molecules sticking together at the COOH-NR site (R = 2-3 organic groups).
This new THCa*Organo-amine compound (I’ll call it “salt” for brevity) is fairly—but not entirely—INsoluble in the butane/BHO solution, and it crystallizes rather perfectly in distinctly faceted ‘bars’ or prisms.
Now then…
A. With HIGH concentrations of amine in the BHO solution, the formed “salt” undergoes rapid nucleation with very little growth and subsequent precipitation at high speed… AKA: fast-crash
B. With LOW concentrations of amine in the BHO solution, the “salt” forms at a pace slow enough for it to join other “salt” molecules in a lattice, growing lovely prismatic crystals.
HOWEVER, the sum attractive force between the THCa and the organic amine is only slightly stronger than the sum repulsive force, making the “salt” bond rather tenuous. This bond is delicate enough to be broken by the energy of butane molecules “bumping into it.” Therefore, when the “salt” forms a bulk solid (precipitates as nucleates & crystals), it essentially stops moving relative to the surrounding liquid phase molecules, and the butane easily redissolves the smaller organo-amine moiety!
This leaves tiny, organic-amine-sized HOLES in the lattice of [The THCa solid formerly known as “Salt”]… AKA: medusa petrified stone
Thus, the bizarre looking medusa stones and fast crash material are still just normal THCa, for all intents and purposes (vaping, recrystallizing, etc.), as we have found evident by numerous means.
The “salt” formation is almost catalytic in nature; the organo-amine being a ‘catalyst’ for crystallization of THCa, in that the amine is regenerated after product formation.
This explains why the fast-crash and/or medusoid crystal problems continue throughout multiple batches run with the same butane.
It could also explain why the impurity remains undetected: It only needs to be present in teeny tiny trace quantities to have a significant (and lingering) effect on our processes!
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