Liquid-Liquid-Extraction

Did you thoroughly dry and neutralize the solution before you roto’d it?

I’m guessing no because I don’t know what you mean by “dry” it. And no, we did not neutralized it.

What is the purpose of neutralizing the organic phase? I’ve only heard to neutralize the aqueous phase

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Not neutralizing before distillation causes isomerization issues. Not drying your organic phase before evaporsting rhe solvent will leave you with an extract with water in it. Your roto probably mixed the extract into the consistency of butter by removing the solvent but not the water from solution.

You dry as a final step before solvent evaporation to avoid getting water in your extract. You can use many sifferent desiccants for this purpose.

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Ah yes, I was reading about this over the weekend.

Thank you, this is super valuable info.

If that doesnt work @ me, ive got another trick up my sleeve for this kind of thing.

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Ugh yes, I love people who want to help. Thank you, and let me know if you ever need a hand from me or @outlander – we’re all about community and leveling up together.

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I always rock a salt water wash on my alkane/cannabinoid layer to mitigate water

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What does the salt wash actually do? I was just talking to my partner about it - sometimes it’s regular water and other times salt water.

Can someone explain why you would want one over the other in certain situations?

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If someone who’s better at chemistry wants to correct me feel free. But basically, regular water is nearly immiscible in alkanes, but not fully immiscible. So there will be trace amounts of water bound to the Pentane/heptane/whatever. The salt forms a stronger bond than the alkanes does, so the salt “pulls” the trace water away from the alkanes and effectively “dries” it.

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Actually this full circles a lot for me.

the puzzle is finally taking shape, thank you

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From paper linked above:

This salting out often occurs at high salt concentrations. In some cases, the “salting-out” (or perhaps better termed “sugaring out”) effect also can be achieved with high concentrations of saccharides (3).

@tweedledew

Meaning instead of having brine to dispose of, we can haz something we can feed to yeast to get more solvent…

Might even save on trace nutes too!!

Sugar, we’s gonna have to try this…

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Salt increases the polarity of the aqueous layer, making it less hospitable for non polar (ie cannabinoids) molecules. I don’t think it affects the miscibility of water that’s a different property but the entropy increase of having salt makes water more interested in the aqueous layer… Without doing some annoying math I dunno how big an effect that would be tho

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Can also change the emulsification situation so sometimes better to use non salty water. Also takes less effort to use no salt

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Like dextrose ?
Or cane sugar ?
Mono di or poly sugars wich are recommended ?

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@ScoobyDoobie posted a link up thread. I only read as far as the above quote before heading back to play with more liquor & cannabis.

As I’m already making sugar (sucrose) water, I was gonna start there.

Reading a little more first sounds like a great idea :thinking:

:rofl::rofl::rofl:

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It definitely changes miscibility. Acetonitrile and water are fully miscible but acetonitrile and brine are not, for instance.

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I’m thinking of the context of water and alkane, brine or not, they arent miscible
@MagisterChemist my wording does look bad I agree

Simple syrup washes yumm make terp Carmel

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The Glass Bead Game?