I made a previous post outlining a basic liquid to liquid extract method for removing terpenes. I noted that some more refinement and repeatability were needed. I needed to isolate the effects of LLE alone without other factors.
For me this month is ground breaking this way. For me it is a huge time and compound saver.
I dissolved the extract in methanol. Then I winterize and filter it. This month I was able to chill the methanol in a bath down to about -80C. I filtered as usual however more than just white wax got filtered this cold.
After filter I estimated the number of grams and doubled the amount of milliliters of hexane solvent for a 2:1 ratio. I poured the methanol into this and then began a series of water flushes with additions of small amounts of fresh methanol between. I catch all in a pot, saving the top hexane layer of cannabinoid. When the flushes began to run clear and want to make an emulsion I stopped.
The hexane was purged and then the compound decarboxylated under deep vacuum at a mantle setting of 125C. I was puzzled why the stir bar was having such trouble getting spun up. Lolz! Now I know. I sampled some med and there is zero terps. A no boil operation removed all the terps and compounds that thins this stuff normally. The stuff behaved like first run distillate but not decarbed. Wierd.
There are no waxes to speak of but the oil is still dark. Yet, smooth as anything I have smoked. Not potent like it will be when I do run it in distillation mode but my goodness just yanking the waxes out and washing the terps made something I can live with lol.
It is like potent good shatter but nearly zero flavor. Smooth smoke.
Here is the collection pan that captured the methanol, water, terpene flush. I freeze it so traces of compound will precipitate out. Very little was in there. These terps have never been cooked and they smell actually pretty good.
This is what it took volume wise to LLE out terps from about one ounce of concentrate. Total methanol used for dewax and de-terp about 250ml. This is easily recovered through distillation.
the cost of rotary vane pump, pirani sensor and cryogenic sublimator have made the process unachievable for me atm. But I love learning and preparing for when I can afford the equip upgrade! As I will only be doing runs for personal meds I intend to pretty much copy your setup and process. You have made it look so appealing and rewarding. My current plan of processes is: crude> LLE> SPD and run 2 or 3 passes of SPD until adequate purity is achieved.