Its real, its possible and its coming. Apparently it targets only the wanted compounds (it elutes out the terps first and then all of the cannabinoinds) and can be done easily and can be done up to a tonne a day.
Lets figure it out?!
are you referring to something like boulder creeks machine? Also unfortunately i don’t have all the details just yet, but i’m told its strictly using argon and ionizing it. it also apparently does not target any of the lipids or phospholipids and costs about 15/kg (end product - terps +cannabinoids) to extract
honesty i just started looking up the science behind stuff last night and theres definitely more suited people here to the concept, than myself. Ill get it eventually… but theres definitely others here that will get it faster than me
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I don’t know anything about Boulder creeks’ system, but I linked the system I’m referring to.
Does the system you’re talking about utilize magnets? Does the system ionize argon at a pressure lower or higher than atmospheric?
When you say ionizing argon, I think of processes that involve generating a plasma by ionizing argon and using magnets to confine the plasma. I got to assume that it probably doesn’t involve generating a plasma though.
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i dont know, i was given the basics of it and was told if i wanted to know it all i had to sign an NDA which i wasnt down for currently
Anything else you can share?
lol literally what i said up top was the basics i was given. i could probably pry out some more information, but itll take me a couple of weeks of shmoozing
Maybe that “ionizing argon” tip was a red herring?
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i can understand how you might think so and the skepticism is appreciated, however this came from someone who was helping to develop the system who i happen to have a pretty amazing relationship with, just not amazing enough for them to totally break their NDA.
im told in the coming months the tech will be presented to the public and its going to be a wild game changer
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Sounds alot like co2 extraction, using argon and some fancy marketing words to describe something like supercritical.
This is something vastly different than simple high pressure extraction.
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Not to mention argon is completely inert and co2 is acidic
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it was just a guess, thanks for some more key words to look into, keeps me moving forward as I stagnated on supercritical.
Well I’m not too sure how great this would work or how expensive it would be. A synonym for argon ionization is also argon plasma for starters… not sure how high energy ions wouldnt just degrade everything and generate heat. Second, how will ionize? Ionization energy is of argon is 15.7 EV (73 nm light), which is nearing x-ray range, so you’d need a super expensive laser or a shit load of lower energy UV lamps. Not doing photoexcitation, probably running an arc, but arcs and extraction don’t seem like friends plus on a production scale for 1000 lbs a a day seems like a lot.
I doubt this is actually anything like argon ionization, maybe a small amount of ions to add heat if they’re doing it at all. Just using argon gas instead
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Hey do you guys remember the reactor that one company was selling for like 200k and all it did was heat crude while blowing o2 over it?
Me neither
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2200lbs a day
But honestly it’s a lot of assumptions without knowing everything. I’ll have to wait to see if I can find out anymore information on the subject.
@qma sure there’s lot of companies that have fizzled but without knowing what’s what, we can’t say fit certain this will be another one of those.
All I’m saying is I was told by someone who knows what’s up, the basics of it and that they been helping develop the machine via analytical testing. The only “solvent” used in the process is argon.
sounds like warm argon and some buzzwords to me
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I agree with @downtheterphole, doubtful any ions are getting used in a meaningful way, but fair and we’ll see what’s what, always happy to be wrong.
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I can’t see any way that ionized Argon is useful or cheap. It also seems to be a similar situation to CO2 but I don’t know everything.
What I don know is that you are generally wanting a non-polar solvent to extract cannabinoids. Yes, alcohol is polar but there are exceptions to every rule.
Here is an article talking about using Argon for supercritical extraction of petroleum hydrocarbons:
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/ac970983r
I suspect it may be easier to compress the Argon but that’s not a truly significant difference and the article indicates that Argon has a longer extraction dwell time.
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