Hi all, I was looking for some help on the best ways to remove waxes from non-winterized CO2 oil. And I could only seem to find a few posts on here and not to much information on wax removal without solvent involved. I’ve been trying a few different parameters on the vitals q90 and have been pulling the least amount of waxes with the best yield at 1850psi and 100F in my material column with a CO2 flow rate of 6-8lb/min for about 18 hours (45min/lb). We’ve had some decent results with the viscosity for filling carts but it seems that after doing some shelf stability testing after about 6 weeks the fats started wreaking havoc in the hardware and separating and coagulating. So we started using a centrifuge in 750 ml cups but could never really get a good separation of the fats. The carts ended up looking like this after sitting on the shelf in our at 65f.
I originally was doing the whole extraction at these parameters but found I was losing a lot of the flavor if I decarbed to get a proper viscosity. So then I’ve also been playing with separating the terp fraction and adding it back into the co2 oil after decarb at different formulations. All in all I’m looking for some guidance to see how I can get a better separation of these waxes from my CO2 oil with my centrifuge so that they dont get all fatty and separated in the cart after packaging and shipping them out.
I’ve tried two different cups : these round bottom and these cone
Centrifuge 4500rpm for 12+ hours, tried room temp, heated and chilled
Im spinning in a SH-3000 swinging bucket rotor in a Sorvall RC 6+. So at this RPM im spinning 2064rcf?
And I have done ethanol winterizations with this same material to confirm there is still a good fraction of waxes in the oil. Not nearly as much as a full supercritical run, but still more than we can manage clearly.
Lastly, not for religious reasons hahah I just know there are non-winterized CO2 carts out there, and at the end of the day, the more I can decrease post processing the more I can increase my margins in a tight market. Looking to find some more profitable positives in CO2 extraction, plus right now there is a very small market of consumers who are looking for these carts in order to get something “cleaner” and more full spectrum leaning which from a marketing standpoint is one of CO2’s selling points rn. I think all in all if I can avoid conventional winterization and still bring a clean quality oil into a cart then its another product we can add that may bring a new experience outside of disty and live resin.
I appreciate your feedback I am ignorant to the rcf and Im excited to see if I can make some improvements with this new consideration
I have not found anything effective to remove fats and waxes from CO2 extract besides actually winterizing. Going a little lower pressure might help, but I doubt you will be able to produce an oil without fats and waxes. As cyclopath mentioned, the most common path forward is to do a terpene pull (subcritical), followed by a supercritical pull and a winterization.
I personally disagree with the notion that nonwinterized CO2 extract offers a new experience outside of distillate/live resin. Many producers are adding refined CO2 terpenes to distillate, which would by and large have the same molecular composition as the carts you are making (without fats and waxes, I will add).
In my opinion, “full spectrum” is a silly marketing term that has lost all meaning. Distillate is a full spectrum of cannabinoids (unless special precautions are taken). If you add “full spectrum CO2 terpenes” to “full spectrum cannabinoid distillate”, why should the product of this not also be “full spectrum”? Because we’ve removed the components that you shouldn’t be vaporizing?
I understand wanting to offer something different for the sake of being different, and potentially attracting a different clientele. We do it at our company as well. But one day the consumers are going to know all of these marketing gimmicks, and then go back to just choosing their favourite things anyhow.
