Pentane is used at above freezing temps for extraction in the cbd market. You can then winterize using your secondary solvent and move on into roto work with ease and at scale for very cheap from when I was working with it. As for cold temps, that would mostly be utilized for eluting light aromatics and vocs that are within the parameters of your relative environment as you “rinse” typically thca to remove said compounds. Which in turn would make the theory of @GCFFiltration a probable answer to why you notice “cannabinoid presence” but in all reality it’s the lighter compounds pushed off the in process material.
Pentane will allow for much faster rapid solvent removal which in turn can allow for faster stacking of your lattice but also end with cloudier looking diamonds.
Heptane may allow you to raise tamper for much more variable temp swings and a better execution of a Oswald ripening in a safer manner for many reasons as comparative to pentane. Both can be used for a unique post rinse process but one will always extract and be utilized for crc far better!
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I grind up my material almost into powder, when I extracted my Pentane was warm room temp, my material was frozen at about -100c minimum -88c. After I rotovaped it my crude literally looked like distillate.
Yeah, from my knowledge I’ve seen how they wash off terps and residuals off diamonds with the cold solvent similar to how they use cold butane to wash them off and warm butane to redissolve. The part Im trying to figure out is how to crystallize with Pentane directly.
Ding ding ding!!!
We have a winner folks…
Edit: crap!
This boys and girls is why one should read all the way to the end before replying.
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Ground biomass is just disturbing to think about.
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Ground to wich particulier size ?
Although ground biomass gaves a lot of unwanted compounds in extracts
It can make sense to do
In my systemen whole dry buds 10 kg
Ground biomass 20 kg can fit
It has no effect on all further steps or yield
And unloads easier by means of vacuum
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Trying to crystalize at -100 is crazy, your going to drop the saturation point of the solution so much youll “oil out” and everything will fall out of solution. If you even extracted anything to begin with with -100c as mentioned above.
Also -100c is a relatively dangerous temp; and not just from frostbite/burns. Around that range you can condense liquid oxygen; which doesnt play nice. If you ever see a beautiful milky sky blue colored solution in systems at or around -100c you just condensed liquid o2 which is actually pretty dangerous.
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I’m not throwing stones at RockSteady at all. Even though I know very little about the chemical makeup of extractant, he’s right that -100c will cause everything heavier than C6 to solidify and drop out of solution, so there wouldn’t be much if anything left around to crystalize at that temp.
The oxygen comment made me open-up my Matheson Blue Book, the bible of the compressed gas industry. The boiling / liquefaction temperature of O2 vapor is -183C. Like N2 that has an even lower b / l of -196C, the O2 will remain in vapor phase at -100. However, any moisture present in the atmosphere in the head space of the container being chilled would crystalize at the surface when it contacts the super cold pentane, reverting back to liquid phase only when the extractant temp increased past 0C. (You guys know all that stuff, but remember there is moisture present in all atmosphere and unwanted crystals might yield unwanted results.)
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Appreciate you digging out the blue bible definitely a good source. Your totally right that under standard 1atm pressure, oxygen boils at -183c and should remain a vapor at -100c. But here’s the subtle catch;
In open systems; especially when pulling ambient air over supercooled surfaces like -100C cryobaths/solvent baths, cold traps etc etc you can begin to see localized condensation or adsorption of o2 particularly on metal or glass surfaces. It’s not bulk-phase condensation like you’d see at -183C, but rather a thin blue film or haze that builds up over time in concentrated cold zones.
O2 gets selectively enriched in those cold spots. The blue tint is a visual giveaway that a small amount of O2 has condensed, especially if you’re using dry ice/ethanol and exposing the bath to open air.
I’ve seen this personally manifest in cold traps and chillers that ran around -100 to -120C, just enough to start collecting O2 slowly. It’s rare, but worth knowing, especially when working around organics where lox becomes a hazard. A beautiful but dangerous phenomenon
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Im aware of that, I wont lie I get alot of freezer burn on my hands and wrists sometimes handling stuff when I get reckless but nothing life threatening. Its super time efficient because it takes me a few minutes to winterize anything I need, hundreds of lbs of biomass takes minutes to winterize.
Yeah things almost instantly solidify when i bring it out to the outside atmosphere, anything I try to keep dry I place in a dry box I purchased from Japan before placing it in that freezer because condensate does built on the top when brought out to atm temp. I thought back then that colder temps would make it easier to winterize ethanol but I realized it 100x the viscosity makes it syrup like.
I am going out on a limb here. For all those who think they understand the “state of cannabinoids in situ” and the action of alkanes chilled to -50 to -100 C as non polar aprotic solvents and its action on the frozen state matrix of trichomes. There is really no reason for such non-sense. The whole scenario is WTF and based on sheer ignorance. At such temperature the extraction is SPE.
Is it really about cannabinoids or terpenes.???
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I would have to ask three things, What is your concept of Grinding? What are you grinding in the sense of water content, and what temperature is your “grinding” taking place. ???…If none of this matters , well congratulations. Why grind when you can ice water wash and sift trichomes, you can get 8x more in extraction columns with trichomes if that is the KEY?
But again, the terpene synthesis may go on through out the plants various tissues and only specific cannabinoid concentration (CBGA) , and CBDA AND THCA synthesis occurs in trichome storage area. So if you are concentrating on terpenes, perhaps grinding whole buds will do. ??? I don’t really see you “grinding” at 20C or above , it would seem messy, but grinding in a cold room facility requires capital outlay? Does a 2x Loading capacity pay for all that? Curious, I know you know what your are doing. Have you thought of or explored the concept of freeze fracturing the trichomes ?
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I usually freeze the material at -100C then I use a 23,000 rpm Spice grinder to turn it into fine powder, literally. Over time I’ve realized this is how you get the most yield and when its frozen the material doesn’t clump up or stick to things either, it also helps recover more solvent as well, Especially when Im using butane extraction, alot of that thc stays trapped inside the cell walls it helps get every drop.
I usually do that grinding on high quality material usually all other garbage material i run through my animal feed machine just run it all through and it breaks it down.
You do realize that you are extracting THCA not THC?
Before you go further get some PURE THC(liquid resin) and THCA (crystal-powder).
Put about 1 gm of each in separate test tubes. starting at -100 C with whatever solvent you choose pour solvent into tube, wait 5 minutes, pour off and filter. Let extract evap in Petri dish. See what you get for each pure compound..then try -75C, then -50, -30 , -15. Just give yourself an idea of what it is you are doing.
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Really?
That seems in conflict with the known biology…
Cannabinoid synthase enzymes are generated in the rosette of gland cells of GSTs and secreted into the extracellular cavity at the top of the trichome where terminal cannabinoid synthesis and accumulation takes place (Balcke et al., 2017; Rodziewicz et al., 2019).
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/pld3.412
I don’t think you’re looking at more cannabinoids…just more “stuff”…a trend I would characterize as following the cadabinoids (that which one can sell as dabs) rather than the cannabinoids.
size reduction does help with extraction efficiency. opening cells (eg using a whirling blade) degrades quality (brings along more unwanted). your target is extra-cellular, so opening cells is counter productive.
see eg: Multi-photon microscopic images of various types of cannabis trichomes
I’m also confused by your characterization of your biomass as “winterized” because you got it cold…I’m not convinced
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BUTANE THEORY: “ Oh my gosh, at some temperatures it works and THCA crashes out.”
If you have to do COLOR we need some new crayons:
What’s the title of that paper?
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