Does anyone know how to achieve a full separation of terpenes from THCa after crystallization?
I am cryo extracting with Butane, dewaxing in -20 column and then filtering through CRC and 1 micron sintered disk before collecting. Fast crash in pyrex at 70F in oven for a few days until crystallization stops. I pour off the terp layer into jars and let it continue to crash out but can not get it to stop sugaring up.
Is there a mechanical separation that can be done after the initial crash out to fully separate the terpenes from the THCa?
I would like to have a dry isolate that I can re-crystalize in pentane for diamonds and reserve the terps to be mixed in later after purging?
Try centrifuge tubes with filters in them. I run them in 50ml tubes at about 40°C and 4800 relative g’s in a swinging bucket rig. Works well, but the crystals still have a notable aroma to them. Re-crystallization in pentane works quite well.
Can a centrifuge really handle volume though? 30-50 lbs day? Here is a pic of the dry isolate and and terps a consultant was able to give back to me after giving them my inital crash out. The terps are there and still smell great. I’m told they used mechanical seperation and a roto. Re crystalization in pentane works for me but I need to be able to fully seperate out my terps in bulk.
Is a refrigerated fuge ideal? My concern is that thickening the terps to much when cold will hinder the separation and its ability to full separate out.
Its a nice feature to have and required imo if you plan to do any long spins as the process creates heat. You can get creative and chill opposing buckets with ice or whatever cold thing you want to use and keep the inside cold but you lose a bucket to use for product this way.
also the refrigerated option give you the ability to do other little tricks that wouldnt be possible with a standard fuge.
@trust_level_4 can we archive this one so the other thread can continue if this conversation continues or others search it. (Kinda ahead of spam ya know?)
Since determining that the separation of THCA from HTE is not achieved through a fuge and doing so at volume (30-50lb / day) I am left wondering if a polar / non polar solvent separation might be a logical approach? My first thought is methanol as a polar solvent and / pentane a non polar alkane. Thinking that by using a sep funnel and then roto I might be able to get somewhere. Can anyone point me in the right direction here or am I barking up the wrong tree?
I’m exploring using HPLC to separate the THCA and HTE using fractioning. Has anyone here done this and if so what stationary phase material are you using? C18? And does the solvent used mobile phase solvent matter that much? I’m thinking methanol would be best