Anyone been able to selectively turn THCa into a salt?
4 Likes
I have yet to do this, however, I have been considering a few different O-chem methods to accomplish this. At first I was thinking there has to be a way to use an acid base liquid/liquid extraction, but I researched that and it seems not to work so well.
Then I remembered reading an article in an O-chem forum where somebody way smarter than me was discussing the consulting he does with pharmaceutical companies and that scaling reactions was completely different going from university research to Pharma. That most biochemists are used to working with new technology so they dont use older methods and newer chemists also tend to focus on technology based solutions. However, in real world application the technique regularly used to seperate compounds is known as “salting-out”. There are a million salts and one of them is going to bind stronger to alcohol than THC does. By by THC. Rinse it away. Weeeeee.
6 Likes
Are these so cheap?
Give me some diamonds and I’ll try it out
3 Likes
Done and done. DM me
3 Likes
Mike from @labsociety and I had success salting out THCa, I’ll dig up the SOP and share
THCA
200 g of dried (or ca. 600 g of fresh) flowering tops and leaves of Cannabis sativa (THC type of the “white widow” variety) are extracted with 2 L of isopropanol at <40c. Next the undissolved plant components are removed by filtration. Then the alcohol volume is reduced to ~200 ml by distillation at reduced pressure. 300 ml of heptane is then added to the isopropanol solution. The organic phase is washed twice with 500 ml of 1% saline to remove the alcohol.
This first extract is stirred with 1 L of aqueous 0.1 M sodium hydroxide solution and 1% saline to stop emulsions. Test the pH of the aqueous layer. pH should equal 13.
This second, aqueous extract is separated and treated with a solution of 15 g of citric acid in 150 ml water, whereupon the cannabinoid carboxylic acids precipitate as an oil. Test the pH of the solution. pH should equal 2.
By addition of 2x200 ml heptane and stirring, a third extract is now prepared. Removal of the organic phase and evaporation under reduced pressure at 40° C. yields 15.7 g of an oily residue, which 80% consists of a mixture of the THC acids A and B.
15.7 g of a ca. 80% mixture of THC acids A and B are dissolved in 150 ml isopropanol with stirring and 8.0 g of dicyclohexylamine are added with stirring. 24 hrs stirring at 0°C. produces a thick white precipitate of the dicyclohexylamine salts of the cannabinoid carboxylic acids. Cooling to -10°C with stirring is sometimes necessary to help fully precipitate all salts out of solution. After suction filtration, washing with 50 ml cold isopropanol and drying, 18.7 g of dicyclohexylamine salt of the THC acids with a content of 91% are obtained.
18.7 g of dicyclohexylamine salt of THCA A and B with a content of 91% THC acids in the cannabinoid content are dissolved with stirring in 150 ml of boiling absolute ethanol, and cooled immediately after dissolution has occurred. Stir overnight at 0° C to crystallize out. Cooling to -10°C with stirring is sometimes necessary to help fully precipitate all salts out of solution. Suction filter the white precipitate formed and wash with 50 ml cold absolute ethanol. Yield: 15.5 g of pure white salt with a content of >97% of THC acids (A and B) in the cannabinoid content.
15.0 g of recrystallized dicyclohexylamine salt of the tetrahydrocannabinolic acids A and B are suspended in 200 ml water and over layered with 200 ml hexane. 4 g of citric acid are now added and the mixture stirred until the cannabinoid carboxylic acid salt has completely dissolved. Test the pH of the aqueous phase. pH should equal 2.
The aqueous phase, which now contains the citrate of dicyclohexylamine, is separated and discarded. The hexane phase, which now contains the free tetrahydrocannabinolic acids, is successively washed once with 50 ml of 1% citric acid and three times with 50 ml portions of water. After evaporation of the hexane phase on the water bath at 40° C. under reduced pressure, 9.8 g of amorphous residue of the two positional isomeric tetrahydrocannabinolic acids remain.
21 Likes
We were playing around with DES at the same time, so we subbed that nasty amine with choline chloride (didn’t work) and ammonia (worked decently)
2 Likes
But chemicals are bad bro. Just kidding of course but I always figured doing any kind of modification, even if removed, would be poorly understood and rejected strongly by the general cannabis community.
Most have strong reactions to purified THCa and CBD crystals, wouldn’t people react negatively to cannabis salts with unfamiliar names m, even if they are only used as an intermediate in purification
Want to clarify, I’m totally down and think all avenues should be explored.
Cannabinoid salts are how most these compounds were originally isolated
1 Like
Most live lives of quiet desperation.
4 Likes
Always wanted to try making dimethyltryptamine salt of THCa with this method
13 Likes
Haha now there’s an idea. Sounds fun
2 Likes
Maybe it has already happened. 
2 Likes
Me and @rowan were talking alternative methods today for thc stripping. I think there will be more methods in the future that are much easier to scale. But we shall see what the future holds no pun intended
Because theres quite a few sentences that are word for word exact same as my homies tek. Whoever did the plagarizing couldve done a lot better.
1 Like
I don’t see where he claimed to have written the sop just said he had success using the sop and shared
1 Like
@Infoseeker u right, it was more of a question without the question mark. I wanted to see what future would say. Anyway i know the person who wrote the sop, hes pretty sad to see it here, but not surprised.
1 Like
Here is the patent where this “tek” is described further, theres some other relevant patents, just follow the rabbit from here and dont loose ya head
4 Likes
Would you precipitate out all of the other Cannabinoids with this process? Such as CBD-A?
1 Like
I always look at it as, if I can think it up someone else can.
1 Like