Steam Distilled Cannabinoids

Yes you read that correctly, steam distilled cannabinoids. No I am not referring to the white stuff when you boil water, that’s water vapor. I mean steam, clear, hot and dry. I hear a rumor that the folks over at x-tracted.com have been developing it for some time.

Hypothetically I can imagine how gaseous H2O at the right temp could liberate cannabinoids and act as a carrier. The raw material would have to be pre-heated so as to not condense any water. What do you think?

I suppose the condensing/fraction of cannabinoids would have to take place without reverting steam into water vapor. It would also have to happen quickly as not to heat degrade the cannabinoids.

Potential pros:
Efficient time (less man hours)
H2O is cheep and readily available
Higher/different terpene content
No risk of solvent residue
No laws restricted H2O use as a solvent
No need to winterize
Low health risks for workers

Potential cons:
multidisciplinary R&D without guarantees

i promise you arent steam distilling cannabinoids.

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haters gonna hate. the difference between a skeptic and a denier is one uses logic and evidence and the other uses unjustified beliefs.

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Hmmm you have any idea what you are saying
Good luck it is not possible to make a profit with only water
Not with steam, microwaves, sonic waves
A co solvent Yes but not yust steam
@YeahBet is not hating and neithet am i
It s not gona happen thats all
0.1% cannabinoids Yes Maybe
But no more than that
Unless you can preform this at
420 bar then maybe
But How are you gona keep chlorofyl out ??

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Gw pharma has a patent that uses dry nitrogen steam. Yes you can steam cannabinoids out it’s not with water. And it’s a high velocity dry pressure stream with recirc velocity. It exists and can be done. It’s just one of those catch 22, it cost more to turn on the machine than any output from th machine.

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yes I agree there could be sacrifices in yields that I a con I left out, but not the number you just pulled from your ass.
as for chlorophyll I think you are imagining a wet vapor. kinda like a tea… thats not what i am talking about true steam is dry. And ironically enough microwaves maybe a solution to maintaining proper heat though out the fraction.

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please elaborate, what advantages do nitrogen steam have?

Sorry your vocabulairy keeps me from proceeding this conversation
Good day

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im trying to figure if youre trolling or not. despite all the above i actually think you arent.

how much of your thc is in vapor phase at 100C?

we can probably pack it up here

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Super heated steam my dude

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Nothing. They just patented the process so they could.

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you can heat steam up much further than 100C…and doing so with microwaves is an interesting thought. Although I have very poor presentation, the idea is hypothetically sound unless
1 I left out important variables
or
2 I used bad logic

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you are the only one here who seems to know anything about this, do you think the equipment could be reworked? what makes it so expensive?

Inert gas dry steam is extremely complex to opperate. This system requires velocity sections that compress and expand the steam that’s extracted through numerous temperature controlled throats. Where the steam goes one way and the fraction goes another. The concept is you turn it on from room temp or freezing. Whatever. Then add a few degrees every few cycles and allow that fraction to collect. Then all the way to heads. When the cycle ends the temp is increased and then your cannabinoids can fraction out. From what I know the cost to build one is easily 100 million for small scale. They have never actually been fully built. Just validation machines. Think of it like a recycling vapor machine. Sending vapor through a extraction chamber with bio mass and through numerous seps and back for then of the gas into a high velocity steam injection. Also the velocity is so important that if it’s at 98% flow it doesn’t work and logs up machine. It has to be constant.

Also I’m not on the business or reconceptualization of other people’s intellectual property for production so I can’t exactly comment on what I would assume could be done to make it cheaper. What’s important to remember is this is thier premier patent. I wouldn’t never want to be in thier crosshairs

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Thank you for your thoughtful reply.
Respect.

Reconceptualization is valuable if we don’t want this method to fall by the wayside. Personally I do not have any interest in profiting off of it, my main motivation is encouraging people to think out of the box with goals of environmental and worker safety in mind.

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I’ve heard of the patent that @spdking is referring to. In that patent I think they mention fairly high cannabinoid degradation something like 10%.

Similar compounds are removed in similar processes such as carotenoids, fatty acids, and heavy terpenes in the edible oil industry. A lot of these have molecular weights close to or greater than cannabinoids at 315g/mol give or take. So even from a theoretical standpoint, you got a shot.

I think the oil that you would produce would be high in cbn and a deep red color from thermal degradation. Just because saturated steam is over 100C and under pressure. The patent I think touches on this.

That being said I honestly think you could totally make it work if you played with the setup long enough. Maybe operate under vacuum, sparge in dry steam and use a lot of cooling power to maintain deep vacuum. There’s tons of options, that’s just one.

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is there a physical chemist here who can calculate how much pressure is required to get your steam hot enough to get your cannabinoids appreciably in the vapor phase?

something tells me its not happening

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A calculator online says that at 200c or 392f the steam pressure would be 211psi.

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yeah the more im thinking about it the more confident i am, those cannabinoids arent going anywhere. jack up pressure to get your steam hotter is going to effect the cannabinoids ability to phase change - higher pressure youll need more energy, (hotter) so inc pressure actually doesnt get you anything.

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@YeahBet with heat and pressure only yeah, but other industries strip tocopherols and sterols from edible oil all the time using dry steam under pressure and vacuum by injecting the steam into a vacuum system. For cannabis oil it might work might. But for biomass, I understand that’s iffy at best.

My point is I think it would be difficult to do, but I don’t think it’s completely impossible. I’m not sure how viable the final oil would be though.

My apologies for arguing for the sake of arguing though.

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