I am with a brand new company in Northern California and most of the team (everyone except me) is brand new to the industry and don’t consume cannabis products. I am being asked to create a layout for the extraction areas and to provide equipment for the areas. One thing that came up during a meeting is my decision to store terpenes from CO2 extraction in an explosion proof fridge. The three other people on the team were perplexed as to why i would store terpenes in an explosion proof fridge. I am explained to them that terpenes are highly flammable and we store flammable ethanol-cannabinoid solution (winterizing solution) in a flammable freezer. They didn’t seem too convinced of the flammability of terpenes and wanted “data”.
Is there any safety/occupational hazard with storing terpenes in an explosion proof fridge?
They are talking about wanting to store them in a flammable cabinet…
Depends on what volume youre talking about. How do they store essential oils at the health food store? How do they store essential oils at the bulk apothecary?
Unless they are still in a volatile solution there is no need to store them in an explosion proof enclosure. I have ordered terps and they just come in a small glass jar.
Terpenes do not need to be stored in an explosion proof fridge. And as long as they are not stored in a hot environment most terpenes do not need to be stored in a fridge. What is more important for some terpenes is storing them in an oxygen free environment, like purging head space with nitrogen.
They should be stored in a cool, dry place. Room temperature is fine. Keeping the terpene isolates and terpene strain blends in the refrigerator won’t hurt them, but, depending upon where you live, inside the bottles may form condensate and dilute the terpenes if the bottles go from a cold fridge to a hot room (don’t put them in the freezer).
At my last occupation, we had to store all of our terpenes in a deep freezer. This was NOT for occupational safety, but we dealt with analytical grade and had issues with volatility, and minuscule amounts.
Most of my isolated terpenes in my new gig are just stored in a cabinet and with the larger volumes I haven’t had any issues with room temperature storage
Good point about very small volumes when loosing even a little bit of analytical grade can be very costly. I’m curious why a deep freezer, why not just a normal fridge?
Even in a normal VWR freezer such small amounts would evaporate over a couple months period, even when they were in original containers, wrapped in parafilm, in another conical lol. We’re talking small amounts though, like 200uL over a couple months.