It is important to remember that water adsorbs from humidity in air to particles and surfaces of any polar compound, and especially those containing single-bonded O, H, or OH groups at their surfaces. The more rough or porous the oxide surface, the more water it can adsorb. The aDsorption on a porous material can even be classified as aBsorption, since the water goes down into the material body, lining the interior walls of the pores. Smooth surfaces like crystalline quartz or amorphous glass will generally only adsorb a layer, one water molecule thick, known as a monolayer. If you have ever baked your clay (calcined or not), magsil, or activated charcoal, you have probably seen the fog and droplets of water condensation forming on the inside of the cooler glass door window, blowing out the exhaust of a diaphragm or dry scroll pump, or clouding up the oil in a rotary vane vacuum pump.
Aluminosilicates (clays) are naturally hydrated layers of alumina (aka: aluminum oxide, corundum, abrasive grit) and silica (aka: silicon dioxide, quartz, glass, sand). Each of these elemental oxides will form at least a monolayer of water molecules across their surfaces when exposed to normal air moisture. Clays are characterized by alternating sheets (aka: leaves or lamellae) of these oxides, often doped with other metal ions, and forcefully “glued” together by monolayers of water molecules, called intercalated waters of hydration. This water is so strongly bound that it requires calcination—firing the clay in a furnace at temperatures in excess of 400°C—just to begin to dry it out of the clay! The tiny pores in silica diatom skeletons can also tightly bind water in this way, as in diatomaceous earth. Fortunately, these materials will not rehydrate to this degree after calcining. Like terracotta or other unglazed ceramics, they can adsorb/absorb water superficially, but this water can be dried out of them under normal oven conditions.
Acidic, alkaline, and pH
I actually think some of the confusion here is caused by calling them acids and bases when they are not dissociated in water. Let me clear that up…
The Brönstead theory of acids and bases is the most well known. “Acids” are hydrogen cation (aka proton or H+) donors. These molecules dissociate (ionize) in water, and the acidic species is actually the hydronium cation the protons form with water, H3O+.
Acids can have one or more labile protons, and each subsequent proton is less dissociable (i.e. less acidic or weaker) in pure water than the proton before it. “Strong” acids completely dissociate in water, while “weak” acids dissociate only partially to set up an equilibrium in water of dissociated and non-dissociated species.
“Bases” are hydroxide anion (aka OH-) donors and proton acceptors. This is why acid + base = water + salt.
It helps to recognize that an alkaline hydroxide is actually the product of a (usually alkaline earth or earth) metal oxide and water:
MgO + H2O = Mg(OH)2
2(NaO) + H2O = 2(NaOH)
The negative log to base 10 constant ( p ) that denotes dissociability (K) of acids (a) or bases (b) are normalized for concentration of free protons (H) in aqueous (water) solutions. In other words, pKa, pKb, and pH are water based measurements.
Therefore, when discussing dry acids and bases in non-polar systems, it is best to use terms of electronegativity and electropositivity, or nucleophiles and electrophiles. Acids are electropositive or electrophiles. Bases are electronegative or nucleophiles.
@Kingofthekush420 Your description sounds like a couple different things happening. Even considering the natural humidity adsorption of these materials, we also know that acids and bases are catalysts for cannabinoid reactions, even when no water is present. Isomerization is NOT a neutralization reaction, which we know because it is a catalysis; the acid does not get used up, reacted, turned into a salt and water or something else. The electrophilic (acid) molecule is simply providing a bit of energy to drive the reaction up over the activation hill. In the case of rose colored disty, we are probably seeing quinoid formation; oxygen radicals are attaching to some of the cannabinoids.
If you are not baking out the water from the surfaces of your media, it is entirely possible for the non-polar solvent to mechanically wash off some of the ionized aqueous layer and keep it dissolved. Water is the universal solvent, after all. Actually, even if you do bake the media totally dry, the solvent can still pick up minute particles and even individual molecules of the media, which need only find the water adsorbed to the inside of your glassware to dissociate. It is these sort of unexpected phenomena that make a truly anhydrous reaction (like what is required to use Lewis acid on CBD to make Δ9-THC) so infernally difficult to prepare!