I am trying to figure out the remainder of mass in my terpenes. They test high in Limonene, myrcene, pinenes, caroyphyllene linanlool and some ocimene and humilene along with other <1% tarps. (Caryophyllene oxide was not tested)
But 32% of the sample mass is other compounds? What are the compounds? That skunky smell is still missing if I mix just those above mentioned terpenes to try recreate natural oder. I am not doing this to try mix terpene blends, but more to test ID of each component of the cannabis bouquet.
Ultimately I want to be able to test flower and know what I will get as a “terpene” product. Right now they test for terpenes, but this is only a portion of the scent. I need/want to determine each component. Thanks for the insight.
I found a paper from NIH doing headspace sampling (HS) techniques on marijuana flower (as well as samples in a plastic zip-lock bag). I am not easily shocked, but this research shows well over 100 volatile organic compounds aside from terpenes. Some are not very friendly. They started the task of assigning odor values for each component, but much more research is needed to finish the job. This is a very complex chemical suite.
Spot on…just like there are full spectrum extracts of cannabinoids, cannabis derived terpenes are really full spectrum extracts of the terpenes, esters, flavonoids.
Terpenes just take up the most space but they’re not really what you’re smelling when you smell weed. Hypothetical sample: let’s say you pulled some terps and it tested at 97% terpenes. In that 97% you’ll see all the common monoterpenes, sesquiterpenes and terpene alcohols we see in everything. Myrcene, caryophyllene, Limonene, Nerolidol, etc etc. On their own they’re really not that strong. Then 2.5% will be a bunch of random uncommon sesquiterpenes that no one ever talks about, a lot of them don’t really have much smell on their own either surprisingly. It’ll be about 100 different ones in 0.01% ranges but these don’t really matter a ton either.
That leaves this last 0.5% that will be a total clusterfuck of esters, aldehydes, alcohols, ketones, etc. Thiols will check in at about 0.01%. That right there will be stronger smelling than the other 99% combined.
This is why everyone is disappointed when they go out and buy a bunch of isolates and try to recreate a strain. You can be 99% accurate on paper but in the grand scheme of things terpenes are not that strong smelling. Yes a bottle of Limonene is strong to our nose but the even lighter weight chemicals are without exaggeration 100’s of times stronger.
There also compounds like mercaptans, sulfides, aldehydes, hydrocarbons, piperizines, glycols, amines, aziradines, chlorinated compounds, etc., etc. in odor from flower.
It would be very interesting to see what the array is in extracts and distillates (including steam distillation). I appreciate your insight.
I 100% agree with you that some small mass % components can greatly attribute to the odor bouquet. Our steam distilled samples are in the 70% range for terpene mass. The paper detects only one thiol in aroma from head-space testing, methyl mercaptan (skunk’s spray contains mercaptans) and dimethyl sulfide. There are several compound for which I have not looked up the structure. I am beginning that task now.
I appreciate your reply. Once again I wish clarify I am not trying to recreate MMJ odor to assemble and sell. I am looking for a qualitative/quantitative assay to understand how it relates to odor and product from steam distillation of flower (as well as sonicated and other techniques). Some “terpene” /odor extracts are much more desirable than others.
And there’s no cannabinoids? Are they water-clear? Or thicker with cloudiness or gold. Could be any number of things. You may need to test it somewhere else that specializes more in essential oils to answer your questions.
I assume no Cannabinoids in our sample… I honestly have run a canna-profile, but I expect none to very little. I can do that tomorrow. I also must point out our lab tested for only 22 terpenes (however they are some of most the abundant (but not caryophyllene oxide). If you add the % from the profile it adds to 68%… I cannot definitively say yet what the other 32% is… they are fairly clear, but not water clear… they are not dark… some late fractions are slightly yellow. They have the viscosity of water.
I realize this is an incredible task, but it interests me and would help increase quality and potential safety of terpene based aroma extracts.
About 80% of the mass… nice. You definitely test for more than our selected lab does… that’s a good thing some labs test for up to 65 that I have seen.
So I finally ran Cannabinoid profile on the steam distillate. There are no Cannabinoids, but the sample showed many peaks on UV spectrum. I do not have a GC/MS, but I do have an LC/MS. I am thinking about try to convert the GC method into an LC method. Otherwise a GC/MS will cost at least $75K and probably another $10K to develop a usable method… I’m sure a head-space sampler will cost a few $K, too.
These compounds are collectively going to add up to maybe 1%. Pretty much everything on that list is going to be about 0.01-0.15%.
Most labs just test for the usual 20 or so terpenes which to be fair is sufficient in most cases since those account for 90+% of what you’re going to see. Yes there hundreds of other terpenes but they will all be in trace amounts. That’s not to say they aren’t important in the overall aroma but when trying to account for 20% of unknowns these also won’t get you terribly far. Is it possible that your lab is just off on all the main ones by 1-2%? My money is on fats if it’s not something like that.
Have you fried freezing a sample to see if you can get any non terpene material to drop out? I’ve done this to clear up cloudy terps since it seemed like the least intrusive way to go about it.
some labs test for up to 65 that I have seen.
