Hey all!
I recently received a batch of cannabis derived terpenes that is separating after it was received and placed in the fridge. I’ve spent a lot of time lurking in the forums, finding answers to various issues with plenty of success, but hadn’t seen this one yet. We’ve gone through the guess game on potential contaminants.
What are your thoughts?
Were these pulled by CO2? Could possibly be some plant lipids or waxes that were pulled out from the extraction run and not properly removed
It looks like it was not filtered correctly or at all or put through any post refinement process. The color gives it away not to mention the hydrosol or unwanted matter at the bottom. Should be water clear with no containments or matter present. Next time give us a try for your live flower terpene needs. Shoot me a dm when you need to order next.
I would recommend trying to filter that as best as possible before formulating products with it.
Unsure on the method of collection, will follow up once that’s verified though. I appreciate the input everyone 
Run that shit through a dessicant via gravity filtration or push it through a dessicant column with positive displacement.
Remove the water, but you cannot apply a vacuum or you’ll make the low BP terps fuck right off to atmosphere
Yup that’s definitely water/hydrosol separating out. Easiest low tech method to deal with it is to put it in a separatory funnel, wait for it to separate out again, and remove the water from the bottom. Caveman tech version is stick the jar in the freezer, wait for the water/hydrosol mixture at the bottom to freeze solid, then pour the liquid terps off the ice.
I’d also weigh all the water you pour off/remove from the mixture and hit up your terp source for a partial refund. What they sold you was a blend of 70-75% terpenes and 25-30% water. I’d hate to pay $10/ml for some dirty water lol
Welcome to the future @Mr_Kandahar! Keep us posted on your results. I’ll second the sep funnel.
I have a clevenger I can sell you cheap.
As a couple of other people have recommended I’d go with a sep funnel. If you’re still having problems with clarity after that I’d chill it to ~40°F. If you get it to that temp and leave it there for a couple of hours any remaining lipids or waxes will semi solidify and you can use a regular funnel with some filter paper to separate those out of your solution. Only at that point would it be clean enough to formulate with. As SauceBoss said I would definitely get a before and after weight so you can potentially get some of your money back.
Thanks for the feedback everyone. It’s greatly appreciated! I did a couple passes through a sep funnel and a freeze test with the resulting non-desirables. Definitely hydrosol.
I’ll reattempt with a desiccant column to clean it up next 
Nicely done. It looks like your terps now have a micro-dispersion of water bubbles inside, that can be kind of a pain to deal with. Eventually they will coagulate and pool together at the bottom but that can take a lot of time.
I wonder if using light heat or agitation could help those droplets (or at least the majority of them) condense into something that can be easily removed via sep funnel. There are some interesting publications about using ultrasonic waves to help with dewatering crude oil. Of course, plenty of people are out there creating strong oil in water emulsions using heat and sonication so maybe that isn’t the right direction to go in…
Curious to see how the desiccant column turns out, hopefully the setup you have won’t soak up too many terps!
If you have the equipment Id filter, sep funnel it then distill with 2 or 3 cold traps under light vac
I wonder if you could use a fuge to get the water to separate a little quicker
Got any spoons on a particular dessicant that would be chemically compatible?
Use Magnesium Sulfate powder to dry it.
Just because of availability? All the proper drying salts I’ve seen are anhydrous sodium sulfate, I know microwaving USP grade epsom salt can do the same thing though
That’s just what they taught me to use at University honestly and i’ve never used anything else for drying salts. I don’t have any rationale on Na vs Mg. They should both work fine.
