I have read a few topics here about this issue but haven’t seen anyone reply with what might be causing this.
We are running a 20L SPD to clean up the color of our remediated distillate. We use flash chromatography for remediation. Post remediation and after solvent recovery, the distillate going into the short path is consistently testing below .02%THC. After distilling only one liter of remediated distillate the THC is 2-4x as much as when it went in. It seems the more residence time the more the THC increases, as we have tried this with larger amounts. I am not sure if it is time and temperature causing this and it’s unavoidable, a conversion reaction, or a combination of factors.
We have good consistent vacuum with no leaks. Mantle temps are between 170 and 180C.
Anyone have any ideas as to why this is happening?
You should probably distill your material first, and then remediate it. There’s no way around it, you’re literally taking what’s in your input material, and concentrating it. So it seems only natural that your thc levels would compound after distillation. I’m not exactly a pro, so we’ll let some others chime in. But that’s my initial knee jerk reaction response.
It is distillate that is being remediated. We are running in back through the SPD to clean up the color as it gets quite dark after remediation. i understand concentration of cannabinoids but i think there are other things at play here since the THC is increasing so much. Its increasing 10 fold if we distill amounts over 1 liter.
You might be better off trying to remediate the color after remediation while still in solvent by passing through some magic dirt. Use whatever media for color remediation, pass through a buchner, and recover solvent?
@SFH I would guess that your distillate is becoming slightly acidic in the remediation process, and isomerizing in the spd. What medias/solvents are you using?
If your thc numbers are going too high after distillation, maybe a water wash after chromatography and before distillation would help get the ph in the correct range to avoid isomerization.
Yep. Should be able to adjust ph to where you want it that way. I’m not all that knowledgeable about it, but there’s plenty of info from the great folks here on the topic.