THC Reduction

Hello everyone,
Im starting a small CBD bussines in Austria.
Haven`t found my answers by the search function.

Want to ask you if it is possible to take my curde Oil (60%CBD / 4%THC) to under 0.3% THC by destillation with an 300mm vigreux column. Should i take an other column ?

How would you do that?
Is this possible with a spinning band destillation?
Or is chromatography the way to go ?
Would you recommend a fraction finder for beginners or how do you seperate the heads, hearts and tails fractions ?

Thanks in advance

Only chroma or chemical reaction will take care of that
What volume ?
What s your. End product ?
Dilution might be an option

Chromo and degrading/converting are the only cost effective repeatable ways.

The other ways to do but don’t full exist or aren’t perfected yet is having a molecule filter that bonds to ithc specifically. Especially since thc is a single bond vs many other cannabs being double bonds. I know companies like sixthwave are working on that but their affinity beads are slow like 1 liter and hour. Also they provide the beads in exchsnge for a small percentage royalty based of how many grans you process with their beads

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Chromo depending if flash or fractional in process also has a 8-25% volune loss depending on your experience and equipment. Converting/ degrading takes special care but I’ve been getting 3/ volume loss and 3-4% in cannab conversion. Usually have the thc goes to cbn while other stuff such as cbg and cbc have small conversion back to cbd…

The only absolute way is at the seed and gebetics that bread out the thc which good luck lol

Chromo is very expensive and slow even in usa of you don’t have machines your self people charge 500-1000 / liter to remediate to non detect. Converting,/ degrading cost me about $200-$250/kg output and is scaleable.

Also how far you want to go with renedistion dictate the cost/time/and results. Taking it to complisbt thc of 0.2% or 0.3% is cheaper/easier/ and lower loss vs taking to a noh detect. A true 0 thc doesn’t really exist. More so you can just get it so low most testing equipment can’t even register however in theory regardless of what is said there is a theoretical existence.

Also one thing I learned the hard way is anything over 3% thc require more passes or time. Which means more solvent and risk of volume loss especially chromo.

I’m by far not an expert on all this so I hope other member can verify my experiences. But these are all the bottle necks and situations iv experienced.

Ps sorry for my spelling I don’t have my glasses and am squinting

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For the beginning its small. 1-2 liters a day troughput.
The most products i want to create are CBD oils form 5% to 25%. but i must get rid of the thc. Otherwise i have to dilute it right away after extraction. Then some products are no longer possible. If there is an unannounced inspection.
But i my goal is that i can produce everyting (destillates, pastes, CBD crystal)
Crystal can be done “easy”.
What do you mena by chemical reaction? Degrading THC to CBN ?
There is a filter that can filter out THC !?!? 1 liter per hour would be more than perfect ;). Can you tell me more about that ?
How do you mean flash or fractional? The point of the thing is the separation ?
If I understand correctly, you degrade your THC to CBN. How long does it take?
Could that be done with heat, O2, UV-C light or something like that?
Would be very grateful if you can tell me more about the degrading. :sunny:

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As one one also told me a while back dilute dilute dilute it is the cheapest easiest way. Also it depends on how solid filtered and wintetized the crude is on all these processes.

If your crude is 100% winterized and filtered I recommend cutting it with a carrier oil and just formulating with that.

The degrading process is a lot more involved than that even to the point of keeping a titaniun oxide bed to many sure there is enough oxygen in creating uniform process.

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Would be too easy ^^

Has anyone tried to fraction off THC by a vigreux column ?

Yes we have
With all Sorts of pakking and size
Longest was 90cm ns32
Packed with ss srubies
Rashig rings
Marbels
Copper scrap
Broken safety glass pieces
It does not work to take thc out realy

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Just a heads up, it is illegal in Austria to go above 0.3% at any point of the extraction. Get a lawyer immediately. It’s not enough to remove the THC later in the process, right now you are sitting on jailtime. Btw: 10yrs+ of cannabis expertise and legals in AT here …

Whoa now that’s a trip
Extract with a overload of non polar
Solvent then NAOH waterwash with a load of water then reduce volume of non polar to 0.29% thc then
Do catalyst conversion of thc to cbn
Will take 4 days at least at bp of solvent then evap of solvent
:thinking: Yeah can be done
Don t think your price competitive thou

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Or send the biomass to a lab which can legally process it ;))

Yes that’s an option to but so simple
I like a chalange :wink:

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Not sure how that would be any different, how would the “legal lab” have less trouble with the idiotic thc standard?

Simplest answer here is lipid extraction, it will limit your potency, not a bad thing for you, and it will limit your potential end products, depending on your creativity with carrier oils could be a bad thing.

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Because legal labs usually employ someone who is allowed to work with THC, which is then being destroyed (at least this is what we do in AT). Or you have a licensed extractor somewhere who is allowed to use the THC as well after the extraction.

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How does one become a person allowed to work with THC in a place where THC is illegal?

There are licenses to work with SMG (or BTMG in Germany). Otherwise it would be hard to work with opioids etc. :wink:

I guess things are just different all over, the government here in North Carolina basically just turns a blind eye to higher thc levels in hemp concentrate as long as anything being presented as a retail product has been diluted below .3%.

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I think we Austrians and Germans are super duper over-regulated and the governments are not working in favor for entrepreneurs. Look at our history. We are not known as the easy going guys…

Edit: And yes, most operations are doing it in the grey area, which results in shitty products… I am actually not that mad at them that professionals have to work in this industry, but it could be a little bit easier (like as you said, it shouldn’t be a problem to have a hot dist which is being diluted immediately…)

Edit2: And yes, I know people who got jail time because they where sitting on a lot of hot stuff before diluting …

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