Wax in solvent solubility test

This is a super interesting theory! I read your first post on this thread and my response was “let’s centrifuge the fuck outta it and see what happens”. I happen to have a centrifuge that can hit 500k rcf, some ethanol, and a bunch of reserved winterization filtrate. Maybe I can convince my company to give me enough free time to answer the question experimentally (in honor of the late @beaker)

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Thanks for sharing your theory and observations. I am inclined to agree with you, as I have observed similar behavior from lipids in an alcohol solution. Best rekindling of an old thread I have seen in a long time. Thanks @MagisterChemist.

I wonder what @Photon_noir and @cyclopath have to say on the matter.

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an overnight spin in that 'fuge should drop anything that’s coming down…

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I also have heard some clients recently report pretty extreme yield losses in the winterization step (much more than I ever personally experienced). This could happen if the oil is being bound inside miscelles. I did not have a chance to completely drill into their processes but if there are factors affecting miscelle size, processes creating larger ones could lead to such a yield loss.

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vicious agitation?

exogenous surfactants?!?

I’ve also noticed and so have many other people, that supercritical CO2 oil seems to have waxes that are unusually hard to crash and filter compared to almost any other method. This could perhaps explain that, if CO2 and CO2 alone is picking up some plant emulsifier in great amounts. After all if it’s just fats precipitating the source should be irrelevant?

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Beaker’s research is truly a great treasure that I still learn from. Doing this only for personal reasons, he did a lot of pure R&D companies in the industry usually are unwilling to devote time and money to. Without formal chemistry education, he did not always tease out the full implications of everything he did. I often find myself learning things that completely destroy the common wisdom on the subject looking back through his data.

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The biggest issue with that is the tubes like to crush if any gas is dissolved because a pocket forms lol. It’s a fun toy, I wish I got to play with it more. Spent $500 on the fuge and $500 on the rotor/tubes lol.

I always assumed the variable yield loss in ethanol winterization (especially with CO2 extracted) was because it’s tough to pin down the correct ratio. One of the reasons we moved to methanol is that it seemed like there were overlapping peaks of lipids and cannabinoids that would crash out of ethanol unless some water was added. But nailing down the water content with any water present in the oil was like trying to catch a falling knife.

It could be that the mechanism we theorized was completely wrong and the answer is that more fat forms more suds

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I always found Beaker’s method of swelling wax with a boiling water/iso solution and alumina (described here and here) kind of perplexing. I could not rationalize why a period of boiling would change anything if the solution is brought up to the same concentrations at the end anyway. However if seen as a way to invert or breakdown the emulsion so that it is unstable, such a process makes a lot of sense – and the brief comment about adding “dust” (a flocculating agent) is very suggestive.

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I also found the concept confusing from a practical/logical standpoint. Like, wouldn’t refluxing at around the boiling point of IPA in any solvent have the same effect? For what it’s worth, I tried the IPA boil exactly once and had poorer results than a lot of people around here. I always assumed it was just some kind of pyrolisis or something that made the chlorophyll less soluble in alcohols. Form my results, I suspect the presence of water was necessary for the desired result but I’m probably an asshole for trying to interpret any data from the dumpster fire of an experiment that we ran lol

I am not entirely certain as to what this thread is referring or what you are asking. Emulsions, as @MagisterChemist says, are often separable by centrifuge. Separation is just a matter of different densities, although the suspension is often controlled by the electrochemical bilayer or zeta (ζ) potential.

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Pff where to start
At the time I postered the fats and waxed paper on rye (datadump ) I started fractionating all fats and waxes into seperate fats and waxes and so far I have found 16 seperate fraqtions in hemp
Of Wich 5 are solids at room temp and none dissolve in methanol and some 3 do not dissolve in hot ethanol
The polish farmers do this as their first winterizing step they heat the ethanol
Gunk floats on top the let it cool and a solid cake can be removed
I don t have a high tech lab but I could try to identify some of these compounds their melting point
Viscosity and maybe even boiling point even thou some change in nature once distilled
Do not return to a solid at room temp after
Any one interested I still have several fat/wax.
Fraqtions available
All I care to find is the crucial fat/wax to have
Lab made shatter consistency’s and translucence with issolate s

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Very very helpful. I would very much like to get these fractions and study them through full analysis.

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Ditto on that!

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In for the data!

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Hey I once found the stable wax to be obtainable by filtering hot water through the fats collected in a Buchner

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~130-140F?
Aka straight from the faucet?!?

Yes it was a sink in the garage next to the water heater. Supa hot

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I remember I was able to dry it out and it was stable in a sandwich bag. Melted down into a midnight black colored glass lol

Are you saying you found a water soluble wax? That would be interesting.

I think hydrogen peroxide may help in exploring these “waxy” substances