Waxing or contamination in bho using CRC

I’m running 1/1 ratio material to B80 got CRC. (1cup/1lb)

First time using B80 in my medium column, first run I passed fuel through the b80 by itself to “clean it out” in hopes of washing anything out before running inline with my material columns. Everything turned out fine, product looked great, everything snapped, happy camper.

I tried a run without washing the B80 by itself and as soon as you poured the slabs you could tell something was up. After a night in the ovens everything waxed up to the state of sugar wax. Thought it was possibly moisture in the material or the fuel so did a fuel distill, new filters driers etc. Ran again, didn’t wash the B80 out first and Finished material ended up being the exact same. A very tacky and sticky oil that would wax up when thrown in the oven.

Did a few control tests today to see if it was in-fact not washing the B80 that was causing the property to change in the finished bho resulting in waxing and a very oil like state. Won’t know until the morning about the tests I did today.

Wondering if anyone has similar experience or advice on this.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

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Sugaring has been a tough battle with B80. Finding that lower oven temps and less time in there slows the growths. Some slabs I tossed in 95° let it heat for 20 minutes pull vac, 1 hr later there are sugar spots forming. Color of slabs is :ok_hand: though!

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You did test with distilled solvent, but did you also dried up the clay ?

Could be that you’re not filtering low enough and the small leftover particles of b80 could be acting as nucleation sites, speeding up crystallization.

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that would certainly be consistent with not seeing the problem when OP prewashes media. the fines that slip by, slip by, so they’re not there to cause nucleation when the actual run is done.

@Dr_Jebril may also have a point. if you suspect water, then baking your clays under vacuum over night might prove useful

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Okay thanks for the input everyone. Clays were not baked overnight, simply wash through run, change filters, move onto material run.

I will try both baking the clay after wash and throwing a couple finer filters on my filter stack. Any recommendations for what micron filters work best with something as fine as B80?

Thanks

I would bake, wash, clean collection, prime with solvent then run

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b80 has some fines in it that will slip by unless you use celite under it, b80 is also not acid activated so that usually leaves you with soft or sappy oil. If you want shatter or stability In your oil you will need to use a more acidic powder.

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Interesting, never thought of that. So the clay being a base would be pulling too much or too little out?

I’m new to the CRC world so apologize for the lack of knowledge.

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No need to apologize, the acidity is what breaks down the phospholipids and Terps, b80 being natural won’t do that so u get better Terps but soft wax, if u use something acidic like p6000, t41, or w1 then u strip more Terps out making it a more solid oil. This also helps in crystallization.

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Color comes from different sources. Oxidation, metals, chlorophylls, etc. Acidic powders won’t grab colors just cause. Pore size and structure help it be more selective. For example machine trimmed material will come out darker even with crc. Unless u use a powder that is selective for metal color bodies. Old material darkens from oxidation, you will need to use a powder that targets oxidized color bodies more selctively.

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Okay I’m picking up what your putting down. I do have access to T41 and celite so I will try that. I also have silica, unsure if that is acidic enough to do what your talking about.

Stacked: B80, T41, celite in order.

Thanks again for the incite. Really appreciate it.

My last run didn’t sugar up over night but is very oily and tacky. Colour looks mint. Still lots of terps though coming off the slabs.

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What treatment did the above run see?

I’ve only tried it with the following stacks:

1- B80 alone in CRC column
2- 1cup B80/1lb trim with 2inches of silica on top. Both mediums Separated with a 100m filter paper.

All with chilled fuel and a rinse on the medium column prior to product run.

Presumably only one of those is the “last run” that you’re referring to as “Not sugared”…

Seems like “fines” as @ScoobyDoobie suggested is the current best guess.

Combined with your high terpene content.

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Yeah that’s correct. Last run didn’t sugar up but just was a tacky stretchy slab was solely just washed B80 by Itself in the CRC column.

Could be, I’ll try the celite and finer Micron filter papers along with the T41. Couldn’t see any particulates with the naked eye.

A good test to do would be comparing the run whith preconditioned clay (by washing with clean solvent as what was done here), and another run without preconditioning, but using a pre-dried clay. That would clearly indicate if water is the only culprit, and if washing with solvent efficiently dries the clay (it should be, using a sufficient volume).

Dealing with fines (clay fraction is mainly made up of small platelets less than 2 microns wide, and about 15 nanometers thick each, usually stacked by 10 to more than 20…), it could be another reason. But @Dextract when you prewash the medium, do you dump the solvent elsewhere ?

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Im not really aware of the exact nature of the compounds to be scavenged here, nor of how acide/base principles and pH works in such hydrocarbon solvents… but I don’t thinks that the acidity is the main property that dinstinghuishes the acid treated bentonites from untreated ones here.

My guess is that it is more about the acid activation process that their have undergone prior to use, which has the effect of increasing their sorption capacity, partly by breaking down the platelets (thus exposing more edge sites which are not the most numerous sorption sites, but are the one with stronger affinities), and partly by washing the existing sites (replacing strongly sorbed metals by more loose protons or sodium).

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You’re right. I was just referring to the b80 which seems to be the only natural clay out there. I’m only speaking from personal trial and error experience with the acid activated clays. I noticed the ph level difference was giving me different results on the same material. A ph of 3 always crystalized better for me. B80 slowed the process down. Perform6000 at 2.2 did well but took too much flavor away.

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This makes sense chemically. Restoring the nonionic state of a compound generally makes it precipitate if it was dissolved and stable beforehand. This explains why we see crystals crashing out in the collection vessel sometimes with CRC’d material. I’m guessing the acidity is protonating some alcohol groups on the terps or degrading some of the more unstable ones into forms which easily adhere to the Clay’s binding sites. This would also explain why we see heavily crc’d material often have terps like limonene and pinene shine through, because they have no alcohol groups or other easily modifiable groups on them.

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