Im having some issues with my potency going down recently with my distillate. Our lab sent back a test and it has some peaks which thy are indicating is delta 10. How does this happen? Am i taking to long to distill? My vacuum during the runs never goes over 100microns and my temp never exceeded 220 degrees.
What is the pH of your crude?
That is a good question. We don’t use any additives or absorbents just good ol’ ethanol and CO2 oil so we have not checked the PH of our crude ever. I will do that and get back to you.
Check there for good info
3 Likes
I’m impressed that the lab told you rather than you having to ask the lab director.
Mind sharing who they are?
What size SPD are you using?
Is the biomass from a new source?
I have heard anecdotal reports of foliar applications to plants causing issues during distillation.
I have no data of my own indicating that, but if you’ve ruled out leaks and pH, it’s probably the next most likely candidate.
3 Likes
Can you get the spectrum of the unknown peak? Or the supposed 10a peak? Also labeling the known peaks would help.
I suspect we will being seeing more and more of these questions as testing labs start to run methods that separate thc from the isomers.
Steep Hill is the lab. They marked the THC peak with a vertical Black line through the peak. Im running a 12L lab society setup with a single head. The biomass is all grown in house and we have not changed our processes at all since we began. I do believe this is occurring during the second pass. Our first pass has tested higher every single time for delta9.
I was in the same boat as you, running winterized CO2 oil as my short path crude. After checking around here, I have learned that CO2 is a very non-selective solvent, and will pull many plant acids into the oil. This will make the pH lower, and low pH in the boiling flask causes isomerization. I switched to doing cold quick ethanol washes for short path crude, that worked great for me. I dont exactly know how to go about neutralizing the pH of the CO2 oil, or if that would completely fix the isomerization, but im sure there is someone on here who could point you in the right direction if you are set on using CO2 and not ethanol for the extraction.
5 Likes
This is the first that I have heard of this, but that is possible. I have to wait for my PH papers to get here tomorrow but i have a fresh run getting out of the extractor tonight i will test in the morning. Im glad we are switching to hydrocarbons soon so this issue will be non-existent in the future.
The THC peak is marked with a thick black line through it and the delta 10 peak is the larger peak to the right of the THC.
There are ways to run CO2 crude and get great distillate, but I haven’t looked into it. Hydrocarbons are more selective, should yield you better crude too.
I have had success in the past with CO2, i just have not been able to repeat the same results recently and this test through me threw a complete loop.
How do they know that peak is delta 10? Do they have a standard they use to confirm that? If so, they would be able to quantify it. Can they give you an actual % by weight that is delta 10 in your sample?
I have had potency problems with CO2 crude in SPD that I haven’t had with ethanol crude or butane crude. I’m running some tests right now to confirm this, data wont be available until next week.
I have experienced the same Delta 10 isomer and have been able to mitigate it through various SOP’s. DM me.
1 Like
It isnt the ph and it isnt the extraction method. Ill give 10$ to the person who figures it out… we were able to verify the result recently. Always test start to finish after each process… and know your material sources… making a quick buck on some cheap trim can bite someone in the ass… theres a hint… also, it takes an organic chemist about 10 minutes to narrow down options for that type of isomer change… from there it takes industry knowledge. Again $10 on the barrelhead
2 Likes
All of our material was grown in our own indoor pesticide free facility. I am not familiar with our head cultivators methods to a tee. It would be helpful if you could explain what may be happening to the material. I will double down and give you 20$ 
Tell you what, I’ll tell you why it’s happening, for a small consult fee I’ll tell you how to fix it.
CO2 pulls plant acids, all of them. Acids + Distillation = Isomerization.
5 Likes
Usually the cause is actually different then what you have, true delta 10 isomerization requires an aluminum source, or catalyst for the reaction.
Maybe like a filtration media getting into the flask.
You telling me that everything is grown by you indoors says that the typical source of the issue isnt there. Are you using any media before the run, anything between extraction and distillation? If nothing has changed, something has changed its just minor
3 Likes
No that would be cbc, i rarely work with co2 extract these days but any bho or ethanol extract ive worked with will only produce cbc isomers from acid or vac leak… and these days that number has been 0%… so its not a plant acid as muchbas it may be left over acid in a flask from carbon use… which i dont use.
Yes, we are in PA and no material can come from outside our facility, we are Grower/Processors.
We 100% didn’t use any media of any sort and never have, straight from the extractor, winterized with ethanol at -20c, filtered at 10microns using regular qualitative papers then rotovaped and dumped into the SPD.