Chloroform Extraction

[Oilmeister]

I would be interested in hearing about anyone's experience with chloroform extraction. From what I've read in Marijuana Chemistry by Micheal Starks, chloroform is a better solvent for THC. Apparently some undesirable plant oils are not soluble in chloroform consequently yielding a cleaner extraction of the THC. Trash to Stash by Ed Rosenthal also makes brief mention of chloroform as a more efficient solvent however it doesn't go into any detail what so ever. My usual method is QWISO or butane extraction however I'd always like to increase my knowledge.

 

[grease99]

I have been interested in the same thing. From my knowledge, chloroform would work as a solvent. However, you can get nasty headaches and also pass out from it, as with any solvent. It evaporates quickly though which is nice. I also am interested in trying acetone or hexane, they seems quite similar.

 

[ilife]

Ice-Cold WATER

Ice-Cold WATER

Try Using Ice-Cold Water. It is the best and the most safest solvent that could be used when making extractions with Marijuana. Also it is the cheapest and the most available solvent. Plus it gives you the options to divide the trichomes into different sizes, instead of one. This method was developed after Michael Starks wrote Marijuana Chemistry / Potency in 1977 last revised edition 1990. Ice-Water Extraction was first introduced in the late 80's with major advances in the mid 1990's.




iLiFE

 

[Guest]

I have been interested in the same thing. From my knowledge, chloroform would work as a solvent. However, you can get nasty headaches and also pass out from it, as with any solvent. It evaporates quickly though which is nice. I also am interested in trying acetone or hexane, they seems quite similar.

Acetone? Chloroform? Hexane That and a lot of solvents carry some nasty shit in their chemical make up. I have never seen more Young people seeking the "Holy Grail" of Hashish, only to ruin perfectly good Bud in search of a High Polluted with foreign crap. That S**T will screw up your Brain and everything that you are.

You make the choice of what you Ingest into your body. Stick with Keif and approaches like Bubble Hash, no Chemicals involved. Come on folks, is it about the beautiful herb that God gave us or a bunch of kids looking for an ass ripping high? Are you getting ripped by the chemicals you mixed with the herb or the herb itself. Grow up for Christ's sake and stop frying your Brain.

It reminds me of those that consume Hard Liquor( And I most certainly do, ) Some enjoy the flavor straight up, ( I do !), some enjoy a mixed drink and some do so much that they have their ass busted, ( I don't) their car towed, trying to remember their Attorneys phone number, and standing tall in front of the Man (aka: Here come de' judge")., providing they didn't kill a carload of folks that were on their way home from a family get together.

Marihuana, Marijuana, Mary Jane and so on------leave it be the best that it can, enjoy it and stop f***ing with it, Come On for Gods Sake! F***ing get real.



Ty-Stik

PS:
I have been around for more than a few years, walking on my own two feet and using the toilet like a little man when FDR was still President, seen some good things in my life and some bad sh**t too. Remember, the Forum, It Is about "Cannabis" my friends, the preservation of land race, and the breeding of future strains. Be good to one another.

Another Fart Thought: Sitting in Deer/Elk camp and lighting my bowl with a Hot ember from the fire pit, no Butane, propane, hexane--------Just Deer/Elk
Camp and a burning Ember. "It doesn't get any better than this". I am glad that I was born a Man.

My respects to you all !

Waxing nostalgic, Ty-Stik

the Girls are Rooting for Real S**t

 

[Hashmasta-Kut]

paranoid freak.

using burnt wood embers to light and smoke pot is far worse than vaporizing some sweet butane assisted extract is for your health. poor you. maybe someday..

 

[Chiefsmokingbud]

The big question is do you have a source for chloroform where you don't have to jump through a million hoops and end up on a watch list.

 

[Papulz]

ty stik - its the resin forum buddy.. some here choose to search out the cleanest, purest isolate of what they want to be using... why would you have a problem with that? i do not endorse using poisons to extract oils... but at the same time if someone wants to run paint thinner for their solvent all you can do warn them and then say i told you so.

i enjoy herb, i enjoy bubble even more, but lately its all been about jelly or oil. why is it necessary to tell others how to enjoy their sacrament?

ps. was it any different in the late 60's early 70's? that was the beginning of the use of mulberry sap in foreign import hashes, or when mexico or the brotherhood of eternal love started pumping out commercial batches of ganja oil. i see very little difference between icewater as a solvent and say, pure ethanol. chemistry is chemistry my friend. to a point

 

[gordonliu]

chloroform is carcinogenic as ****. way more carcinogenic than any of the solvents that most people consider for this process. sure pet distillates can give you cancer, so can ethanol for gods sake, but chloroform is terrible. It would probably be difficult to obtain chloroform without a denaturing stabilizer. I highly recommend avoiding it.

acetone is not very selective, but it will dissolve all the THC in 1 steeping. as well as a TON of other stuff. best used in a purificatoin, rather than 1 step extraction.

in my opinion, best results come from the pet distillates(butane, pentane, hexanes, etc.) selective! perfect for 1 step extractions. If you want to venture down the road of a purification, use isopropanol. a couple steepings will get out everything.

 

[Papulz]

how exactly does ethanol give you cancer again? beyond cirrhosis?
carbon - hydrogen ... and nothing else. no carcinogens?

 

[gordonliu]

first of all check out the wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_and_cancer

it will probably make you want to quit drinking (joke!)


its funny, I have rewritten my response to the least post at least 10 times, trying to figure out an easy and simple way to describe why that second comment is useless and makes absolutely no sense.

first of all, a clarification. alcohol contains carbon, hydrogen..... and oxygen.

now that that is out of the way, i will say this

methanol also contains nothing but carbon hydrogen and oxygen, and we all know that is toxic and can couse blindness among other things. propanol (or its more commonly found isomer, isopropanol) also contains nothing but carbon hydrogen and oxygen, just like ethanol.

the only difference between these compounds are the amount of carbons and hydrogens.

methanol is CH3OH
ethanol is CH3CH2OH
propanol is CH3CH2CH2OH

all contain the same elements, but have varying levels of toxicity.


another example:

benzene. benzene contains nothing but carbon and hydrogen. C6H6. but, benzene is ridiculously toxic and carcinogenic.

methane, ethane, propane, butane, pentane, hexane, heptane, etc. all of these contain nothing but carbon and hydrogen (albeit in a different oxidation state or different saturation than benzene)

the point? being made of carbon and hydrogen doesnt mean that your compound is not toxic.

in fact thc is almost entirely carbon and hydrogen. it only has 2 oxygen atoms, and so is essentially nothing but a large unsatured hydrocarbon or alternatively a tri substituted phenol with an ether moity

organic chemistry is complex.


you cant just say, because this molecule contains these elements, has such and such levels of toxicity...

that is dangerously ignorant line of thinking.


point: stay away from chloroform. not at all worth wasting a single minute on it. butane is an excellent solvent to use for extractions. stick with it. if you want something safer get one of these bad boys:




w00t.... that is the baller shit.

 

[Papulz]

my man, i already noted it being co-carcinogenic in humans... furthermore we aren't drinking it, just isolating with it and purging it off.

and i said it had such and such levels of toxicity where again? i said ethanol contains no carcinogens my man, which it doesnt. only reason i even began to mention their molecular makeup is because i was gearing up for a discussion on additives, methyl mercaptans... methanol... all those goodies.

 

[tricoma]

CHCl3 is the best solvent to extract THC, but is very toxic.
FDA don 't permit the use to syntetize drugs, yet.
But if you done a perfect evaporation of your solvent you don't have any problems.
CHCl3 is illegal in my state..
Petroleum ether is a good solvent, yet, very dangerous

 

[grease99]

Ty, you quote me as if I'm a "young person" with no knowledge of any of my actions. However, you are the one with no knowledge when it comes to chemicals and or chemical extractions or just chemistry in general.

Chloroform, acetone, hexane, butane, ethanol....any of these readily evaporate at room temperature! I love people who think you're "smoking" the solvent........it evaporates! All of it! And if it's only 95% pure, then the other 5% is simply water, or a small portion of stabilizing agent.....which also evaporates! I don't know how else to word it....the solvent completely evaporates, yielding the oils and thc which were present in the original bud! How are we frying our brains when the final product is merely condensed ingredients found in the "beautiful herb that God gave us"

 

[Hashmasta-Kut]

what the hell is that part" i am glad that i was born a man."


lol good one TY.

 

[tricoma]

people don't understand that the solvent evaporate!!!!!

 

[gordonliu]

haha.

there is no way you can remove 100% of the solvent from a sample, plain and simple. the only way to "remove" it, is to separate the compound using distillation or sublimation or possibly some form of gaseous extraction (which will still leave behind some of the gas, even in the case of a supercritical extraction)

this is not a problem with ethanol (because its safe!). it is a problem with chloroform. ppm quantities of chloroform are detrimental to your health in the long run.


so...chloroform - good for a extraction/purification, but not a simple 1 step extraction

if you cant get ethanol, or don't like wasting THC to get a good product, or dont like green oil, use butane or a pet distillate.

they are just as selective as chloroform, but they are extremely flammable. that is the difference. they are also difficult to obtain, much more expensive (chloroform is made from methane, and methane is about the cheapest kind of hydrocarbon you can buy), and dangerous to store.

if you purge it well enough, your sample will have less butane than the amount you inhale from a lighter when you smoke a bowl (you think lighters completely burn that shit?)

and by the way, the few books/papers that discuss the general oil making topics:

1) extraction (the more scientifically oriented books/procedures call for a soxhlet extraction in chloroform, acetone, or pet ether)

2) purification (the first step is to usually dissolve it in acetone, add water, then extract it with pet ether or another non polar solvent)

3) further purification (some discuss a distillation here)

4) further topics (isomerization, which I highly doubt works as well as they claim, as well as acylation/acetylation)

... use chloroform, not because they ran a bunch of simultaneous side by side reactions with different solvents to determine the best one.

its because chloroform is super common in the lab. the guys who wrote those things probably chose it because all they had 10 gallons of it in the storage room. it is also pretty damn cheap, and easy to get before the 90s and late 80s when SMALL clandestine drug labs became more of known issue.

it is non-polar, and NON FLAMMABLE. that makes it "safe" for extractions. you dont need to worry about creeping vapors or electrical sparks.

chloroform is dangerous because its toxic, and produces undesirable side products in sample that have been concentrated from chloroform.

 

[Oilmeister]

I wasn't considering chloroform as my primary solvent, just for use as a light solvent in a secondary separation. Just out of curiousity gord, why don't you think isomerization works as well as claimed? I guess one would have to do a before and after test a few times to find out for sure.

 

[Sam_Skunkman]

gordonliu,
"there is no way you can remove 100% of the solvent from a sample, plain and simple."

"isomerization, which I highly doubt works as well as they claim"

I would say this is pretty true without repeated runs through a HPLC column which need solvents to run, so use ethanol, or use CO2 supercritical extraction, in theory even if a tiny bit is left it don't matter as the earths atmosphere is .038% CO2 anyway.

Isomerization works of course, IF you have a source of Cannabis rich in CBD, which I doubt. Even hemp is low in CBD and a poor source to convert to THC. So unless you have Cannabis rich in CBD say 5-10 % isomerization is a waste of time. But it does work Mr. gordonliu...

I don't like oil much I prefer dry sift, no solvent, no water, yet I can make dry sift resin over 70% THC.
You can make 90%+ THC with good resin and a simple ethanol extraction. And it is red not green or black.

-SamS

 

[NotGuilty]

Bump for Ryu. Anyone have visible results available as of yet? Wrong thread