glasgrowers1
New member
Hello everyone,
I've been lurking around the forums for a while now and decided it's time to make my first post. I would have liked it to be a grow journal, but unfortunately I am without access to my laptop right now.
So instead, I hoped I could spark on a discussion on preserving the volatile terpenes in cannabis concentrates.
It's my understanding that many of these terpenes leech out into the water in the process of making bubble hash, so this is no good (correct me if I'm wrong, please!).
I'm a bit of a new comer to organic chemistry so I'm not entirely sure why the terpenes would be removed from the makeup of the oil in a butane or ethanol extraction. I presume its down to oxidation and degradation after the trichomes dissolve and release these compounds into the solution but that's just a guess.
So the two options that spring to mind are: super critical CO2 extractions and finding a more suitable solvent with a lower boiling point.
While super critical CO2 extractions seem ideal, it isn't really feasible for the home chemist.
What I was thinking of is rigging up a soxhlet extraction of the material using chloroform. The relatively low boiling point makes this solvent very easy to evaporate off so most of the terpenes should remain in the solution of oils. We would then use a rotovap to evaporate off the solvent under vacuum (chloroform boils at 24.1 degrees celsius under 200 mmHg of vacuum). The resulting product should be chock full of terpenes, right?
This is all just theory and speculation so I'd be very happy to hear what other people have to say on this matter (just don't comment about chloroform being toxic and harmful, I know this! I'm looking for the best method, not the safest, so far chloroform looks to be one of the most suitable solvents. I guess dichloromethane could be substituted in here, too.)
Thanks for reading, looking forward to what you all have to say.
I've been lurking around the forums for a while now and decided it's time to make my first post. I would have liked it to be a grow journal, but unfortunately I am without access to my laptop right now.
So instead, I hoped I could spark on a discussion on preserving the volatile terpenes in cannabis concentrates.
It's my understanding that many of these terpenes leech out into the water in the process of making bubble hash, so this is no good (correct me if I'm wrong, please!).
I'm a bit of a new comer to organic chemistry so I'm not entirely sure why the terpenes would be removed from the makeup of the oil in a butane or ethanol extraction. I presume its down to oxidation and degradation after the trichomes dissolve and release these compounds into the solution but that's just a guess.
So the two options that spring to mind are: super critical CO2 extractions and finding a more suitable solvent with a lower boiling point.
While super critical CO2 extractions seem ideal, it isn't really feasible for the home chemist.
What I was thinking of is rigging up a soxhlet extraction of the material using chloroform. The relatively low boiling point makes this solvent very easy to evaporate off so most of the terpenes should remain in the solution of oils. We would then use a rotovap to evaporate off the solvent under vacuum (chloroform boils at 24.1 degrees celsius under 200 mmHg of vacuum). The resulting product should be chock full of terpenes, right?
This is all just theory and speculation so I'd be very happy to hear what other people have to say on this matter (just don't comment about chloroform being toxic and harmful, I know this! I'm looking for the best method, not the safest, so far chloroform looks to be one of the most suitable solvents. I guess dichloromethane could be substituted in here, too.)
Thanks for reading, looking forward to what you all have to say.