[sadpanda]

Originally Posted by G.O. Joe

Many less specific developers have been tried out. Gaoni and Mechoulam used potassium permanganate in aq. cupric acetate. Hazekamp used fluorescent plates with UV, and anisaldehyde in sulfuric acid.

I HAVE TO TAKE MY HAT OFF to all the researchers who've helped push the boundaries of science of this extraordinary plant. And not just to those who made massive breakthroughs, but everyone who contributed their own small piece of the puzzle!

Thanks to all their groundwork, here in 2016 somebody like my friend and i - fans of science but far from scientists, just people fighting cancer from hospital and home - have a tool to help determine THC:CBD ratios in plants\oils\etc to allow what we need - complete independent control over dosages of both THC and CBD.

I mean ..... WOW. There really should be a few expletives in there but there doesn't exist a word with enough punch.

[sadpanda]

How long do i decarboxylate these tiny 100mg samples (both dried and fresh), and at what oven temperature? and I think I'll have to wrap them in aluminium foil so that the oven fan doesn't blow them around, which may affect the time required a bit?
Thankyou! ps. i now have Fast Blue BB salt in my freezer!!! havent opened it yet, just waiting on a couple more parts for measuring and then I can get started

[SkyHighLer]

It's Labor Day, probably not in the States!?

Glad to know you could get what you need where ever you are sadpanda.

[sadpanda]

yes im one of those rare 96% who don't live in the US hehe Happy Labor Day!!! hope you all have a great day with friends and fam, and maybe even a great meal too hehe

Originally Posted by SkyHighLer

Glad to know you could get what you need where ever you are

anybody should be able to get BB or at least B anyway, as neither or on any special lists, and it's a legitimate useful dye for phenolics so it's not 'cannabis-specific', just need to do a bit of googling, and I think even if you have no luck with that you can just import it yourself from any of those Chinese or Indian etc labs (mine is from Japan), or contact some labs in your own country and ask them to import it for you, that worked for me and thanks to dry ice, getting frozen BB was still easy and cheap freight.

Here's a happy song i wrote about it, which i like to do a happy dance to (video withheld). I THINK THIS IS TO A 2/4 BEAT BUT I HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA WHAT 2/4 MEANS. Whatever that Britney Spears "Baby Baby" song uses. The song itself actually goes for 14 minutes as i sing the verse 28 times.

---
I'VE GOT A FEW GRAMS OF FAST BLUE

Iiiiiii've got a few graaaams, a few graaams of Fast Blue BB...
Oh yeeeeahhh, a few graaaams, a few graaaaams baaabyyyy...
Gonna staaaaain meee, gonna staaaaain me some cannabinoiiids...
It's such an amaaazing woooord, nothing rhyyyyymes wiiiiith... cannabinoiiids...
I'll be determining the ratioooooo, the ratiooooo of THC to CBD...
And withhh that capabilityyyyy, we can dose the medicine down to a teeeaaa...
Oh cancerrrrr.... all our weaponsss will beee deployyyeddd....
And with cannabinoooids on our siiide, you're gonna be absolutely destroyyyed

---
(no it actually doesn't need workshopping, i've already done that!)

[SkyHighLer]

Jim Dandy whalin' nicely...

For you youngins

(Lord Have Mercy On My Soul, Black Oak Arkansas)

https://youtu.be/fCgs8KMU-nI

[sadpanda]

I'm still not sure if i should get the (sodium?potassium?) hydroxide, as I'm a bit confused as to whether it's required or not. Some texts seem to suggest it's used as a 'fix' to preserve the dye (apparently it degrades quickly over a few weeks), but others seem to suggest its used to make the result more vivid. As i'll be flatbed-scanning my plates I have no need to keep the plates, so if it's just for fixing/preserving the dye then it's an extra expense and stage I'd like to skip.

btw i came across this interesting pic at https://jbcs.sbq.org.br/default.asp?ed=239



That image, as well as the text about it, seems to suggest 1) the quantity or volume of FBBB, and 2) time elapsed, both play a role in the resulting color. Well, I will be experimenting with differing quantities of FBBB, and I'll also try to do some scans of the plates after 1hr, 12hrs, 24hrs, 48hrs, 1wk etc etc to observe color changes. I should have enough components to start before next weekend (all the main parts are here, just waiting on a couple of minor essentials like measuring and storage) so i look forward to sharing the experiment results then

[sadpanda]

my other concern is "alkalining the plate first"??? I don't think any of the commercial cannabinoid test kits do any alkalining or whatever. But when googling for Fast Blue BB i came across this quote:

I tried finding out what chemicals they use for the extraction solvent, developing solvent (mobile phase), and alkalining solvent. An important issue is the extraction solvent. It wise to use one which develops neutral cannbinoids only. And high quality stationary phase (ie. silica plate) is very important for accuracy. All I know is they use the standard visualization reagent "fast blue BB". However, the plate should be alkined before, or during application of the reagent. Also, there should be a final step past the fast blue BB; that is a preservation solvent (0.1M sodium hydroxide; same thing for alkalining solution). I don't think they use the last step

or does the hexane or diethyl ether im using provide that alkalining?

[G.O. Joe]

More people have added base than have not so you might as well. Azo couplings in general are favored by base, but strong base will cause other reactions, so that 0.1M solution is specified. Diethylamine has been popular for cannabinoid analysis, and also LSD manufacture so you may wish to avoid it. Exposing the plate to ammonia fumes while wet with the fast blue might do something very similar.

One of your posts addresses many of your questions, and has all the directions you need:
https://www.icmag.com/ic/showpost.php?p=7582761

[sadpanda]

ok *sigh* I will reluctantly add NaOH at least it's easy to get locally so i'll certainly have it within the week, and it's cheap enough, so i shouldn't whinge too much lol. btw it seems from that doc that bicarbonate of soda might also be ok to use - they use it in the "presumptive color tests", but use NaOH for TLC. I'll of course play it safe and just get some NaOH.

btw i just noticed this in that UN doc ... basically answers my Q (at least i think it does) as to why my eluent is hexane + diethyl ether, and not just hexane ...

Since cannabinoids are easily soluble in most organic solvents, methanol, petroleum ether, n-hexane, toluene, chloroform and solvent combinations, such as methanol:chloroform (9:1) are equally suitable for their extraction. It should, however, be noted, that non-polar solvents such as n-hexane and petroleum ether give a relatively clean extract but will only extract the neutral/free cannabinoids quantitatively, while the other solvents and their combinations give quantitative extractions of the cannabinoid acids as well.

For identification, the simplest clean extraction with petroleum ether is enough, while for the purposes of quantitation and total THC determinations other solvents have to be used.

Although I guess if we only want to do decarboxylated tests maybe we wouldnt need the diethyl ether and could just use the hexane!? but i think i'd always prefer the full spectrum anyway

It's interesting though that in that paper (that tested 6 different eluent solutions and determined 4:1 hexane to diethyl ether is best) they only used hexane as the extraction solvent, not the hexane-ether mix they used in the eluent.

[G.O. Joe]

Originally Posted by sadpanda

btw it seems from that doc that bicarbonate of soda might also be ok to use

I'm not sure that it can quite do much deprotonation - NaOH is more capable of actually forming something of a salt with the phenol function. Follow the directions.

Originally Posted by sadpanda

Although I guess if we only want to do decarboxylated tests maybe we wouldnt need the diethyl ether and could just use the hexane!?

Polar solvent is needed to pull the cannabinoids off the silica, which interacts with the cannabinoids different parts and their different locations in different intensities.