[Symbiotic AD]

Hey guys I've been running into some issues with my distillation potency, and I feel like it is happening at my winterization/filtration.

My distillate is coming out at ~75% D9THC and ~4% THCa, I have a UPLC and a background in analytical chemistry so I am confident that this is accurate. I run a spinning band instrument for my distillation and during my main body fraction I can visibly see striations in my oil. My mantle temp during the main body is ~200c, vacuum is at 0.01mmhg or 10micron, vapor temp at ~255c. The distillate smells great, tastes great, is almost transparent - if put into a vape pen it doesn't even look filled - but the potency is relatively low.

During distillation I don't collect the body fraction until it is well into the correct ranges for C-21 fractions, and usually end my fraction once the color begins to change or if my mantle/vapor temp delta starts to stray.

I have tested my winterized oil prior to the run and it came back at ~55% D9THC. I dilute my crude oil pretty significantly in ethanol, put it into a freezer at -20c for 24 horus, and preform the first filtration within the freezer. I filter through dual hochstrom filters using 1 micron pore filter paper at 300torr. After the initial filtration I allow the material to freeze for 24 hours. Before the second filtration I add carbon and filter through another 1 micron hochstrom at 200torr.

Admittedly I have not ran potency on my crude oil, but I am using a Co2 SFE and get a TON of fat. I generally extract ~10% potency trim.

I am absolutely dumb-founded as to why my potency on my distillate is so low. Other people utilizing the same distillation techniques are hitting 85%++. Any tips, tricks, or general discussion would be greatly appreciated.

[irishf0x]

The THCA is odd...

Do you have additional standards for cannabinoid isomers for your HPLC?

Resonance time is most likely not the culprit if you have a spinning band.

If you have faith in your HPLC work then isomerization or cracking may be happening.

[Symbiotic AD]

I only have my curve set to quantify CBDa, CBD, CBN, D9-THC, and THCa. I think I'm going to order D8-THC on the next round of standards, are there any other that would be helpful? I would like to avoid too many cannabinoids as I would eventually have co-eluting peaks and it wouldn't be as clean of a calibration curve... just more work really.

[Roji]

Originally Posted by Symbiotic AD

I only have my curve set to quantify CBDa, CBD, CBN, D9-THC, and THCa. I think I'm going to order D8-THC on the next round of standards, are there any other that would be helpful? I would like to avoid too many cannabinoids as I would eventually have co-eluting peaks and it wouldn't be as clean of a calibration curve... just more work really.

cbg, cbc and thcv

[prune]

because I know virtually nothing about the process I would have to go with the razor thingy and wildly guess that the carbon is absorbing what is disappearing...

[superglue]

as stated above, the thc-a seems odd, it should have been decarbed

the vapor temp of 255c (491f) seems pretty warm also
i'm assuming you are using a short path head with those numbers

i use a homemade kugelrohr type unit and the thc has eluted at about 400f to 425f depending on the freshness of the pump oil, cbd at between 375f-410f

once in a while when i cook the shit out of it ,450f range, trying to get the last bits,the oil will be darker and it tests as d8 thc on my gc-fid
btw, it's rare to see any cbn in the product and to be clear i use restek standards so the cbd and d8thc peaks are very obvious

fwiw