squarepush3r
Well-Known Member
So why/how doesn't acetone evaporate completely?
Solvents for making hash oil
- Thread starter MrEDuck
- Start date
Fadedawg
Well-Known Member
It is hard to remove the last few molecules of a solvent, because they all form azeotropes with the cannabis essential oils, so we typically remove them below levels of health concern and sensory perception. Acetone has concerns posted on the MSDS about being a reproductive system toxin, so it isn't my solvent of choice.
I just made a batch of oil with denatured alcohol, did 4 quick washes and evap'd them separately. is my beautiful new oil poison?
Fadedawg
Well-Known Member
Ostensibly, not if you purged the alcohol to below levels of concern. What did the MSDS say was in the denatured alcohol that you chose?
Methanol is looked down on because it attacks the optic nerve and Iso attacks the auditory nerves it sufficent concentration. Methanol is a natural alkane alcohol from fruit pectin, and is present in small amounts in most orange juice. Iso is a man made isomer of propyl alcohol.
650baquet
Active Member
Well i did want to try heptane after reading the first post, now after what you said maybe i should just try pentane or hexane if i feel like venturing off from butane. I would love to build a recovery system to recover evaporated hexane and reuse. is that possible?
Fadedawg
Well-Known Member
Hexane is easy to save with a conventional still. A boiling flask, an distillation elbow, and a Liebig condenser will do it for you and can be had off ebay for just over $100.
650baquet
Active Member
Right now i have a bunch of material that has already been soaked with butane, gotta be something left to extract though. Would you even suggest to bother doing a QWEt or QWIso or possibly packing as much as i can in the thermos pretty tight and see what another soak will do? Guess it'll only cost about $6 to find out eh???
Also, I'm kinda tired of how strictly heady my BHO is, of course i read it mainly extracts "delta 9 thc" and i'm also extracting from some really heady LostCoastOG. Though, is there a solvent extraction method that will bring the cbd and thc along, I guess i'm willing to try anything at this point, topical, tincture drops...i love getting ripped on BHO but it really does nothing for my nerve/muscle pains...I realize i need to get some better medical strains in my grow as well, i'm thinking about getting a BlueDream clone from the only grower i'm in contact with here, I don't care for how their nug turns out but i'm very curious how it will turn out in hydro. .........and sorry for the run on sentences i'm just too high to care about every bit of grammar right now
650baquet
Active Member
I have decent amount of experience with a micro-distillation set used in college organic chem labs. I loved the labs and hated everything else about school.
Fadedawg
Well-Known Member
I would suggest examining at about 100X to see if there are any trichome heads remaining. There should be only stalks and hairs.Right now i have a bunch of material that has already been soaked with butane, gotta be something left to extract though. Would you even suggest to bother doing a QWEt or QWIso or possibly packing as much as i can in the thermos pretty tight and see what another soak will do? Guess it'll only cost about $6 to find out eh???
Also, I'm kinda tired of how strictly heady my BHO is, of course i read it mainly extracts "delta 9 thc" and i'm also extracting from some really heady LostCoastOG. Though, is there a solvent extraction method that will bring the cbd and thc along, I guess i'm willing to try anything at this point, topical, tincture drops...i love getting ripped on BHO but it really does nothing for my nerve/muscle pains...I realize i need to get some better medical strains in my grow as well, i'm thinking about getting a BlueDream clone from the only grower i'm in contact with here, I don't care for how their nug turns out but i'm very curious how it will turn out in hydro. .........and sorry for the run on sentences i'm just too high to care about every bit of grammar right now
We use sublingual HS Oil for pain. Oral consumption is less heady and significantly more effective on things like pain.
We've added Cannatonic and Hawaiian Bubble Gift to our garden specifically for their higher CBD to THC ratios, which has allowed us to more heavily dose patients who are developing tolerance, without discombobulating them.
I like our original Trainwreck forboth pain and head effects, but it can be disruptive in high doses to lowtolerance patients.
Fadedawg
Well-Known Member
Yeah, I liked the lab parts better than most of the rest too. Looking back, I really appreciate the quality of my high school chemistry teacher, who kept me hooked by making me a lab assistant. She was a fox too, in addition to her fine mind and pleasing personality. Wish all teachers were as effective as she was.
Frenchy Cannoli
Well-Known Member
You forgot the most common and least dangerous one my friend: WATERI wrote this up for a friend and figured I would post it here as well.
Pretty much any partially polar or nonpolar solvent can be used to extract hash oil, some are better than others.
So here goes:
Butane
Pros: It makes wonderful oil and it's very easy to remove every last trace of it, especially if you have a way to purge it with a vacuum (which I recommend for any solvent extract). Ready to smoke the fastest of any method listed here.
Cons: It's the most flammable thing on this list, considering ether is also on this list that's saying A LOT! Because of that it needs the most ventilation. As in outside and away from people unless you happen to have a fume hood in your house. Some of us don't have that kind of privacy. It also requires more specialized equipment, specifically a stainless steel or glass tube that you can inject butane into, which also limits the batch size. Do not use a PVC or other plastic for the tube. You can pull plasticizers out of in and into your oil!
Ether
Pros: Makes wonderful oil, also evaporates quickly (it boils at body temp!). Is just a generally extremely useful solvent.
Cons: needs to be stabilized or distilled fresh or it forms explosive peroxides with the oxygen in the air in the bottle. Requires glass or steel. It loves to catch fire. It will autoignite (no spark needed) at 160C. Hope your oven isn't on. It's almost as flammable as butane, and the only liquid on this list that gets a flammability rating of 4 on the safety diamond. Skip it if you don't have extensive lab experience.
Isopropanol
Pros: The most readily available and cheapest on this list. If a very fast wash is done it makes excellent oil, but ultimately the yield is limited by the fact that it starts pulling out chlorophyll and sugars if it stays in contact with the weed for any real period of time.
Cons: Pulls out things besides the resin, is pretty flammable despite the small amount of water (don't even bother with the 70%, it must be 91%+) due to it being a branched hydrocarbon and having an oxygen atom. Low yield because you can really only do a quick rinse or you get poor taste if any chlorophyll or sugars gets into the oil from soaking too long.
Ethanol
Pros: Less flammable than IPA. YOU CAN DRINK IT! Really I wouldn't do this to make oil but green dragon is awesome. I decarb bud before extracting to make a more potent product.
Cons: if you are making oil it's a waste of ethanol which could cause ancestral haunting if you're Irish like meProbably other hard drinking groups like Russian or Polish as well.
Acetone
Pros: I can't really think of any
Cons: Doesn't fully evaporate!! Doesn't fully evaporate!! Also pulls out chlorophyll and sugars like IPA. Also extremely flammable. Skip it!
Pentane
Pros: Pulls great oil of equivalent quality to butane. Evaporates very fast (it also boils at body temp, hold the flask in your hands when evaporating and watch it start to boil!). Can be used for a large batch if you have a way to minimize evaporation.
Cons: needs really good storage or you risk opening an empty bottle. Requires a glass or steel vessel to extract and evaporate in.
Hexanes
refers to n-hexane, isohexanes, or a mixture of isomers
Pros: basically the same as the other hydrocarbons as far as quality (I can't tell the difference), a little better for bulk extractions as it evaporates slower than pentane, I still wouldn't leave it that long. An hour at most.
Cons: needs to be done in glass or steel (like everything but the alcohols)
n-Heptane
Pros: that great alkane oil! Can sit for a few hours to really soak everything out of the weed. I'd give it a period stir to check on it and maximize extraction. Because n-heptane is produced by a species of pine tree it is available in very high purity for pretty cheap.
Cons: Glass or steel required, flammable. Really about as minimal as you can get for an organic solvent.
Naphtha
Pros: Rick Simpson seems to like it. Gives an ok extract.
Cons: Steel/Glass required (I wouldn't suggest a rice cooker, most have plastic parts that will come in contact with the solvent and probably end up in your oil), is a mix of light alkanes from crude oil so it's inconsistent batch to batch. Sometimes has traces of heavy material from production (bad distillation) or just added in because it drives production costs down and still retains the correct properties required to be a naphtha cut.
Solvents to Avoid Like Plagues
Benzene. Great solvent, except for that little problem with being a terrible carcinogen. Chemists used to wash their hands with it. Looking at our history I'm honestly shocked anyone survived their PhD in organic. No safety gloves, shitty or no fume hoods. Smoking in the fucking lab (this is how the sweetening properties of the first artifical sweetener were discovered, someone noticed the cigarette they were smoking tasted sweeter!)
Anything with the word fluoro, chloro, bromo, iodo, or halo in the name. These are halogenated organics and as a general rule are toxic. Their are exceptions but the light solvents aren't among them, and the exceptions are generally better reserved for other uses (like the anesthetic halothane). You're most likely to encounter chloromethane, or dichloromethane, or chloroform, or carbon tetrachloride. These are great solvents, but toxic as fuck. In the last decade most labs have made an effort to reduce or eliminate their use (halogenated organic solvents in general, not just the methanes) because they're so toxic. When I took organic 1/2 we used DCM all the time in the lab, I've since TA'd organic labs, we don't use it for anything in first year lab anymore. There's a reason, and it's not price!
Methanol, it's just really fucking poisonous and there's so many alternatives.
Nitromethane, there's much better uses for it. Like reduction with piperonylmethyl ketone or Knoevengal condensations with benzaldehydes. But those are topics for PMs. It might be useful, but I'm not figuring it out.
Probably many others I'm not thinking of.
General Tips
Before using any solvent I advise you do a mirror test with it. On a very clean mirror or piece of glass put a drop of solvent (or spray a little with butane) and spread it around a little. Let it evaporate and make sure there is no visible residue. This isn't 100% accurate (acetone leaves a residue undetectable to the human eye), but it avoids most nasty waxes and shit.
Read the MSDS for the product you are purchasing. Make sure the only products listed are the solvent you want. Some mixtures like hexanes and naphtha may list a few things but they should all be solvents, usually they'll end in -ane and have a Greek number before it. Ask me if you see anything you're not sure of.
After the solvent has evaporated it's good to either use a vacuum, or heat, or a combination of the two to get the last little bit of solvent out of your oil. I like to use a double boiler type setup where I fill the pot with a concentrated salt solution. This raises the boiling point of the water enough that it can get to a temp of >106C (at sea level anyway, I'm not sure how hot it can get for folks living in the mountains.) which is the temp where THC starts to decarb pretty rapidly. Leave the container with your oil in it in the hot water bath for about 15mins to get any residual solvent out and to decarb the oil. Don't leave it in for longer as THC can start to degrade noticeably after 30 minutes or so.
If you are using vacuum and heat don't let the temp go over 50C and don't pull too strong of a vacuum (keep it at at least half atmospheric pressure, so 8psi, or 380torr/mm Hg, 15in Hg, etc)
Again I usually answer questions within a day so please ask if you have them. We don't want anyone getting sick or hurt.
Dan Kone
Well-Known Member
Butane in the amounts that can be in a concentrate are completely harmless. Low grade material is much more likely. Even more likely than that is that it's bho blasted through a pvc pipe.
lepis22
Well-Known Member
This isnt exactly true, I am not sure about sugars but chloroform extract chlorophyll. It is better than alcohol, but still...
SnapsProvolone
Well-Known Member
Benzene is to be avoided, at least according to the state of California
I will defer the rest of your question to @Fadedawg
LIBERTYCHICKEN
Well-Known Member
This isnt exactly true, I am not sure about sugars but chloroform extract chlorophyll. It is better than alcohol, but still...
Choroform looks good on papper but in reality it does not work well , Its rather unstable and forms many different compounds nearly on contact with many naturaly occuring organic materials.
I once did a kratom extraction with a reagent grade chloroform , It smelled of chlorine badly otherwise worked just OK
Benzene is to be avoided, at least according to the state of California
I will defer the rest of your question to @Fadedawg
Thanks for the quick replys, I'll find something without benzen in it.I wouldn't use it and I would also defer to Fadedawg. Hats off to everyone at the skunk pharm. I'm very jealous of what they get to do
GrowinDad
Well-Known Member
Can you explain why you think ethanol is no bueno for making oils. I'm not being defensive but it is what I use (100% organic ethanol) and seems to work well for me. Very non-scientifically, seems to be on par with ISO from when I ran with it. But I don't claim to be expert.
"Ethanol Pros: Less flammable than IPA. YOU CAN DRINK IT! Really I wouldn't do this to make oil but green dragon is awesome. I decarb bud before extracting to make a more potent product.
Cons: if you are making oil it's a waste of ethanol which could cause ancestral haunting if you're Irish like me Probably other hard drinking groups like Russian or Polish as well."
"Ethanol Pros: Less flammable than IPA. YOU CAN DRINK IT! Really I wouldn't do this to make oil but green dragon is awesome. I decarb bud before extracting to make a more potent product.
Cons: if you are making oil it's a waste of ethanol which could cause ancestral haunting if you're Irish like me
Probably other hard drinking groups like Russian or Polish as well."