Isopropyl Alcohol 99.9% (Suitable for extraction?)

iHearAll

Well-Known Member
lol Jesus going peace out man
so you're right about being against long term iso soaking. the end result seemed to pull out alot of things that were not chlorophyll and although the final product look ok aside from UV degradation, the 10% water content had a reddish look and smelled a bit goofy.
 

LordRalh3

Well-Known Member
190 proof Isopropanol?
:lol:
lol
... can't tell if your being sarcastic or just stupid... 190 proof iso is 95%, 99% iso is 198 proof, unless you know how they did the last bit your better off dealing with the standard 91% which is 182 proof and the rest is mostly water with a small ammount of fusel oils.
 

qwizoking

Well-Known Member
:wall:

why dont you google 190 proof Isopropanol
do you even understand the history and use? we dont "proof" iso

now why dont you look into production of the different "proofs" of iso lol
and yes i do use this in a lab setting daily (pharmaceutical drug design) , im very familiar with this solvent, as well as residuals (or lack thereof)

and certainly not stupid... you would know if i was being sarcastic

and let's not forget the fuself oils :D
 
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qwizoking

Well-Known Member
your lack of knowledge and false terms would strongly suggest otherwise..again Isopropanol is not "proofed"

so describe these "fusel oils" and where they come from..
also what production method do you use?
 
I am seeking a scientific explanation of Isopropyl Alcohol. Some fear this product's by-product (whatever that is?) will always remain in your final oil? I successfully used the Rick Simpson method for producing oil and it worked out perfectly. The use it to burn not ingest orally. This being said, the oil tastes ok and is smooth. I let all bubbles boil out while stirring. All that remained was black tar -- thick and sticky and hard when in the freezer, but like ice cream, it will run when it gets warm. My question is about the ISO. Just want to know how they make it, how is this poison not able to stick to the final product? I find it hard to believe that I have exactly only THC concentrate -- even though it does blow your mind? Safe or not safe? I need a scientist's assurance. Help.

Thanks in advance for your help!!!
 

CaptainZack

Well-Known Member
I am seeking a scientific explanation of Isopropyl Alcohol. Some fear this product's by-product (whatever that is?) will always remain in your final oil? I successfully used the Rick Simpson method for producing oil and it worked out perfectly. The use it to burn not ingest orally. This being said, the oil tastes ok and is smooth. I let all bubbles boil out while stirring. All that remained was black tar -- thick and sticky and hard when in the freezer, but like ice cream, it will run when it gets warm. My question is about the ISO. Just want to know how they make it, how is this poison not able to stick to the final product? I find it hard to believe that I have exactly only THC concentrate -- even though it does blow your mind? Safe or not safe? I need a scientist's assurance. Help.

Thanks in advance for your help!!!
simple process of evaporation buddy ... all alcohol gone i'm guessing.

cooking with alcohol just leaves the flavor molecules, so using flavorless iso would leave nothing if i'm right.

am i right ?
 

CaptainZack

Well-Known Member
it's the length you leave the bud in the alcohol what rick simpson said, any more than 20mins and you draw leaf green oils out which you don't want taste wise.
 

BobCajun

Well-Known Member
Yeah but even 20 minutes is a long time. Apparently as little as 30 seconds gets most of the surface resin. I would recommend a "column" type extraction, just like a butane column but using alcohol instead. After some experience, you'll find what amount of alcohol needs to be poured through what amount of material to get the best product with least chlorophyll and leaf oil. After most of the alcohol drips out I would let the remainder drip out into another container, because it takes a while and will be of lower quality than the stuff that came out right away.

A good thing about alcohol is that it's safe to use with most plastics, so you wouldn't need a costly glass column, probably even just a plastic pop bottle with the bottom cut off and some filter material over the cap hole. For a larger batch than 500 mls, a 2 liter pop bottle, the "Big Daddy" iso extractor. I guess it might be good to put something over the top of the material to slow the alcohol down and spread it out evenly over the whole top, like maybe some filter paper or a plastic bottle lid with a bunch of holes in it, something like that. Come to think of it, an iso bottle would work well for 500 mls, because it's a lot stiffer than pop bottles and you have iso bottles anyway.
 
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Fadedawg

Well-Known Member

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BobCajun

Well-Known Member
I found that iso extraction gives the lightest color product when fresh material is used. I just extracted some fresh picked bud and it came out great. I suspect that fresh extraction would also produce the highest yield, because with dry material the alcohol will first pick up the resin and then soak into the dry material, taking the resin with it. After the material becomes saturated then no more resin will be absorbed but what about that first bunch? Only way to get that out would be to soak the material, which would of course give a dirty product.

First I tried only drying it to where it was still flexible, but even then some alcohol must soak in, because it was partially dried. I Now I tried completely wet. It's more volume of material when wet but you have to make a choice between getting the most yield or having it be a conveniently smaller volume I guess. The buds weren't ground or cut in any way, just stripped off the stems. It could be that only a small amount is lost but still, the product seems better anyway and at least hasn't been exposed to the air for several days to dry, which could cause some degradation or even mold. I also was pressing on it quite a bit with a spoon to squeeze out the resin from the trichs. It gets fairly compact when pressed down, so the volume's not that bad actually.
 
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BobCajun

Well-Known Member
Looking at a pile of trim, definitely too much volume. I think the most practical way is to let it dry until it rustles like leaves but is still flexible. That's what I did last time and it worked well. That takes the volume down considerably, like 24 hours of drying. If I let it dry it always breaks the hell up by the time I'm done.
 

BobCajun

Well-Known Member
I tested out my idea, using an iso bottle as an extraction column. I dried the leaf trim for about 24 hours, nowhere near dry, and was able to stuff it all in the 500 ml bottle, not really hard but fairly solid so I could get it all in there, probably about 50 grams if it was dry. Didn't bother with a screen or anything, since it wasn't ground up so no need and the hole was small enough for the leaf not to fall through.

Then I put the bottle/column upside down in a plastic funnel and put the funnel in a glass measuring cup, packing a plastic bag around the bottle in the funnel to hold it steady. I got it set up so that it couldn't fall over anyway, could be done many ways.

Then I started slowly pouring some chilled iso through the top, moving it around to get even distribution, until it started dripping out. After most dripped out I poured some more iso in, did that a couple times. Let it sit there and drain for about 15 minutes.

Later with a different cup I pressed out as much iso as possible by pushing a plum sauce bottle in there like a plunger. About 40 mls squeezed out with maximum hand pressure. It was greenish but on drying there was no actual resin to speak of, so squeezing was unnecessary. The iso from the 15 minute drip was only very light green, less than when I used dried trim. Haven't evaped it yet, gotta freeze it overnight to winterize first. Appears to have worked great though. Very easy, just pour and wait. BTW couldn't pick the foil seal off the bottle spout so made a cut slightly behind it. Don't want adhesive getting in there, if it's possible.
 

BobCajun

Well-Known Member
There was so little to filter out after the 24 hours in the freezer that I don't think it's even worth the bother. Apparently using refrigerated iso avoids most gunk. Probably not a great idea to let it drip as long as I did, at least at room temp, because it might warm up enough to dissolve more wax.
 
Just my $0.02, I would go with everclear 190 proof as it's safe to drink. Isopropyl alcohol on the other hand, has a long list of negative side effects from ingesting. Be safe with what you are inhaling into your lungs.
 

natureboygrower

Well-Known Member
Just my $0.02, I would go with everclear 190 proof as it's safe to drink. Isopropyl alcohol on the other hand, has a long list of negative side effects from ingesting. Be safe with what you are inhaling into your lungs.
check out "culinary solvent" online.even better than everclear imo.
 

BobCajun

Well-Known Member
Just my $0.02, I would go with everclear 190 proof as it's safe to drink. Isopropyl alcohol on the other hand, has a long list of negative side effects from ingesting. Be safe with what you are inhaling into your lungs.
Nah, iso is only a little more acutely toxic than ethanol. You would still need to drink about a cup of it to die, while with ethanol you'd have to drink probably about 2 cups. It's polarity is also considerably lower than ethanol, so presumably less useless stuff would be dissolved.

Ethanol just happened to become popular for drinking because of it being naturally produced from fruit juices. Iso actually gives a much cleaner effect and less if any hangover, as any rubbing alcohol drinking alcoholic will tell you. Its metabolite, acetone, is also a lot less toxic than ethanol's, acetaldehyde, a deadly toxin. Drinking ethanol is repeatedly dosing yourself with small amounts of acetaldehyde. Then of course there's the fact that it's cheaper than liquor store high proof alcohol and in a higher purity, 99% as opposed to 95. So 1% water as opposed to 5. The 1% is not a denaturant, because none is added. It's USP iso, pharmaceutical grade.

Nothing wrong with iso. Pretty unlikely there would be 250 mls of residual iso in anything that would be smoked, which would be probably 1/4 gram of extract at most. It's really the best of the three common alcohols for resin extraction, mainly because of the low polarity and less water. You can see from a polarity table that ethanol has a relative polarity of 0.654 and iso (2-propanol in the table) is 0.546. Apparently 3-pentanol is the lowest at 0.463. It does have a much lower vapor pressure though, so might take a long time to evaporate. So iso is probably the lowest polarity alcohol which is practical as an extraction solvent. Ethyl acetate is even lower, in the 200s, but is not conveniently available or I would use it myself.
 
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BobCajun

Well-Known Member
BHO. I like using that extraction method better.
Yeah but look at all the trouble you have to go through with BHO. Lot easier just to open a bottle and pour some alcohol through the column. Using cold alcohol there's virtually no wax picked up so no winterizing required. With BHO, you have to redissolve it in alcohol anyway to get the wax out. Might as well have just extracted with alcohol in the first place and saved your butane money. Lots of videos show iso shatter that looks pretty similar to BHO shatter to me.
 
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