Solvents for making hash oil
- Thread starter MrEDuck
- Start date
greenghost420
Well-Known Member
if you use 100% etoh can u still get green hash?
jdubwetherell1988
Well-Known Member
What about LIMONENE as an extract solvent, thats gonna be the new favorite like PureGold, HolyWater, LiveResin,ect are 10-20% LIMONENE.( Natural or food grade Terp's)I wrote this up for a friend and figured I would post it here as well.
Pretty much any artiallar 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.
As mentioned a small jar of holy water, I think, has the same dankness as a bag of weed!
Nothing but
MrEDuck
Well-Known Member
Yes, chlorophyll is rather soluble in EtOH.
Limonene boils right about where the cannabinoids do so you could have a solution of them in limonene but you couldn't concentrate it.
jdubwetherell1988
Well-Known Member
Thats fine because terps Like limonene have healing properties and flavor of there own. I want the limonene in the final product.
MrEDuck
Well-Known Member
You're going to have to consume an awful lot of it and that doesn't strike me as the healthiest idea.
SnapsProvolone
Well-Known Member
I think @Dan Kone may be of assistance. He was using it to "addback" so as to replace terpenes lost with some d-limonene, a controversial practice at best since this addition wasn't from the cannabis plant, as if say reclaimed from a cold trap.
If I were you I'd pass on d-limonene as a solvent, purging will be difficult to say the least.
justtblaze
New Member
I don't currently have the equipment to do a vac purge on my oil. I use butane and do an initial purge in a warm water bath and then a heat purge on an electric skillet with temp control. Can I anyone tell me the optimal temp to use to do the heat purge? I don't want to lose any potency. Up until now I have usually kept it around 150° and been careful not to go above 160°.
oilmkr420
Active Member
Acetone comes in food grade. It's way bad ass for extracting if moderately used, it's great for rinsing any vessels used to extract or transfer from container to container, just avoid plastics and rubber contaminants and the results are shocking. Freon is the shit, chloroform is the shit, there is a whole lot of great solvents useful in marijuana extractions. You may have to do a bit more hands on to get your theories in a current status.
oilmkr420
Active Member
I seen your liquid co2 dewar set up. You were so close, but you need not three vessels. You would need a large air driven liquid pump geared 60:1 like Haskel, next you would need a large volume compressor to feed bulk supply of air so that co2 could be pumped in as a high pressure gas or a supercritical fluid. W the bpr valve getting pumped back into the high pressure vessel recirculating in closed loop. You were very close, so go back to that and take the advise for what its worth.
lio lacidem
Well-Known Member
Vaccuum and heat.
Fadedawg
Well-Known Member
The passive system worked, but it lacked the fine control and ability to process large volumes of CO2.
We are familiar with how its done with pumps, and work with clients using them, but were looking for a practical solution for ma and pa. I'm sorry to say, that we did indeed fail in that regard.
oilmkr420
Active Member
The pumps aren't that outrageous in regards to cost. I have the practical methodology down for ma and pa type operations utilizing minimal equipment for maximum results minus the needed lab to get it done. Shit, I'm trying to scale it up and not look back at the little things that I got down pat.
Fadedawg
Well-Known Member
What do you consider not that outrageous cost wise for ma and pa brother OM?
How many volumes are you putting through the material, at what temperature and pressure?
If your pump is a pneumatic intensifier, what are the air requirements and compressor costs?
If a car wash cat pump, the estimated maintenance costs?
Is your ma and pa system capable of fractionating on decompression to separate the goodies from the heavies, and how many stages?
How many volumes are you putting through the material, at what temperature and pressure?
If your pump is a pneumatic intensifier, what are the air requirements and compressor costs?
If a car wash cat pump, the estimated maintenance costs?
Is your ma and pa system capable of fractionating on decompression to separate the goodies from the heavies, and how many stages?
rene112388
Well-Known Member
Sorry couldn't read any further without sayin something , it's N2 not N nitrogen is diatomic
we'll see if you redeem yourself after I read the rest of the thread but damn man as a chemistry student stuff like this really hurts to read