Help with my alumina problem please

So I had everything frozen and did my first wash on some trim to test things out. I setup my buchner filter with 2 of the 15 micron papers and a couple of 25 micron papers and a layer of aluminum oxide 50 micron. I rinsed it with clean ethanol which appeared to run through clear (under vac). After filtering the wash through everything looked fine, but now that I've distilled it off in the reaction chamber it is clear that aluminum oxide dust must be in the reaction chamber.

I took it out and filtered it again, this time adding 3 coffee filters and pouring the liquid through that (on top of the 2x 15 micron filter papers and 2x 25 micron papers). It is clear that some of the aluminum oxide was filtered but some of it is still in the solution.

Should I just throw it out? Should I just use it for edibles? Is there a way to remove the aluminum oxide?

I notice that the boiling point of aluminum oxide is almost 3000 deg Celsius, I wonder if I distill the solution at say 400 or 450 deg celsius if I will be able to separate it that way?

So I would run it in the distillation aparatus @ 450 deg C until it distills off (hopefully leaving just the alumina) and then even though the THC is vaporized it should condense in the condenser and form with the ethanol in my condensate flask, which I can then distill off @ room temp to get my extract?

mainesquirrel said:

I notice that the boiling point of aluminum oxide is almost 3000 deg Celsius, I wonder if I distill the solution at say 400 or 450 deg celsius if I will be able to separate it that way?

So I would run it in the distillation aparatus @ 450 deg C until it distills off (hopefully leaving just the alumina) and then even though the THC is vaporized it should condense in the condenser and form with the ethanol in my condensate flask, which I can then distill off @ room temp to get my extract?

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Distillation at that temp will decompose the THC/CBD.

The particle size of your alumina oxide will have a normal distribution with a mean of 50 micron. This means some alumina particles would be below 15 micron.

The solution to your problem is to dissolve the extract in a small volume of ethanol and use a (PTFE Syringe Filter,25MM,0.22um). That will do the trick. You will get minimal degradation of your THC/CBD.

budchemist said:

Distillation at that temp will decompose the THC/CBD.

The particle size of your alumina oxide will have a normal distribution with a mean of 50 micron. This means some alumina particles would be below 15 micron.

The solution to your problem is to dissolve the extract in a small volume of ethanol and use a (PTFE Syringe Filter,25MM,0.22um). That will do the trick. You will get minimal degradation of your THC/CBD.

Click to expand...

Thank you so much. I had done some reading yesterday and before that I just assumed that the reason you didn't heat the thc/cbd was because it would vaporize and you would lose it and then I researched SPD and realized that I would have been able to distill off the thc/cbd if I had a different distillation setup but with my vigreux column none of the good stuff was going to reach the condenser.

I plan on trying to use celite 545 next time and I purchased from a science supplier this time. The alumina oxide didn't seem to filter much if anything and all of the visible precipitate formed on the filter papers anyways. I've watched a few videos of people using the celite but typically with a fritted buchner. Should I be ok using it above filter papers in a non-fritted buchner?