AaronHoyle
- 1
- 3
Hi there, I have been using THCFarmer as a resource for years and wanted to register to post a method that I came up with to clean up some dirty ISO oil that went above freezing while having to wring out the material outside of the freezer due to being chopped too finely (all leaf so it took quite awhile). After spending my free time over several days searching Google for methods for clean it up, it seemed like the only working methods that do not involve a fractional distillation setup are with hexane (very effective but unavailable locally), UV photobleaching (only works on light chlorophyll contamination, does nothing about the waxes) and water rinsing (does not touch waxes and removes terps better than the chlorophyll). I had already winterized the oil in an alcohol solution for 48 hours but after reducing it back to oil it was still far from where I wanted it to get.
I started wondering if butane could be used to extract from.. an extract.. as it is non-polar I figured that it should be able to achieve similar results to using hexane. I was surprised that I could not find any mention of doing this after a somewhat thorough search, so I decided to give it a try. After determining that the pressure of butane is 17 PSI @ 70 degrees F and 23 PSI @ 80 degrees F (falling to no pressure at around 32 degrees F) I found a bottle pressure rated for 55 PSI... to reach the bottle's rated limit the butane would need to reach 120 degrees F, far hotter than it will ever get in this environment.
I performed this directly in front of an open door with a fan blowing inwards on the other side of the house creating a constant pressure exiting the house through the open door while wearing leather gloves and safety goggles. After transferring the oil to the bottle, it was filled a bit more than halfway with butane, the cap was closed and I tilted the bottle from side to side to spread the oil across the inside surfaces to expose as much surface area as possible to the butane... then let it sit in a cool area for a half hour, agitated the bottle again to expose fresh surface area to the butane and let it sit for another half hour before shaking it once again just before putting it in the freezer to depressurize.
I had tried this same procedure but instead having the bottle in the freezer the entire duration of the soak but it did not extract nearly as much (I suspect the oil at that temperature is too stiff to flow and restricts access to the butane from contacting much of it's surface).
After chilling for an hour or two the bottle was well under 32 degrees as evidenced by the frost accumulating on it after pulling it out of the freezer, so I prepared a filter, gave it one last good shake and slowly opened the cap then affixed the filter across the opening with a rubber band before pouring the butane in to a baking dish to evaporate off.
The first three pictures are the dirty oil before the procedure, the last three show what came out from the butane compared to what was left in the bottle. The material in the bottle had an interesting rubbery consistency with a subtle grey coloration to it.. yuck :p I ran the butane through the bottle again and it did manage to pull a bit more out of it with the same quality as the first run. As you can see the processed material is *much better*. Using ISO to extract from large amounts of trim or even straight leaf is far cheaper than using butane (which may cost more than the oil is worth, if using straight leaf) and this allowed me to cheaply extract and then easily refine using only a can or two of butane. Certainly it would be best to have a perfect run of chilled ISO without needing clarifying, but sometimes things don't always work out the way you expect them to. Hopefully this process helps a few people out.
I started wondering if butane could be used to extract from.. an extract.. as it is non-polar I figured that it should be able to achieve similar results to using hexane. I was surprised that I could not find any mention of doing this after a somewhat thorough search, so I decided to give it a try. After determining that the pressure of butane is 17 PSI @ 70 degrees F and 23 PSI @ 80 degrees F (falling to no pressure at around 32 degrees F) I found a bottle pressure rated for 55 PSI... to reach the bottle's rated limit the butane would need to reach 120 degrees F, far hotter than it will ever get in this environment.
I performed this directly in front of an open door with a fan blowing inwards on the other side of the house creating a constant pressure exiting the house through the open door while wearing leather gloves and safety goggles. After transferring the oil to the bottle, it was filled a bit more than halfway with butane, the cap was closed and I tilted the bottle from side to side to spread the oil across the inside surfaces to expose as much surface area as possible to the butane... then let it sit in a cool area for a half hour, agitated the bottle again to expose fresh surface area to the butane and let it sit for another half hour before shaking it once again just before putting it in the freezer to depressurize.
I had tried this same procedure but instead having the bottle in the freezer the entire duration of the soak but it did not extract nearly as much (I suspect the oil at that temperature is too stiff to flow and restricts access to the butane from contacting much of it's surface).
After chilling for an hour or two the bottle was well under 32 degrees as evidenced by the frost accumulating on it after pulling it out of the freezer, so I prepared a filter, gave it one last good shake and slowly opened the cap then affixed the filter across the opening with a rubber band before pouring the butane in to a baking dish to evaporate off.
The first three pictures are the dirty oil before the procedure, the last three show what came out from the butane compared to what was left in the bottle. The material in the bottle had an interesting rubbery consistency with a subtle grey coloration to it.. yuck :p I ran the butane through the bottle again and it did manage to pull a bit more out of it with the same quality as the first run. As you can see the processed material is *much better*. Using ISO to extract from large amounts of trim or even straight leaf is far cheaper than using butane (which may cost more than the oil is worth, if using straight leaf) and this allowed me to cheaply extract and then easily refine using only a can or two of butane. Certainly it would be best to have a perfect run of chilled ISO without needing clarifying, but sometimes things don't always work out the way you expect them to. Hopefully this process helps a few people out.
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