Thank you @Dunge as I understand oxygen degrades THC correct? Decarboxilation is actually deconstruction of THC. The process of being broken down into simpler forms if you will. This is also what happens during curing. It's the fermentation of THC aka the break down. The release of CO2 from organic matter is caused by...deconstruction.
The influences of molecular structure of the oil being caused by heating or freezing are pointed out and are important to the infusion process. When any matter is heated molecules spread apart. I'm no scientist but i feel like spreading molecules is a good idea when you want to make something attach to them. Along with the fact that the molecules will already be in motion. This will allow infusion to happen more rapidly and evenly correct?
The freeze and reheat step is a degradation into simpler form including the fatty acids in the oil. Just as enzymes break organic material down to make it available to your plants.
It is of the utmost importance to achieve bio-availability. You can eat 1000mg of THC and not feel a thing. Absorption is clutch.
I see what you are thinking, but allow me to explain how it was explained to me.
Oxygen is a reactant; a participant in the covenant reaction called oxidation.
The words are very specific.
I was fortunate enough to have chemistry and biology delivered to me as a student.
Not all stuck, but what did shapes my model of how my garden works.
You could wiki any of these terms, but this is how I remember it.
To be called a catalyst, a substance must facilitate a covenant reaction, without being used up itself.
So the platinum in your car exhaust is a catalyst to facilitate more complete, or otherwise preferred, reaction.
Facilitate may not be the correct word, but it lowers the resistance to reaction, a sort of energy well that needs to by overcome in order for a chemical reaction to take place. Even an exothermic reaction like the burning of fuel, requires that kick to make it react. In fire, there is so much extra energy around that the reaction might grow quickly.
An enzyme is an organic molecule that facilitates organic reactions.
All life functions are mediated, controlled, and facilitated by stacked sequences of enzymatic reactions.
(read this twice, as it's at the core of what we do)
pH is the ability of a substance to donate (acid) or receive (base) a hydrogen atom.
It's about electron potentials, and hydrogen having one proton and one electron.
And as to your oil heating question.
Oils are by definition, fatty acids connected to a glycerin spine. A fatty acid is a long chain hydrocarbon with a particular end complex, the acid part. So it presents as a place looking to donate a hydrogen.
Things, all dissolving things, dissolve more quickly proportional to temperature.
Warm oil expands when heated, like all but a few exotics that I can't remember.
It may be that fatty acids could be thought of as unfolding, they are short chains and mostly just expanding with heat.
Unfolding is often used to describe strings of atoms like proteins and DNA, which both fold in very complicated ways. They can be many thousands of atoms long, yet fold up into complicated 3D structures with very specific electro-potential surfaces. These surfaces help reactions to take place.
Usual disclaimers apply, but these are a few tid bits that I hope can help in making gardening decisions, and reading labels.