chronicdreams said:

UV it was cold out
Got the UV idea from gray wolf site

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I really worry about applying UV to a solution which might contain hydrocarbons. You can get some nasty reactions out of this. Pretty much the staple method to "activating" a hydrocarbon to substitute it is to apply UV radiation.

Less dangerous with alcohols, but I still wouldn't do it. Plus it's bad for the actives (although I can definitely see where it would destroy chlorophyll).

I will do SOMETHING right in your eyes you watch ;)

The reason UV is so bad, for all of the reasons it is bad, is because the energies of the radiation coincide very closely with many of the bond energies present in organic molecules. Because energy levels of electrons (which are responsible for bonding) are discrete, they require particles or energies of specific magnitudes which coincide with those discrete energy levels in order to "dislodge" the electron and thus the bond.

UV spectrum just happens to contain energy levels which coincide with a great deal of organic bonds. That includes EVERYTHING in your extract material.

I mean you can for real get some really funky shit happening in a mixture like that with UV. Do not recommend. UV is honestly 1 million percent more powerful than people have respect for. It's probably what has driven forward almost all of the relevant chemistry of this planet throughout history.

Adding UV is essentially no different than adding a reagent (and chemists treat it this way).

Graywolf said:

A caveat on the long alcohol soaks, even frozen. Chlorophyll readily dissolves in polar alcohol, whether the frozen water keeps the water solubles at bay or not.

For instance, note the color differences between a 3 minute frozen soak, and a 10 minute one.

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DUDE! All that oil! Jugs of oil! Fuck me runnin, sheeet niiqqaa!! Gettin me all excited and shit! Can't be doin that to me man!

squiggly said:

The reason UV is so bad, for all of the reasons it is bad, is because the energies of the radiation coincide very closely with many of the bond energies present in organic molecules. Because energy levels of electrons (which are responsible for bonding) are discrete, they require particles or energies of specific magnitudes which coincide with those discrete energy levels in order to "dislodge" the electron and thus the bond.

UV spectrum just happens to contain energy levels which coincide with a great deal of organic bonds. That includes EVERYTHING in your extract material.

I mean you can for real get some really funky shit happening in a mixture like that with UV. Do not recommend. UV is honestly 1 million percent more powerful than people have respect for. It's probably what has driven forward almost all of the relevant chemistry of this planet throughout history.

Adding UV is essentially no different than adding a reagent (and chemists treat it this way).

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All good points, most of which I agree with, so may we discuss perspective?

All evidence that I've seen shows that UV definitely does cause the aromatic Alkene terpenes, including the diterpene cannabinoids to decay, but we should also consider that the resins evolved in and exist in direct sunlight and sun screening is listed as one of their properties. That suggests that it isn't a rapid process in the absence of significant heat, differences in PH, or dielectric constants.

Adding EtOH is of course a variable, but as a simple Alkane alcohol, it is also pretty benign.

I believe that your points are all technically valid, but question the probable degree of exposure, overall perspective, and the level of concern that should be assigned to it. Have you seen any research on the subject, that might be enlightening enough to sway my flawed thinking?

Mr Withershed said:

DUDE! All that oil! Jugs of oil! Fuck me runnin, sheeet niiqqaa!! Gettin me all excited and shit! Can't be doin that to me man!

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Motivational photos, yes?

Graywolf said:

I believe that your points are all technically valid, but question the probable degree of exposure, overall perspective, and the level of concern that should be assigned to it. Have you seen any research on the subject, that might be enlightening enough to sway my flawed thinking?

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It really depends on the process as far as I'm concerned.

It's important to keep UV away from short chain alkanes when our actives are in solution with them--because UV "activates" the molecules which allows additions/substitutions to take place. This is all a result (mostly) of free radical chemistry. When you're introducing radicals some very problematic reactions can occur. This really takes things out of the realm of predictability when we're talking about a chemical soup like we're working with here.

I can't point you to specific research that would reference this type of thing because the fact is that research doesn't typically deal with such crude mixtures. We know a lot more about what is actually in solution/in extracts when doing research. Obviously we do this to remove variables.

The best I can say is that UV chemistry is free-radical chemistry, and it can lead to a bunch of shit that's difficult to predict even with a 1-2 compound system, let alone 100+. You can end up with anything from halogenations to (more likely in our case) peroxidations and epoxidations.

When you introduce a radical a reaction can go to some pretty extreme lengths trying to "shed" it. The problem is that it often goes through many steps before this happens. Here's one of my favorite examples:


You'll notice that in this scheme the radicals are still present even after all of the reacting that's gone on.

Literally ONE free radical can cause a chain of events and basically act as a catalyst to destroy many molecules.

Chronic, Gray & Squiggly--very good information, all on one place... Saved me having to piecemeal from numerous threads across different sites and trying to filter thru the noise and BS. I'm really glad that you kept the discussion going deeper and steered away from the petty name calling that started.

Squiggly--the background on polarity of ISO was very helpful. I am leaning toward using the COLD ISO method moving forward. Youre elaboration on the topic was very helpful, and even though it has been at least a couple of decades since i took o-chem, it made sense and feel like I have much more of a clue about Acetone, ISO and EtOH.

Any thoughts on MeOH, as methanol has become very common in hardware "denatured alcohol", some of which is all methanol.

Thanks!

lr3 said:

Chronic, Gray & Squiggly--very good information, all on one place... Saved me having to piecemeal from numerous threads across different sites and trying to filter thru the noise and BS. I'm really glad that you kept the discussion going deeper and steered away from the petty name calling that started.

Squiggly--the background on polarity of ISO was very helpful. I am leaning toward using the COLD ISO method moving forward. Youre elaboration on the topic was very helpful, and even though it has been at least a couple of decades since i took o-chem, it made sense and feel like I have much more of a clue about Acetone, ISO and EtOH.

Any thoughts on MeOH, as methanol has become very common in hardware "denatured alcohol", some of which is all methanol.

Thanks!

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Methanol isn't worth the trouble in my opinion, it's significantly more polar than isopropanol.

Petroleum ether is probably the most widely available least polar solvent you can get your hands on. If you want to avoid polarity I'd start there.

squiggly said:

Methanol isn't worth the trouble in my opinion, it's significantly more polar than isopropanol.

Petroleum ether is probably the most widely available least polar solvent you can get your hands on. If you want to avoid polarity I'd start there.

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Thanks, I thought that MeOH would be more polar. I'll probably stick with isopropanol or butane.

So i'm guessing that using acetone then exposing that mixture to UV would be a really bad idea!

lr3 said:

So i'm guessing that using acetone then exposing that mixture to UV would be a really bad idea!

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Total dogshit idea.

Adding UV to anything gives me the heebie jeebies. You just don't want free radicals in a solvent system with alkanes in it. As graywolf stated, though, doing it with an alcohol is fairly benign typically.

My mind says, and I'm sure Gray would agree as a process engineer type, that when working with a crude mixture it's best to reduce the number of variables.

As I've said many times in this thread and elsewhere on the forum, all extraction procedures yield a chemical soup. It's just super unpredictable. That's why I prefer to stick with alkanes as solvents and to remove them as rapidly as is humanly possible. I think Gray really has the best system with his closed loop butane extraction because he's really reduced the variables as much as you possible can for an extraction like this.

The thing I'll point out is that if we extracted something from one end of the plant and then did a similar extraction on the other end of it--the data an NMR or GCMS would shoot back at us would have some striking variance, even from the same plant. Now imagine multiple plants, multiple strains, multiple processes--it's just way too variable heavy to even think about predicting.

If I'm going to smoke something then I want to have as good a grasp on it as I can. Right now in this space that's relegated to I have a chemical soup--but the thing I can control to the best of my ability is what I am doing to/adding to the soup.