50 replies to this topic

[lambep]

The final product:


Disclaimer: don't distill your hexane unless you know very well what you're doing. Also, don't use organic solvents unless you know what they're capable of (i.e. fires and explosions).

I used around 10 grams dry almost powdered leaf material (mostly yellow leafs that FOAF's plant drops all the time) and enough hexane to cover two times that amount (around 200ml). This mix was left for around an hour and then was filtered using a coffee paper filter and put in a round bottom flask so that I could distill my hexane rather than losing it as vapor (I have a nice lab distilling equipment so I could do the distillation kinda safely). When I was left with around 30ml of hexane solution I poured it on a petri dish and put the petri dish in a bowl of hot water. Pictured is the result. This whole process took a few hours and most of the time I was waiting (doing other stuff).

Now, 24 hours later I had a hard time using my extract - I can't simply roll a joint with it crushed as it's not solid, but rather honey like sticky goo. How do you use your hash oil?

Anyway, I got stoned nicely from my product :) It has almost no taste (a bit like good quality hash).

You may have noticed the greenish element in the color of this extract. I believe hexane dissolves chlorophyll very well (better than propane-butane) and that's the cause of the green coloring. I have a question - how would you proceed in purifying my extract from chlorophyll?

[Crazy8ths]

Questions if i may, Do you bake the trim/bud b4 using to make the most thc to extract? I thought the transfer of THC happens quickly (or so i thought with other soluvents) like an hours time worth is like enough to get all the other stuff you don't wanna be shmoking? Or do you find hexane to be THAT selective when extracting goodies

[NoFace]

When smoking oils i love to do "coal hits", it works great and usually makes the hash taste like licorice to me.
you need:
Hookah Coal
Metal poker (paper clip, i made joint clips that have bowl scappers on the other end so i use those.)
Chillum (something you can pull the smoke through)
you light your coal and set it on a plate, then take your poker and dip and roll the tip of it in your oil until you get a nice little amount on the end.
then take it and just lightly set it on the coal until you see smoke come off of it and then pull that smoke up through your chillum. VoiLa!
smoking oils this way i have found to be the easiest way, and i get the most flavor out of each hit.

Attached Thumbnails

• 

[Phineas_Carmichael]

I have a question - how would you proceed in purifying my extract from chlorophyll?

2 purification steps:

1. Dewaxing

Dissolve the extract in a minimum of room temperature acetone. Place this acetone in a freezer and watch as bunches of white wax precipitates out. Filter the acetone off the wax (save the wax for your surfboard) and evaporate.

2. Activated Charcoal

Dissolve the now dewaxed extract in hexane. Add a spoonful or two of activated charcoal, shake it around and filter. Then evaporate and reclaim the hexane.

Your extract is now pure.

http://mycotopia.net...cherry-oil.html

http://mycotopia.net...-honey-oil.html

[lambep]

I don't bake the trim/bud.

Unfortunately hexane is not that selective. I believe my extract has a lot of chlorophyll and other stuff. It looks like propane-butane extract (I have a bit of experience using lighter gas) but with a bit more green. Also it (hexane extract) liquefies a bit less easily than lighter gas extract when heated IMO.

At first my plan was to just wash the leaf material for a few minutes but I found out I don't have coffee filters so I had to go to the store and left the mixture unfiltered.

Also - the leafs are currently again in hexane (and will be left like that for a few days) and I intend on filtering them again and evaporating the hexane to see what I'll get.

Questions are totally welcome.

I even learned something I was wondering about from one of your questions - that you think that thc will be dissolved very fast unlike the impurities. I'll test that some day when I have too much leaf/cheap bud. Unfortunately I smoke soooooooo much that I can't imagine having too much weed hah :)

[lambep]

NoFace, I'll try your method.

PC, I'll try your method too but I'll need some time to acquire acetone. Probably until then my current extract will have passed through my lungs so I'll try that next time. Also thank for the links, I'll read them before my next hash oil extract.

Do you know if acetone is a more selective solvent than hexane when extracting thc? I think it is logical that butane is best (because thc has butane attached to its molecule), next is acetone (because it is more polar than hexane) and last is hexane which looks a bit too non-polar.

[Phineas_Carmichael]

Do you know if acetone is a more selective solvent than hexane when extracting thc? I think it is logical that butane is best (because thc has butane attached to its molecule), next is acetone (because it is more polar than hexane) and last is hexane which looks a bit too non-polar.

Acetone is not very selective at all at room temperature. It pulls all kinds of junk with it. However, Freezer Temp acetone is very selective.

http://mycotopia.net...eze-precip.html

THC doesn't have butane attached to it. That chain is a 5-member chain, Pentane. That doesn't make much of difference in solubility though as far as I know. You hit the nail on the head by looking at the relative polarity of the target molecule and the solvents.

THC is quite non-polar so the less polar the solvent, the better it will dissolve. Like dissolves like.

*EDIT* And, from a chem-lab perspective, butane extractions are RIDICULOUS! Show me one established laboratory protocol where the chemist is blasting a flammable gas through an enclosed space and I'll eat my hat.

[lambep]

Phineas, I'll check that link later too (tomorrow I have an exam so the hobby will have to wait).

You're right about the 5 member chain (I thought it had 4 members). Yet, pentane, technically speaking, contains butane so butane is actually attached to thc (that's important for my next paragraph). Anyway, point taken.

I know I should look at the relative polarities but I also know that similar things dissolve similar things. So I always thought that propane, butane, pentane, etc are selectively dissolving thc because of that 5 member chain in addition to the polarity similarities.

Thanks for the information Phineas_Carmichael and NoFace :)

[extrememetal43]

For the next time you do it if you did a water cure with the buds then made the oil think that would rid you of the chlorophyll?

[hyphaenation]

I describe an old-skool style water-wash in the link Phin provided.

http://mycotopia.net...html#post832562

Some may say it's extravagant and unnecessary , but the proof is in the puffing , and in the fact that you can read a newspaper through a vial when the process is done right ...



http://mycotopia.net...html#post436057

[SilvrHairDevil]

Is hexane cheaper than acetone? Where do you find it?

[lambep]

SHD, I buy solvents (and glass equipment) from a few chemical laboratory equipment stores around me. Before going there I thought the shopkeepers would bug me with questions but this was not the case. They don't care at all what I buy (I believe even controlled by law precursors will be sold to me without questions) if I pay.

I checked it out and hexane costs 7.5 euro/l while acetone costs 3.3 euro/l in my favorite shop of the right kind.

[Crazy8ths]

2 purification steps:

1. Dewaxing

Dissolve the extract in a minimum of room temperature acetone. Place this acetone in a freezer and watch as bunches of white wax precipitates out. Filter the acetone off the wax (save the wax for your surfboard) and evaporate.

2. Activated Charcoal

Dissolve the now dewaxed extract in hexane. Add a spoonful or two of activated charcoal, shake it around and filter. Then evaporate and reclaim the hexane.

Your extract is now pure.

http://mycotopia.net...cherry-oil.html

http://mycotopia.net...-honey-oil.html

Thanks!! Is naptha the same??

[Phineas_Carmichael]

Thanks!! Is naptha the same??

The same as what?

I'll assume you mean "the same as hexane."

Chemically, no. Naphtha is a mixture of hydrocarbons which distill out of petroleum between 30*C and 200*C. Hexanes boil between 50*C and 70*C so they are part of the naphtha mixture.

While re-reading my post (the one you quoted) I realized that I wrote "hexane." What I should have written was "solvent." I guess I used hexane because the OP was using hexane and it was on my brain.

Acetone is needed for the de-waxing portion, but I think any heavily non-polar solvent (hexane, heptane, naphtha; perhaps not alcohols or ketones) should work just fine for the activated charcoal purification. Check out the links I posted for the best information; I'm just summarizing Hyphaenation's purification techniques in that post.

:special: :special: My G-d I can be a long-winded bastard! :special: :special:

SHORT ANSWER: You can use Naphtha instead of Hexane for the activated charcoal portion of the purification. Acetone is needed for dewaxing.

@lambep - Here's hoping your exam went well. I'm sure you nailed it...

Yet, pentane, technically speaking, contains butane so butane is actually attached to thc (that's important for my next paragraph).

:lol:

That's not at all how it works my friend. If it were, any molecule with a carbon chain of more than 4 members would be soluble in butane. Not true.

Edited by Phineas_Carmichael, 30 June 2011 - 10:01 PM.

[eastwood]

For the first time ever ive been smoking BHO .Once you figure out how to smoke the oil its on and its the best meds ever.

[lambep]

Phineas, unfortunately the exam went far worse than I could imagine (and it's my fault...). I still don't know the result but I bet I'll have to go to the same exam again... Thanks for caring about that :)

...
That's not at all how it works my friend. If it were, any molecule with a carbon chain of more than 4 members would be soluble in butane. Not true.

Now that you put it that way, you're obviously right. The beautiful part is that I now know why you're right.

Eastwood, I always preferred to smoke high-quality buds (both indoor and outdoor) over hash, hash oil and synthetic thc wannabes (I've tried JWH-018). Maybe if I needed it as a medication I would have considered higher potency concoctions. It's just that I adore the combination of appearance, smell before lighting, smell after lighting and the different effect of buds. Anyway, I'm glad you were able to try hash oil and liked it.

[lambep]

I had a bit of hash oil I couldn't find a way of scrubbing so I decided to redissolve it and evaporate the solution in a smaller petri.

First I thought I'd see how well ethanol (70% in this case) works. It didn't dissolve much.

After that I thought I had to use hexane (as those are my two options for solvents at the moment). I had some hexane left in a plastic syringe and I discovered that it deforms it a bit but enough to render it useless. Anyway, I used around 3ml of hexane to dissolve most of what was left after the alcohol wash and it worked far better (than the alcohol). I noticed that it precipitated some waxy/fatty thing before it started precipitating what I believe is hash oil (I'm saying this because it might be worth it to try using hexane instead of acetone in the purification process). Unfortunately while I was trying to take the pics I shook the petri in which I was evaporating the hexane solution and the greasy thing mixed with the other stuff (also I spilled like half of it...).

Here's some pics (on the first you can see the petri from which I'm dissolving stuff (and the other two), the second is of the hexane after the shaking and spill, the third is of a petri that has some (invisible) alcohol evaporating, and the last one is of the hexane solution after the hexane evaporated):

Attached Thumbnails

• 
• 
• 
• 

[Crazy8ths]

The same as what?

I'll assume you mean "the same as hexane."

Chemically, no. Naphtha is a mixture of hydrocarbons which distill out of petroleum between 30*C and 200*C. Hexanes boil between 50*C and 70*C so they are part of the naphtha mixture.

While re-reading my post (the one you quoted) I realized that I wrote "hexane." What I should have written was "solvent." I guess I used hexane because the OP was using hexane and it was on my brain.

Acetone is needed for the de-waxing portion, but I think any heavily non-polar solvent (hexane, heptane, naphtha; perhaps not alcohols or ketones) should work just fine for the activated charcoal purification. Check out the links I posted for the best information; I'm just summarizing Hyphaenation's purification techniques in that post.

:special: :special: My G-d I can be a long-winded bastard! :special: :special:

SHORT ANSWER: You can use Naphtha instead of Hexane for the activated charcoal portion of the purification. Acetone is needed for dewaxing.

@lambep - Here's hoping your exam went well. I'm sure you nailed it...


:lol:

That's not at all how it works my friend. If it were, any molecule with a carbon chain of more than 4 members would be soluble in butane. Not true.

The additional information you provide is priceless, i appreciate it. Keeps me thinking and looking stuff up. Not to mention my question was vague Let me specify a little. To make the initial extract (that we end up cleaning up with hyphs tek) is it better to use hexane, naptha, acetone. I know the properties acetone has cold does naptha / hexane have the same. don't have the means for a butane run...the vessel .... The past few runs done with room temp naptha in an aeropress and it solidifys after a few days...smokes nice in a vapo but i would like to turn that into yummy honey

Iambep how is the smoke?

Edited by Crazy8ths, 01 July 2011 - 05:38 PM.

[Nemo Mason]

I don't bake the trim/bud.

Unfortunately hexane is not that selective. I believe my extract has a lot of chlorophyll and other stuff. It looks like propane-butane extract (I have a bit of experience using lighter gas) but with a bit more green. Also it (hexane extract) liquefies a bit less easily than lighter gas extract when heated IMO.

At first my plan was to just wash the leaf material for a few minutes but I found out I don't have coffee filters so I had to go to the store and left the mixture unfiltered.

Also - the leafs are currently again in hexane (and will be left like that for a few days) and I intend on filtering them again and evaporating the hexane to see what I'll get.

Questions are totally welcome.

I even learned something I was wondering about from one of your questions - that you think that thc will be dissolved very fast unlike the impurities. I'll test that some day when I have too much leaf/cheap bud. Unfortunately I smoke soooooooo much that I can't imagine having too much weed hah :)

how much oil get trapped in the coffee filter? I guess I mean does very much get trapped in it?

[lambep]

...
I know the properties acetone has cold does naptha / hexane have the same.
...
Iambep how is the smoke?

I'm left with the same impression about cold acetone. This doesn't sound logical because temperature shouldn't affect the fact that acetone is a ketone and thus quite polar - it's even miscible with water.

The smoke was nice :) it's not at all harsh (although it's made from the worst quality foliage I had - the yellow leafs) and tastes like good quality hash. The thing is that there is far less taste (and mass) per hit than when smoking hash or bud.

About the solvent to be used in the initial extract as much as I know naptha contains different alkanes (and hexane is an alkane) so they'll be able to dissolve similar amounts of THC. Acetone on the other hand is a polar solvent and it wouldn't be able to dissolve THC as well as naptha or hexane.