So, here's a little experiment with a non-pure CBD source and different Zeolith particle size:
I still have several 0.5g packs of "CBD dab wax", consisting of 90% CBD and 10% terpenes.
To have a more workable amount, I mixed some leftovers and 2 packs together, yielding about 1.2g wax. I used Grape Ape, GSC, and Skywalker OG flavours.
- The wax was broken up and mixed, then divided in about 2 equal parts.
- One part was mixed with about 0.5g Zeolith "<= 25 micron", the other with Zeolith "0.2 to 0.5 mm" (i.e. 200 to 500 micron).
- While the "0.2 to 0.5 mm" zeolith mainly consists of grainy particles, it also had smaller "powder". I didn't wash that finer dust away, but I think it would be possible, although tedious.
- Both mixes were folded into separate sheets of aluminium foil, each about the size of 2-3 A4 pages.
- I found folding it a bit tricky, not a big deal, but the mix moves around and I didn't want to breathe the Zeolith powder. I ended up folding it into triangles, which is imho not so ideal, I'll try some kind of mold below the foil next time. I was careful to not agitate that mix too much and wore an FFP2 mask for this operation, but still had the sensation of "powder on my tongue" afterwards.
- The folded packages were pressed with a cast iron pestle that is relatively heavy and two neatly flat packs were achieved.
- The packs were put into aluminium jars, wine argon was added right before they went in the oven.
- The oven got heated to 105 C, the jars put in, temp increased to 150 C and the 15 min timer started once the 150 C were reached. It took 3 min to go from 105 to 150 C, so total oven time was 18 min.
- The jars were removed, left to cool to room temperature, then the packs were removed, put into a ziploc bag and put in the freezer overnight.
- Opening and removing the zeolith mix was easy, but already 1 or 2 folds before reaching it, the foil was sticky to the touch. So some got volatile enough to expand a bit and condense on the foil. It also smelled of cannabis and terpenes, so the terps did not fully got lost at this stage.
- The mix was dissolved in 96.5% ethanol and filtered once with a coffeee filter. Both solutions still had fine zeolith after filtering.
At this stage, samples were taken from both solutions and the source material and put on a TLC plate and developed using the default "Bunkpolice testing liquid", which is methanol with ammonia:
Unfortunately, there is nearly no visible difference between the 3 samples. I believe this being due to the testing liquid, apparently separating CBD and THC is quite variable depending on the type of liquid used:
High Performance Thin-Layer Chromatography (HPTLC) data of Cannabinoids in ten mobile phase systems
This test was made before The Traveler posted the results using the pro-test kit. It makes lot of sense that the pro-test kit has a specific testing liquid for cannabinoids, but on the other hand, the linked paper shows an ok difference between d9-THC and CBD. So, no idea what is going on here.
Continuing the process:
- The ethanol extract was filtered using a rolled up kitchen towel. I used about 5 strips of the full length of the paper towel, cut to about 5-6 cm width each. This fit very tightly into my funnel, I couldn't even get it in fully because of the compression. The final filter reminded me a lot of a tampon in shape and size. So, I wonder: would a pure cotton tampon be a better filter than the kitchen towel?
- The filtering was very slow, but doable. It took about 5 hours to filter 50ml of liquid. I used the same filter for both extractions, the second one was bit faster. Not sure if that was ideal.
- As found by The Traveler, the filtrate looked very clear, but had small strands of paper towel inside. The extracts were filtered twice with coffee filters, yiedling a clear liquid.
The liquids both looked similar, caramel coloured, like a light whisky. This was on a cloudy day. The next day, it was sunny, and now the liquid from the 25micron batch looked pink-ish, while the 0.2-0.5mm batch did still look like the day before, see picture. Again, one day later, it was cloudy again, but now both liquids showed the same colour again. So, it seems the colour effect depends on the light, so is there a good way / special lamp to use here?
Once the ethanol evaporated enough, the liquids started to look cloudy. At first I thought, that this is zeolith that made it through the filtering, but I'm not sure. The zeolith should have been visible before, shouldn't it? I rather guess that it was CBD(?) precipitating out of the solution. The liquid was both cloudy and had brown oily drops floating on top.
Once the ethanol was fully evaporated, both extracts produced a clear sticky residue, the 25micron batch _maybe_ a little more pinkish. I put a little of each on a small piece of mullein and smoked it through a pipe with charcoal filter. I had the 0.2-0.5 batch first and the other batch the day after. It's hard to tell a difference and a preference due to placebo effects and the low dose. I didn't smoke any cannabinoids in the last couple weeks before this assay. Both are active beyond what you would expect from CBD, I had both in the evening and the first day I had a stronger "hazy head" effect the next morning, but in a way I know from CBD, a THC "morning sleepiness" feels somewhat different.
So, interestingly, taking the pinkishness and this test indicates that the 25micron version converted more CBD and produced more d8-THC than the 0.2-0.5mm version. As the larger particle size isn't much safer due to smaller particles present and the filtering seemed to have worked equally well for both, it seems the smaller zeolith particles are better. But I'd like some more results on this, because I expected this to be the other way around based on The Travelers results with "177 micron" zeolith.
I also wonder: maybe the larger particle size causes a slower reaction. This could be beneficial, as this would increase the length of the ideal time window when to stop the reaction. If the reaction is slower, it's harder to overshoot and thus using larger particles and a longer oven time (like the used and suggest 25min or 40min) could yield better conversion. Does this make sense?
The product from the 0.2-0.5mm batch was dissolved in some PG. Although the product was clear when starting out, adding the PG produced a quite cloudy liquid:
Although I think this is CBD, I'm not sure if this is safe to use with an aerosolizing vape. It's definitely not as nicely clear as in the picture from The Traveler.
Generally, I have some musings on the safety of smoking or vaping the product from this method (with the kitchen towel filtering):
Enriched herb
- What about infusing this into some smoking herbs like mullein and damiana like with enchanted herb? Would a spliff where the first 2/3 are the enriched herb, the last 1/3 plain herb and then followed by a charcoal filter really be super dangerous? Plant ashes for making hapé are filtered down to 150 micron, so I'd guess some ash in regular spliffs would also have fine particles that don't regularly make it through the plant material/filter. Also, I'd guess that the ash and "tar" created from combustion would stick to the zeolith, quickly producing much larger particles.
- A similar question arises about smoking this with a water bong: wouldn't the zeolith particles carried by the smoke be caught in the water?
- I'd guess such an enriched herb wouldn't be safe in a dry herb vape, like a dynavap or sticky brick or electronic devices, simply because the airpath is short and there is no filtering of any kind. However, running those through a water bong should work as well, shouldn't it?
PG liquid
- What about having some zeolith particles in a PG-based vape. Zeolith seems relatively heavy, so would these particles really pass the coil and be carried on the PG aerosol? Not sure here.
Dab rig
- Last but not least: What about the most obvious, i.e. just using a dab rig? Isn't cold starting a dab rig similar to what happens when one would distill the product to get rid of the zeolith? Any zeolith somehow being pulled with the airstream then would also have to make it through the water. Somehow I think this might be the most applicable option here: it is made for using concentrates, basically distills the concentrate anyways, and has a water filter.
But all of these thoughts are musings, I don't want to give the impression that any of these would be "as safe as the same product without zeolith", but I'd be interested in opinions here. Do these ideas make sense? Are there some known counterpoint effects, like that the bubbles are too big and the water contact in a bong is too brief to adequately filter out such small particles?