top 3 solvents excluding butane and why

There arn't many ideas that havent been thought about. I joined RUI cuzz there were a few post by marzfich asking if he could distill it in some backwards way that wouldn't work.

Honestly I got most of my inspiration from rice bran oil documentation. Limonene is the new breakthrough green solvent alternative to hexane, there's consideration for it's use in HPLC and it's a wizbang replacement for toluene. Most of my speculation that made me think hey this might work came from azeotropic distillation MIT youtube video's. Somebody threw out that you could lower the boiling point of blah blah by adding water, mixed that with a doc that said limonene was like toluene and started buying gear.


That's so weird all texan's I've ever looked up to where tycoon's of motivational speaking or some form of high charisma intellectual business leader. I grew up loving fast talk of all southern persuasions, my north carolinan ain't bad.

SaybianTv said:

110f at 28.5hg? same as any other extractions purge, final purge is higher than 28.5 in the vac oven, but the solvent purge happen's at lower pressure same temps as everyone else.
Water is what's lifting my solvent, not the flashpoint of limonene, not the pressure of the vac. Im flat out purging water and i'll keep adding water till im satisfied the limonene is purged till no emulsion can be formed. Im purging the same moisture as everyone else just way more of it in the beginning, I learned this all from you guys it shouldn't sound so strange.

115f at 29.5 those are your numbers bro, you think i knew that would be enough to remove all the water and hence could move all the limonene on my own? Nah you said it on toke city, i spent like 400 after that comment trying to build a vacuum distillation setup to try an boil water at 110f. Christ man i thought all my gear was going to implode. I made hash at 100c boiling water at first, IT SUCKED. None of this would work without the azeotropic bond.

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Solly, you are moving faster than my aging brain bro!

Might you elaborate so that I can catch/keep up?

Ok i havn't had any dabs so this is as slow as I go.

#1 Limonene's boiling point is for all practical purposes let's just same the same as thc = shitty solvent
#2 here comes the magic - the boiling point of limonene can be changed via "azeotropic" bond with water
#3purge limonene by boiling water under vacuum at 28.5 "aspirator" till all limonene is removed
#4 here's where we end up in the same boat as an MK terpinator, the oil is stuck in the receiving vessel and need's to be poured via a transport fluid " usually ever-clear"
#5 hop in the vac chamber and resume the final purge like everyone else post winterize......

Ok that's about a slow as I go....
I'm about 12 hour's slower than your standard butane extraction because most are purging the butane with ethanol when it get's low from natural evap, where i'm purging my solvent via distilling water.
After that stage there's no difference between processe's, the only other major difference is how the literal extraction is done which is up to the user. It can be as simple as a jar and a swoosh or as complicated as that vacuum assisted blast tube tower thing i build and posted back in one of our playing with bho and iwe thread.

*From a neutral standpoint*

Almost 2 years ago, I was very active member of Grass City forums, and it was fairly close-knit, kind of like our beloved C&E section here.

Anywho...one day, a member that had his BHO tek proper as fuck.

He honestly made some of the best shatter I've ever seen to this day...

But, one day he posts up something about moving to Limonene as a solvent.

He used to post up bad-ass pics on the regular... Almost every day, he was doing a new run...
After the Limonene post...
Never heard from the guy again...

IDK.... seems fairly odd

The only person i've ever herd of mention the use of limonene is in Vlad's vapour volumes but he's adding it to add taste to bummy run's, same deal with the hole pure gold stuff

Do you got a name of the dude, I really really didn't want to post my um secret tek but i'd feel worse if something happened to me and not even the concept was written down somewhere.
I'd love to track him down dude, I wonder if he gave up? I've been on the brink of giving up many a time.
I read everything on limonene's use for DMT at least everything i could google, they use it differently but at the time I was just trying to get data on the nature of the solvent. I wouldn't even know it was non polar if it wern't for the erowid forums.s

Using water to create and boil out an azeotrope with limonene, one of many terps naturally in your bud does not sit well In my head..its not the only terp that forms an azeotrope and being that it dominates the others since its your solvent...not many of the others will remain either...it still has a high boiling point as well and the amount of extra "solvent" you add attempting to create an azeotrope and lower boiling point will still be that much more fluid you have to evaporate off.....you see where I'm going with this?..not to be discouraging...have at it....make sure your limonene is pure and doesn't contain bht or something similar I suppose too

um been there done that 12k in gear.im not starting up i been doing this my whole membership. all my photos are lho.

vaportechnician said:

awesome content on here since i last posted. good to see people are willing to share their solvent experiences esp ones i've never heard of or seen before (eg: limonene, n-pentane). to be on the safe side (or maybe more popular one) i think i'll use n-hexane next since it seems to be used in alot of commercial concentrates (i think pure gold uses n-hexane along with their de-parraffinning process). however, if anyone can recommend a liquid similar to butane that would produce shatter results then id prolly go for that. i still have alot of pure acetone left so i think i'll use that up until it's done. n-pentane, is that another "ane"? like hex-"ane" or but-"ane"? i like science and research but i just want something that works, like anyone else here im guessing.

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n-hexane is probably the worst solvent as far as health concerns. Use of any other completely non-polar solvent will produce similar results to BHO. If you're getting reagent grade then get n-pentane. Even BHO has a shit ton of variability so its not gonna be perfect, but work on it and get your technique down and it can be every bit as good as BHO.

SaybianTv said:

Ok i havn't had any dabs so this is as slow as I go.

#1 Limonene's boiling point is for all practical purposes let's just same the same as thc = shitty solvent
#2 here comes the magic - the boiling point of limonene can be changed via "azeotropic" bond with water
#3purge limonene by boiling water under vacuum at 28.5 "aspirator" till all limonene is removed
#4 here's where we end up in the same boat as an MK terpinator, the oil is stuck in the receiving vessel and need's to be poured via a transport fluid " usually ever-clear"
#5 hop in the vac chamber and resume the final purge like everyone else post winterize......

Ok that's about a slow as I go....
I'm about 12 hour's slower than your standard butane extraction because most are purging the butane with ethanol when it get's low from natural evap, where i'm purging my solvent via distilling water.
After that stage there's no difference between processe's, the only other major difference is how the literal extraction is done which is up to the user. It can be as simple as a jar and a swoosh or as complicated as that vacuum assisted blast tube tower thing i build and posted back in one of our playing with bho and iwe thread.

Click to expand...

Saybian. . . My first impression when reading of limonene is that "Just when I thought you couldn't get any dumber, you go and do something like this... and totally redeem yourself!" Sorry I had to throw that dumb and dumber quote in there, no offense. Could you give a quick rundown of potential positives and negatives involving extraction with limonene? I am very interested to learn about it. You can send me a pm if you want.

I'm not sure I understand the qualitative analogy but i'm going to take it as a positive with palms open.

I'm trying not to write with any passion or intellectual vigor right now as the group seems to be marginalizing me for that personality trait.
I'm in even less of a mood to make claim's of "Better Than" if you've followed anything i've written this far an have sentence's like just when I thought you couldn't get any dumber for me, I'm a bit raw for a fresh round of judgementalism no matter how quirked you feel at the moment because I wrote what I've been trying to say for ages in 5 principles I didn't want to say.

I've tried to sniff out the trail of provable I have no apetite to get my head ripped off by the sword of fact. QK once said that he didn't understand why people used butane when the longer the carbon chain the better the solvent. He pointed to hexane's c6 since it was just talk of raw solvent efficacy rather than ease processing. I tried to lapdance the poor guy to get anything on where he got that statement so I can do my tangential research. No dice, limonene has c10 so In my mind I'm thinking that's neat and help's me sleep but I got nothing to say if i'm attacked for quackery.

Um of the super solvent's let's say, basically the "Ane's" it's the safest for "me, 4 am run in my pijama's safe for ME", it conincide's with other ethic's I obey in life. I don't like things that are heavily impermanent, I wanted a solvent that would be there for me in 65 year's and that I could make and recycle myself. If you don't like Ted Talk's about the environment the I shall go no further on beneficial aspect's that are unrelated to getting cannabinoid's of plant material.

I'm not gunna lie the "regenerative/sustainable" way has always been more expensive, more difficult to develop, more prone to failure than the quick and dirty. I appreciate but I don't respect open loop blast as a "right livelihood" That's different than personal med which by god do what you gotta do. I'm talking lively hood, 710 hasn't even caught on in any true fashion am I suppose to believe than millions of can's will be going into the atmos? when a Terpinator will keep banging out those indisputable ethical economics that are an example of a must if one want's to earn a living. So yeah I got beef with butane but not the solvent itself but how human's tend to reach for the easy false win.

I found this on a basic google for limonene human benefit's and solvent benefit's, I thought to myself so if I fail the worse that can happen with my solvent is it's still good in fundamental essence. Doesn't really have anything to do with how I make my oil, but I'm big on building my house on a rock.
http://www.essentialoilseeker.com/?p=1432

I stole allot of what if from this preview pdf, later on I got use to buying these all the time just to get a half sentence that anecdote's a theoretical possibility.
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1365/s10337-008-0696-1

In the begenining I read things like this everyday all day at work just thinking what if one day I could make oil to pay for me to be able to grow so I could pay for my farming and quit my job.

http://books.google.ca/books?id=EKudhyt5QfAC&pg=PA167&lpg=PA167&dq=limonene+hexane+alternative&source=bl&ots=keP1rYUHf1&sig=v-W4jevrcWGu_uPRWIkUis7Q0z4&hl=en&sa=X&ei=mdSWUpOcAcT4oASv5IKQCQ&ved=0CFkQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=limonene hexane alternative&f=false


I've studied excelence as a personal habit for getting close to 10 year's now, after doing my job for 17 year's I know nobody is going to decide to do my job tomorow and displacement me one bit. Well if you wanna make oil and you have zero history or connections, the last thing you do is grab a can of butane hope your sorry ass is getting in the game. That's fine for personal but I go pro at anything I touch or I quit.

Anyways ask another question i gotta space all this pent up urge to share out or my sensibitch feeling are gunna get hurt.
I've dealt with allot of bigotry where I live when it comes to the 710 community, people who couldn't spell solvent and who's product is bitter and rampant with harsh fat's have the nerve to attack me that I put shit in it and they havn't had a dab yet.
Overall to get started from scratch with a non automated setup is going to cost about the same as a tamisium, so I don't see anybody trying for the fun of it. Its gotta be the same type of person who's already blown there life saving believing in Co2 and not seing that if it don't do exactly what bho does it ain't gunna fly.

qwizoking said:

Using water to create and boil out an azeotrope with limonene, one of many terps naturally in your bud does not sit well In my head..its not the only terp that forms an azeotrope and being that it dominates the others since its your solvent...not many of the others will remain either...it still has a high boiling point as well and the amount of extra "solvent" you add attempting to create an azeotrope and lower boiling point will still be that much more fluid you have to evaporate off.....you see where I'm going with this?..not to be discouraging...have at it....make sure your limonene is pure and doesn't contain bht or something similar I suppose too

Click to expand...

Not to dodge your question, in regard's to does my method have a flaw..... You bet, I have no number's for if and in what ratio water lift's other terps. But you know each terp that can form an azeotrope will form it at it's own temps so the temp i'm purging at may or may not lift other. All along i expected this to be my downside, i mean it's a better downside than mystery oil or always wonder which can of butane can I afford this week.

So far, every hash maker or lover I've been lucky enough to be able to share a dab with has admitted to my flavor being beyond their. I don't know what the hell that means I just know there oil rip's my chest out and taste like allot of plant matterial on top of it's never winterized. I assume winterized bho wouldn't chest rip but i've tried my own oil unwinterized and it's harsh but I don't know what this dreadfull pain I get in my lungs with Vancouver canada bho. I dunno i'm proud of my tek not my solvent, I hope extracting at -40c matter's, i using 12 filter's matters, i hope vacuum assisted blasting makes a difference. I do a million things hoping that if I just hit enough points of excellence my shit can overcome coming out of nowhere with fanfare.

I've done enough strains now to know with absolute certainty I don't leave shit in it, bubba kush taste like lemon Og kush like lime sprite, they can't both be accussed of being on limonene steroid's. Snazzle #2 taste like berry's, I would kill to be able to send my shit to analytical 360 so i can just give an array and see where it stand's in relation to what one should expect from the strain. I vape everything before i run, i have a fobia that im going to have my ass handed to me when I go to america.

I really don't wanna say the cough feel's cleaner cuzz i think it's on the same level as good etoh for crisp and clean. I vac purge I know you leave it out, i wouldn't think of taking that chance nor would it ever work. There's no water in my oil by the time it's gone into the vac chamber unless it got in there from winterizing and hot hands.
Nobody i've met has ever said lemme sit down and really dab this shit for a day on a strain I know by heart and see if this makes me feel different. You know the struggle dude, imagine being dropped in a new town like michican for instance and try to earn a living making iso. Welp that's were im at and my solvent's already got a history of people using it to mask bullshit so anybody can throw mud on me without even having to know my name.

@Saybian..

My comment was not intended to bash, yet to share what tiny little bit of info I had in experience relating to the subject of Limonene.

I can actually give ya a tip of the hat on what you are accomplishing with the solvent of discussion.

I wish you best of luck in your quest.

I pm'd you the guys name, but this also happened to be right around the same time GC was being reformatted...

A lot regulars bailed at the time..

But he disappeared quite some time before the new format.

So, that could all be coincidence.

So here's my post attempting to explain the longer chain length
Oh to clarify yes I'm talking about the carbon count but that's not really the factor, chain length .."Ethanol's miscibility with water contrasts with the immiscibility of longer-chain alcohols (five or more carbon atoms), whose water miscibility decreases sharply as the number of carbons increases. (One reason hexane better than butane) The miscibility of ethanol with alkanes is limited to alkanes up to undecane, mixtures with dodecane and higher alkanes show a miscibility gap below a certain temperature (about 13 °C for dodecane ). The miscibility gap tends to get wider with higher alkanes and the temperature for complete miscibility increases"

larger molecules can make close contact with each other over a much larger surface area than can smaller molecules. The total force exerted between the two is thus greater. In the same way we can also explain why branched-chain hydrocarbons boil at lower temperatures than straight-chain compounds. The branched molecules are more compact and provide less area over which intermolecular forces can act.

(Couple copy and pastes, I didn't feel like writing all that, I was talking to Vlad about ethanol but I think it still makes sense) since its early I'll leave you with...
http://chemistry.tutorvista.com/physical-chemistry/dispersion-forces.html?view=simple
When I say a higher alkane is better yes its harder to purge but it makes abetter extract....... . The only reason y'all use butane is either....too broke or otherwise can't afford hexane, too impatient for it to evap and purge, and possibly to lazy to even locate. I stopped using butane along time ago, its simply an inferior solvent.. its more polar and it boils at room temp making it dangerous and long soaks difficult

Call it London forces or just plain van der waals ..butane absorbs 61 mg per liter of water allowing for impurities besides just wax to come over...hexane with 6 carbons is basically the point water is no longer soluble at all giving the cleanest extract imo...
Limonene is actually a bit more polar

You said I didn't explain where I got my info....I mean I thought I did alright..considering......my posts get less indepth each time..so I just started copy and pasting my previous answers..sometimes it doesn't fit in context perfectly

Anyway wasn't and am not attacking your tek..simply sharing my theoretical feelings on it...

Hexane is the” new and up-coming solvent”

It's been finding it's way thru back-channeling in dispensaries and the growers and employees.

The hexane oil has yet to make it's way onto the shelves as of yet, but I can validate that many of the MIPs and dispensary proprietors are now seeking the aid of certified chemists to ” tutor” them into extracting with Hexane.

So, with all that happening” behind closed doors”...

Hexane Solvent extracts are going to be the newest craze..

My bro in law works for a grow op, owner was passing out grams of Hexane oil to his employees for 1$ to give feedback...

I sampled two dabs...

I was already high...
But, nothing special... Could be the fact the owner is not so talented.

But, yup...Hexane is on the up and up.

Sirdabsalot462 said:

@Saybian..

My comment was not intended to bash, yet to share what tiny little bit of info I had in experience relating to the subject of Limonene.

I can actually give ya a tip of the hat on what you are accomplishing with the solvent of discussion.

I wish you best of luck in your quest.

I pm'd you the guys name, but this also happened to be right around the same time GC was being reformatted...

A lot regulars bailed at the time..

But he disappeared quite some time before the new format.

So, that could all be coincidence.

Click to expand...

not you SirDabs, i wasn't waving the raygun at you

qwizoking said:

So here's my post attempting to explain the longer chain length
Oh to clarify yes I'm talking about the carbon count but that's not really the factor, chain length .."Ethanol's miscibility with water contrasts with the immiscibility of longer-chain alcohols (five or more carbon atoms), whose water miscibility decreases sharply as the number of carbons increases. (One reason hexane better than butane) The miscibility of ethanol with alkanes is limited to alkanes up to undecane, mixtures with dodecane and higher alkanes show a miscibility gap below a certain temperature (about 13 °C for dodecane ). The miscibility gap tends to get wider with higher alkanes and the temperature for complete miscibility increases"

larger molecules can make close contact with each other over a much larger surface area than can smaller molecules. The total force exerted between the two is thus greater. In the same way we can also explain why branched-chain hydrocarbons boil at lower temperatures than straight-chain compounds. The branched molecules are more compact and provide less area over which intermolecular forces can act.

(Couple copy and pastes, I didn't feel like writing all that, I was talking to Vlad about ethanol but I think it still makes sense) since its early I'll leave you with...
http://chemistry.tutorvista.com/physical-chemistry/dispersion-forces.html?view=simple
When I say a higher alkane is better yes its harder to purge but it makes abetter extract....... . The only reason y'all use butane is either....too broke or otherwise can't afford hexane, too impatient for it to evap and purge, and possibly to lazy to even locate. I stopped using butane along time ago, its simply an inferior solvent.. its more polar and it boils at room temp making it dangerous and long soaks difficult

Call it London forces or just plain van der waals ..butane absorbs 61 mg per liter of water allowing for impurities besides just wax to come over...hexane with 6 carbons is basically the point water is no longer soluble at all giving the cleanest extract imo...
Limonene is actually a bit more polar

You said I didn't explain where I got my info....I mean I thought I did alright..considering......my posts get less indepth each time..so I just started copy and pasting my previous answers..sometimes it doesn't fit in context perfectly

Anyway wasn't and am not attacking your tek..simply sharing my theoretical feelings on it...

Click to expand...

I read that dispersion page you posted before, I read it with all my heart but I don't have the authority in that domain to say any answer i'd give I'd buy if I was in the crowd.
I couldn't by looking at chains in the picture for limonene put my two cents why its less miscible or more or less polar than hexane. I really wish I could argue but I don't argue things I don't have certainty in so I take your theoretical feelings on as Dam valid until an argument of more clarity comes up.

It get's a little easier to at least feel like I can debate if the argument were one of hexane vs limonene cuzz at least with that I can draw from documented trials of limonene replacing hexane and their reason's why it was suitable. But anything I say on the " better " end is subjective. What I can say is at least from my experience i would love to try and debunk as many theoretical feelings as I can, but I have no place arguing paper fact's why do you think i push you to give me the perfect analogy to make it all click in my brain.
There are some serious subtleties I learned on the way working with limonene, lifting the final 10% of limonene is really hard when your oil has frozen your magnetic stirbar, i've got at least 1000 hour's of observing the fluid purging day and night, l now use a rotovape and multiple dissolve and solidify washes with alcohol to dessicated the oil back to a water free state. The air, Oil and water form an azeotrope that changes the color to bright waxlike consistancies, as long as I can spin my oil and get a color change I've got water, if I have water when i leave that rotovap in my oil i'm fucked. It also has to pass dab test before it leaves the rotovap, there basic QC stuff to me but I guess people only have rules like Make drugs as fast as you can.

I've notice all concentrates have an achiless heel to either public acceptance or just bag appeal that moves things off the shelf. I look at that 5star bubble hash and I think my god they in theory have maximum flavor possible but after all that hard work somebody is going to say No way because they have to flick crusties off the nail at the end.
BHO unfortunately has the downside of every amateur possibly killing them self, and a huge quality control greyzone. I don't mean like it's bad cuzz it's butane, i mean like bad cuzz nobody knows Which butane. Fuck man the day FD dropped the pre-distilling butane to illuminate ALL non volatile I freaked out about the 4.05% in my msds i couldn't explain and I refused to accept was water. So i pre distill all incoming limonene, and yeah after a liter i'll find a teaspoon of "mystery oil" too that I can't explain but im happy i eliminated.

So yeah i dont even think about comment's like beware of the purity of your limonene, it helps that anyone can check out the msds of where i get it from because I don't know of anyone else in canada to get it from. But i think I take that shit for granted when i talk because the tek is my armor against not knowing till further notice.
50 year's from now i'll still make methanol from cow shit and my solvent from my citrus peel, I have a farm in jamaica that i'll grow on one day and I sure as Hell don't trust jack shit I can get from a lab in jamaica!

Ice, ice, baby.

Ok, you've convinced me to try it and see what happens. I ordered d-Limonene from The Lebermuth Co, along with some other essential oils for trials.

FD I love you man, when you wern't saying much I was hoping like hell your mind was burning up with inspiration.
I've been following sky's rotovape post of TC, he has no clue i bought the rotovap when he shit on pink house's setup.
I was hoping the post on chef's using the peristalic pump would lead to clue's on how I can get back lost terps from water purging. Alas the chef is using that technique because he's clearly loosing aromatic alcohol's from his pressure being so low it reboil's in the receiving flask and out the vac line. My mind is a bit bent at why he spent so much money regigging his rotovap instead of just adding a real cold trap to catch any alcohol's that leave the rotovap.

http://www.cookingissues.com/primers/rotovap/#section7

I've tried straight evap of limonene extractions and the shit aint never right no matter how long i heat purge, If i'm honest i'll say that I've never been able to get a true pure purge without water, I tried for 3 month's because I was afraid of water because so many problems are blamed on moisture. In the end the rotovap beat's the magnetic stirbar method hands down in triplicate but will still do the job just with more room for human error.

My finger's are so crossed the theoretical trial works out for you, I feel gay with envy when I hear bout you working with cascade tek on this full terpene frontier. Im tired of kenny posting articles about the article to come that will solve all. I don't get what they mean by you can winterized what you catch from the vac line, my vac line goes to a cold trap -50c and I dont "see" anything special that precipitated. If i could eliminate qwiso's questions of wont your water take other things when it's taking your limonene, I think it could be unassailable.

Fadedawg said:

Ok, you've convinced me to try it and see what happens. I ordered d-Limonene from The Lebermuth Co, along with some other essential oils for trials.

Click to expand...

SaybianTv said:

FD I love you man, when you wern't saying much I was hoping like hell your mind was burning up with inspiration.

Click to expand...

You guys keep up the good work! I can't wait to see the process in action FD.

Fadedawg said:

Ok, you've convinced me to try it and see what happens. I ordered d-Limonene from The Lebermuth Co, along with some other essential oils for trials.

Click to expand...

Did you ever try it? a few waves have been made in the real world since this thread?