Cannabis extraction involves the separation of the components of cannabis in order to remove them from the plant matrix. Different types of methods are used in order to divide cannabis plant material into parts, or extracts. In order to isolate various desirable compounds, various cannabis techniques are used in various industries responsible for the production of CBD products. Due to the increasing awareness about the health benefits of CBD products, a lot of companies are making use of cannabis extraction methods in order to get cannabis from a plant matrix. In this post, we have mentioned the list of common cannabis extraction techniques that are used in industrial processes. We have given little details about medicinal cannabis extraction designs and techniques in order to separate the cannabis plant material into different chemical fractions.
Cannabis Alcohol Extraction
For cannabis extraction, the solvent such as alcohol is used because of the soaking of cannabis in alcohol and then the removal of the plant material after that. Then, the liquid is filtered and the alcohol is removed by the process of evaporation. However, the challenging part of this process is to control the mixing of solvent with water and the dissolution of molecules such as chlorophyll. The cannabis alcohol extraction process is executed at the atmospheric pressure with the control of the temperature during evaporation. In this method, there is no risk of leaving toxic residual chemicals in the final cannabis extract.
CO2 Cannabis Extraction
In the process of CO2 Cannabis extraction, carbon dioxide is used instead of alcohol in order to remove cannabis components from the plant matrix. This process involves the use of high pressure and heat in order to turn the CO2 supercritical which means it simultaneously acts like a liquid and a gas. After the extraction of cannabis components, the supercritical CO2 enters a condenser and turns into a liquid that can easily be filtered again.
Hydrocarbon Extraction
In this method, Butane is used as the extraction solvent in herbal extraction machines for the creation of butane hash oil. The process begins with cannabis and liquid butane under high pressure and heated system. Due to the evaporation process under a vacuum, the butane solvent is removed. The vacuum facilitates the conversion of the butane from liquid to a vapor which makes it removal a lot easier.
Solvent-Free Extraction
It is also possible to extract desirable components from the plant matrix with the use of basic techniques of grinding and sieving. Another example of a solvent-free method of cannabis extraction is a traditional hash or hashish. The basic idea is to separate the trichomes from the plant material because they have the highest concentration of desirable compounds.