Cannabis is big business. More and more states are passing medical use laws and the recreation-al cannabis market will not be far behind. Medical use is especially focused on cannabidiol (CBD) extracts while extracts of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) have led the leisure market’s development of everything from oils for vaping to edible candy.
The key to all products, nonetheless, is the extraction stage. Use of advanced chemical methods and high-tech industrial machinery has allowed cannabis producers to experiment with new approaches. These state-of-the-art strategies have led to new forms of cannabis extracts resembling vape oils, oral tinctures, crumbles, and wax concentrates.
The three most used extraction strategies by the cannabis trade are alcohol extraction, hydrocarbon extraction, and supercritical carbon dioxide (CO2) extraction. As with most things in life, there are pros and cons for each of those methods.
Alcohol extraction makes use of ethanol and could be performed cold, hot, or at room temperature. It remains some of the efficient extraction methods. Nonetheless, the recent ethanol usually extracts unwanted chlorophyll and plant waxes and requires clarification or correction steps. The cold process reduces these contaminants on the value of longer extraction times. Room temperature ethanol extraction splits these differences.
Hydrocarbon extraction uses butane or propane, solvents with a lot lower boiling points than ethanol. These solvents extract more of the plant terpenes, which provide more flavor and aroma and are therefore better for vape oils or oral tinctures. Nevertheless, like the alcohol technique, scaling as much as large batches is difficult and presents significant safety hazards.
CO2 extraction necessitates expensive, high tech specialized pressure and temperature control equipment to deal with turning gaseous CO2 into a supercritical fluid or cryogen. The liquid CO2, with careful control, simply extracts oils and waxes and in some makes use of requires little to no post-processing. The CO2 extraction process is highly tunable, permitting different pressures and temperatures to extract distinctive botanical compounds.
Safety considerations
Following the discussion above, it is obvious that two of the three main extraction methods involve use of extremely flammable solvents. The third entails using a cryogen with its own specific safety concerns. Subsequently, cannabis extraction, particularly at production scale, entails some significant safety issues.
First, establish all hazards. This begins by building a chemical stock or list of chemical compounds with related essential information comparable to material owner, date acquired, quantity on hand, storage location, and accompanying safety data sheet (SDS).
SDSs are the second critical part and contain sixteen particular sections detailing information on the chemical’s constituents, physical properties, health hazards, first aid measures, personal protective equipment, and particular handling and disposal requirements.2 The SDS comprises all the information wanted to develop your HCP and is critical if an exposure or incident occurs. Ensure access to the SDS is available within a few minutes at all times (e.g. 24/7).
Train employees
After identifying hazards and building inventory of hazardous chemical substances, conduct the communication part of the program. This means getting the critical information to staff (e.g. training our workers on the hazards of every chemical).
In addition to the hazards, staff should obtain training on the potential exposure routes, signs, and symptoms of exposure and chemical warning properties (or lack thereof). Training should also include any personal protective equipment necessary for utilizing the chemical as well as incident response, mitigation steps, and first aid measures.
Preventive and proactive health and safety is crucial—this means the timing of training matters. All workers should obtain training previous to beginning any work with hazardous chemicals. Annual refresher training is highly recommended. Conduct a radical evaluation and re-training after any shut-call or incident.
Consider exposures
Industrial hygienists are trained to anticipate, recognize, consider, and control all potential health and safety hazards in the workplace. Knowing that many chemical solvents pose significant risk for publicity and health consequences, we must admit that publicity assessments are necessary.
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