Cannabidiol (CBD) – a naturally occurring compound found in the cannabis plant – is growing in popularity for its medicinal use in recent years.
Without the THC compound that contains the ‘high’ of cannabis, CBD oil contains a large range of benefits to a person’s health – including:
- Antioxidants
- Anti-inflammatories
- Anticonvulsants
- Antipsychotics
- And many more!
However, it’s not easy for the consumer to gain these benefits from simply purchasing the hemp plant. The beneficial compound must be extracted by a professional and transformed into an oil extract that can then be used as an ingredient in products such as edibles, oils, and creams.
Why ethanol is the best extraction method
There are a variety of ways to extract CBD oil, but the purpose of extraction is to create cannabinoids that are pure and highly concentrated for human consumption. That’s why oil and ethanol recovery systems are the best CBD oil extraction method.
Ethanol extraction involves introducing the solvent ethanol to the hemp plant in order to extract the cannabinoids. Unlike other extraction methods, ethanol extraction can produce cannabis oil with up to 99 percent purity, meaning a higher quality end product than CBD oil extracted through other techniques.
Not only that, but oil and ethanol extraction is much less expensive and far more efficient than using C02 system. Oil and ethanol recovery systems are far cheaper than the expensive machinery used in C02 extraction.
Additional steps after extraction
After CBD has been extracted from the plant before it is ready for human use it must first go through a few additional post-processing steps. These include:
Decarboxylation: Decarboxylation is the process in which you activate your CBD oil. Before your extract is decarboxylated, there isn’t naturally occurring CBD or THC present in the plant. Instead, these phytocannabinoids are found in an acidic state, better known as cannabidiol acid (CBDA) and tetrahydrocannabinol acid (THCA). The decarboxylation process converts these inactive components into active components – giving you a high-quality end product.
Winterization: Winterization is the act of removing any unwanted fatty acids, plant materials, chlorophyll, cannabinoids, and terpenoids contained in your CBD extract. This is the process in which non-polar substances (such as hash oil) are dissolved into a polar substance (most commonly ethanol) at sub-zero temperatures. This forces waxes and lipids (fatty acids) from the crude extract to the top of the mixture – where they can be easily removed through the filtration process.