Say it with me, NO — MORE — WINTERIZING!

For years processors and extractors have been faced with the daunting task of post processing to refine crude oils to a state of which was suitable for input into molecular distillation stages of production. The resulting output is an ingredient used widely in foods, beverages, vapes, suppositories, and more. Usually the crude oil for this is made with Ethanol. In the past, processors would use CO2 Supercritical extraction to develop a crude safe for consumption but high in undesirable compounds that would deviate from effective delivery so naturally, and in order to make that into an ingredient with suitable characteristics for use in the value-added derivatives mentioned above, they would further post process with Ethanol in very cold environments, essentially allowing the waxes and sugars of the plant to precipitate into a top layer for easy separation, which would then be collected and separated afterwards to yield a “winterized” crude oil. Scaling this initial extraction is one thing, and doable for the most part, but scaling the post processing to accommodate is no light task, considering the amount of Ethanol required onsite to handle the job. Processors today are commercial scale but they aren’t exceptionally equipped beyond that, we need a way to scale the process up, and cost effectively too as market conditions in Canada continue to compress and the industry matures. Everyone is finding their own differentiation channels but they’re all essentially using the same processes, just different products and form factors or applications, usually its all Ethanol extracted.

But what if I told you, you could scale it up, and out, very cost effectively, and you don’t even need Ethanol to contact the product? Instead, we use water! Water? What do you mean?

Using the polarity profile of the cannabinoids, we can magnetize an in-line process to collect out of vapor stream to produce a crude that is much cleaner in the sense there are no heavy solvents or denaturants to worry about. If the processor wants to winterize they still can albeit for a fraction of the volume of Ethanol normally required. This translates in to significant efficiency across OpEx and CapEx respectively.

We’re working with our manufacturing partner providers to bring these systems to your client customers in Canada, please reach out to us, sales@safeleaf.ca to inquire today, we’d love to show you a demonstration of the system doing its thing!

Written by: Sean Dogan, SafeLeaf.ca