professional development
Our web courses are taught live by Dan Batzel and are offered to employees of State & DEA licensed cannabis entities.
Embedded Files
Mantra #1 in Cannabis Products Manufacture
DEEP VACUUMS for LOWEST TEMPS
Mantra #2 in Cannabis Products Manufacture
EXCLUDE AIR
Mantra #3 in Cannabis Products Manufacture
SCAVENGE ACIDS
Why are deep vacuums and scavenging acids important?
They are important because both acids and elevated temperatures can each independently cause undesirable cyclizations, rearrangements, and polymerizations. So, it is important to adopt acid scavenging methods in some processes and it is also important to take great care of your pumps and use the right trapping methods to get the deepest vacuums (because deeper vacuums give lower distillation temps). More in depth, if you've looked at the structures of the various 25,000 terpenoids (cannabinoids are terpenoids) you would probably say, "wow they tend to have rings". Any synthetic organic chemist will tell you that the rings can form from linear parts (snakes) where the "head bites its tail", i.e., a cyclization reaction. Additionally, the head of one snake can bite the tail of another snake, i.e., a polymerization reaction. Elevated temperatures and/or acids cause these kinds of reactions. Moreover, a ringed terpenoid can rearrange at elevated temperatures and/or with acids present to form other kinds of ringed terpenoids.
Where do acids come from?
Acids come from many sources. If you extract with CO2-SFE then carbonic acid is usually prevalent. The acidic cannabinoids like CBDA happen to be, as their names suggest, acids. Also, the plant has fatty acids. And, the plant has fats which can saponify to fatty acids. Also, acids can form on the recycle of ethanol and some other solvents. Acid scavenging strategies in your processes can stop/minimize acids from forming and causing trouble.
Why is excluding air important?
It's because the terpenoid class of molecules (of which, the cannabinoids, pinene, limonene, et. al. are members of) are reactive with oxygen. The particular oxygen-reactive centers are those carbon atoms of the terpenoid molecule that have allylic hydrogen atoms, doubly allylic hydrogen atoms, and benzylic hydrogen atoms. First the carbon adds the oxygen as a peroxide and then the molecule usually either cyclizes to give an oxygen-containing ring or falls apart to form a terpene alcohol (terpenol); and sometimes, more rarely, a terpene ketone (terpenone). Also, unsaturated fats and fatty acids tend to be present in cannabis extracts, and while these aren't terpenoids, they are molecules that have carbons with allylic or doubly allylic hydrogen atoms and are usually oxygen-reactive in which the long chain gets chopped up into short chain molecules like butyric acid and acetic acid (this reaction is known as a rancidification reaction).
courses
Two 1-hour sessions for lab, inventory and purchasing managers focusing on sourcing and purchasing ingredients, chemicals, and equipment. Dan Batzel discusses best vendors and best equipment manufacturers and how non-cannabis technology companies source and arrange the best discount programs. Sometimes companies in the cannabis industry encounter barriers (like vendors' "responsible care programs") and Dan discusses ways to meet their requirements and overcome the barriers. Additional sessions can be added on best practices and products for integrating your purchasing data system with "chemically intelligent" inventory data systems. An example of a chemically intelligent inventory system is one that tracks SDS management, fire code reporting, and Dept. of Homeland Security reporting.
Three 1-hour sessions focusing on adsorption chromatography for cannabis chemists and lab directors. We like to spread these sessions out so that you have time to order materials and to refine your technique. The first session explains whats going on in chromatography - discussing adsorbents such as silica, alumina, anthracite, cellulose, and titania; how to activate and deactivate adsorbents; the when and the why of using them; and how to determine which eluent solvents to use. Also provided is an equipment list for doing TLC and column and plug chromatography. The next two sessions come after you get your equipment and the focus is on developing your technique running columns and TLCs.
A GC terp profile doesn't have much meaning unless you connect the science dots to the sensory properties they give in products. This course for lab, cultivation, & marketing directors helps you develop your own in-house panel testing program. Terp mixtures are a great place to start because they elicit so many different kinds of sensory responses: Which terpenes are responsible for top notes? Which ones give lasting notes? Which ones cause burning and why? The popular course is online for three 1-hour sessions. Then, you can either run your first panel testing session yourselves or have Dan visit to help kick things off. In the online part, we identify the responses that are important to the consumer, ask what factors or properties of the terpene-containing product are important during use, and create a multifactorial spreadsheet that links the responses to the factors in order to make statistics-backed conclusions. We also cover panel composition, recruitment, and training.
Three 1-hour sessions for cannabis chemists and lab directors focusing on how to best configure and optimize your stills for deepest vacuums and for speedy runs; how to work in an air-free environment; and how to exchange air-saturated liquids with nitrogen. Best practices in pump maintenance and oil trapping for GMP are presented. We can spread the sessions out so that you have time to order equipment and thus come to the second and third sessions with problems and questions to address in hand.
A 2-hour session for cannabis chemists and lab directors focusing on choosing and using the right filtration equipment for the job at hand. We cover the standard batch and/or semi-continuous S/L filtration devices like plate and frame rigs, cartridge filtration units, basket centrifuges, etc.; how to select the best filters and liquid pumps (and who makes them); and how to clean and maintain these equipment for GMP. We also discuss Pasteurization by submicron filtration.
Three 1-hour sessions focusing on handy formulas for cannabis extractors, formulators, and lab directors and their integration into spreadsheets. We start with a simple dry weight basis calculator, move on to some more complex calculators for extractors and some goal seeking calculators for formulators, and then finish with a review of the calculations and assumptions the independent testing labs use when they determine terp and cannabinoid profiles. Plenty of time is given to solving your own particular chemistry algebra problems.
Fifteen weekly 2-hour sessions for lab directors and COOs on how to choose & organize your processing staff, facility, equipment, products, work-flows, and material-flows for maximum profitability, expandability, and headache avoidance. You'll acquire strategies for making products of the highest quality and find that they go hand in hand with strategies for ensuring workplace and product safety because any advancement in any of these areas lifts all boats. This course is usually best taken on a company-private basis but can be taken mixed company.
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