I am often asked, “What is the “best” extraction?” The key to this answer is that you must assume unintended consequences until proven right.

I have a suggestion to present, and I assume the right to adapt and revise it.

Botanical integrity from seed to shelf;

Efficacy of the process beyond efficiency, economics, effectiveness;

Safety of people and product;

Testing for confirmation.

The hemp industry has changed significantly over the past few years. Just the casually flipping of channels on television, reading a newspaper or magazine (on any topic – news, business, sports, food and science) and there is some facet of hemp being examined.

The reduction of traditional smoking in the “legal” marketplace can be tracked by sales of products. The balance is drastically tipped toward what might be still smoking (vape) and toward edible products. The ingredients in these products is the concentration of compounds from the hemp plant. The compound getting the most coverage is cannabidiol[i] (CBD), which is the compound derived from cannabidolic acid (CBDA). The other effects from the other compounds in plant are being studied also.

Unintended consequences from the concentration – extraction – is something we need to consider seriously as a consumer. GMO is another facet coming in the future. The labeled use of natural is one that is critical, but can be totally nullified by the unintended contamination in the extraction workflow.

Years of making sure the hemp adheres to strict growing environment can be destroyed in seconds with the addition of polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) in the use of solvent that has these toxic chemicals in them. This is not through intended consequences, but not knowing the stabilizers and other additives in material being added to these previously pure plants.

What if I pour sour milk on a natural granola for breakfast? What if I use water with high lead or contaminated water to pour over natural coffee grind? That’s not a great way to start the day, but it is no different than using the most premium hemp and unknowingly adding low grade solvents or adding components from cleaning the surfaces of instruments that then come in contact with hemp.

Note, that by definition, we are concentrating the material from the hemp plant. From 4,000 grams, we are getting 400 grams of CBDA (and later CBD) if it is 10 percent by weight. That is 10 times more concentrated of that compound. What other compounds are now also 10 times or 5 times or 100 times more concentrated? Maybe no “bad” ones, but how do you know that something else is not also in the mixture?

The simple answer is the testing of the components. The labeling of major compounds is only the beginning of what is on sticker that you read. Heavy metals? PAHs[ii]? Residual solvents? Pesticides? Molds? And a long list of other material that could come into the process after the plant left it pristine organic farm. Many studies can be seen about slip agents in bags, contamination from workers in the workflow.

There are significant number of companies that I have seen that take this very seriously. New companies are being formed that have safety of product at the top of list. They are building facilities that are sterile and putting standard operating procedures in place that continually test the product all along the steps to assure that they are complied with also.

Supercritical fluid extraction is GRAS[iii] (generally regarded as safe). It is as long as the solvent specifications are known and the vendor meets those standards as well as the instrument surfaces meet the standards necessary.

Supercritical carbon dioxide is used to clean surfaces of electronics and bones for skin grafts. It is used for the decaffeination of coffee as well as pulling trace amounts of pesticides from soil. It is used to extract antioxidants from krill and the active ingredients from algae as well as oil from core samples deep below the Earth. It also extracts the terpenes and CBDA from hemp – as well as possibly anything that has been added to it

The key take away from today is to know the BEST extraction:

Botanical integrity from seed to shelf;

Efficacy of the process beyond efficiency, economics, effectiveness;

Safety of people and product;

Testing for confirmation.

Each of these will bring the best results for hemp products.

Hope you extract the best from your day.

John A. MacKay, Ph.D., is the Senior Director, Strategic Technology at Waters Corporation. He earned a B.A. in Chemistry from St. Lawrence University, and Ph.D. from the University of Vermont in chemistry focused on the synthesis for cancer fighting molecules using a cyclic -phosphazene backbone. After positions teaching organic, biochemistry and analytical courses, at Davidson College, Lyndon State College and UVM as well as supervising grant based funded student research projects, John joined Waters Technologies in July, 1983. His career has included many roles in product development and now heads up the newly formed Strategic Technology team for the Americas Business Operations. He is widely recognized as scientific expert in application of supercritical fluid for extraction and chromatography across a wide application space including botanical space.

John can be reached at [email protected], or [T] +1 508 482 2104.