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Cannabis is big business. More and more states are passing medical use laws and the recreation-al cannabis market is just not far behind. Medical use is principally targeted on cannabidiol (CBD) extracts while extracts of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) have led the recreational 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-artwork strategies have led to new forms of cannabis extracts equivalent to vape oils, oral tinctures, crumbles, and wax concentrates.

The three most used extraction techniques by the cannabis business are alcohol extraction, hydrocarbon extraction, and supercritical carbon dioxide (CO2) extraction. As with most things in life, there are pros and cons for every of these methods.

Alcohol extraction makes use of ethanol and might be performed cold, sizzling, or at room temperature. It remains probably the most efficient extraction methods. However, the new ethanol usually extracts unwanted chlorophyll and plant waxes and requires clarification or correction steps. The cold process reduces these contaminants at the worth of longer extraction times. Room temperature ethanol extraction splits these differences.

Hydrocarbon extraction makes use of butane or propane, solvents with much decrease boiling factors than ethanol. These solvents extract more of the plant terpenes, which provide more taste and aroma and are due to this fact higher for vape oils or oral tinctures. However, like the alcohol methodology, scaling as much as massive batches is troublesome and presents significant safety hazards.

CO2 extraction necessitates costly, high tech specialised pressure and temperature control equipment to handle turning gaseous CO2 into a supercritical fluid or cryogen. The liquid CO2, with careful management, 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 totally different pressures and temperatures to extract unique botanical compounds.

Safety considerations

Following the dialogue above, it is apparent that two of the three foremost extraction strategies involve use of extremely flammable solvents. The third includes the usage of a cryogen with its own specific safety concerns. Therefore, cannabis extraction, particularly at production scale, entails some significant safety issues.

First, identify all hazards. This begins by building a chemical stock or list of chemicals with associated necessary information reminiscent of material owner, date acquired, quantity on hand, storage location, and accompanying safety data sheet (SDS).

SDSs are the second critical part and include 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 contains all of the information needed to develop your HCP and is critical if an publicity or incident occurs. Ensure access to the SDS is available within a couple of minutes always (e.g. 24/7).

Train staff

After identifying hazards and building stock of hazardous chemical substances, conduct the communication part of the program. This means getting the critical information to employees (e.g. training our workers on the hazards of every chemical).

In addition to the hazards, workers should obtain training on the potential publicity routes, signs, and signs of publicity and chemical warning properties (or lack thereof). Training also needs to include any personal protective equipment necessary for using the chemical as well as incident response, mitigation steps, and first aid measures.

Preventive and proactive health and safety is essential—this means the timing of training matters. All employees ought to obtain training previous to beginning any work with hazardous chemicals. Annual refresher training is highly recommended. Conduct an intensive evaluate and re-training after any close-call or incident.

Evaluate exposures

Industrial hygienists are trained to anticipate, acknowledge, consider, and control all potential health and safety hazards in the workplace. Knowing that many chemical solvents pose significant risk for exposure and health penalties, we should admit that exposure assessments are necessary.

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