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Cannabis is big business. More and more states are passing medical use laws and the recreation-al cannabis market isn’t far behind. Medical use is principally centered 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, however, is the extraction stage. Use of advanced chemical strategies and high-tech industrial machinery has allowed cannabis producers to experiment with new approaches. These state-of-the-artwork methods have led to new forms of cannabis extracts akin to vape oils, oral tinctures, crumbles, and wax concentrates.

The three most used extraction strategies 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 each of those methods.

Alcohol extraction makes use of ethanol and can be performed cold, sizzling, or at room temperature. It remains one of the most environment friendly extraction methods. Nevertheless, the hot ethanol typically extracts unwanted chlorophyll and plant waxes and requires clarification or correction steps. The cold process reduces these contaminants at the price of longer extraction times. Room temperature ethanol extraction splits these differences.

Hydrocarbon extraction makes use of butane or propane, solvents with much lower boiling factors than ethanol. These solvents extract more of the plant terpenes, which provide more flavor and aroma and are therefore higher for vape oils or oral tinctures. Nonetheless, like the alcohol technique, scaling up to massive batches is tough and presents significant safety hazards.

CO2 extraction necessitates expensive, high tech specialised pressure and temperature management equipment to deal with turning gaseous CO2 right 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 publish-processing. The CO2 extraction process is highly tunable, permitting totally different pressures and temperatures to extract distinctive botanical compounds.

Safety considerations

Following the discussion above, it is obvious that two of the three foremost extraction strategies involve use of extraordinarily flammable solvents. The third involves the use of a cryogen with its own particular safety concerns. Therefore, cannabis extraction, particularly at production scale, entails some significant safety issues.

First, establish all hazards. This begins by building a chemical stock or list of chemical substances with associated important information resembling materials owner, date acquired, quantity on hand, storage location, and accompanying safety data sheet (SDS).

SDSs are the second critical element and include sixteen specific sections detailing information on the chemical’s constituents, physical properties, health hazards, first aid measures, personal protective equipment, and special 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 employees

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

In addition to the hazards, staff ought to obtain training on the potential publicity routes, signs, and symptoms of exposure and chemical warning properties (or lack thereof). Training must also embody any personal protective equipment crucial for using the chemical as well as incident response, mitigation steps, and first aid measures.

Preventive and proactive health and safety is crucial—this means the timing of training matters. All staff should obtain training prior to starting any work with hazardous chemicals. Annual refresher training is highly recommended. Conduct a thorough review and re-training after any close-call or incident.

Evaluate exposures

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

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