Waxes and Emulsions

Introduction

Solvent extraction is non-specific in that it will dissolve anything that meets certain criteria. Non-polar solvents used in the RxCE process love to dissolve lipids. Lipids are a class of non-polar compounds - oil, fats, waxes, plus phospholipids straddling the fence between polar and non-polar. The intent of this page is to show how to recover waxes and emulsions produced in this process.

Wax Recovery

Depending on the strain and temperature of the extraction, from 15-30% of an extraction can be fats, waxes and phospholipids. After Rapid Winterization, collecting the waxes is easy enough. First approach is to literally scrape the waxes out of the paper filter into a storage jar. 

The second approach redissolves the waxes in a little warm alcohol, then saves the entire solution in a wax collection jar. Store the collection jar in the freezer and keep adding to it till full. If left undisturbed, the waxes will settle leaving a tincture that can be siphoned off. 

Emulsions

Emulsions are a nasty thing. In our case, a two edged sword. Good news, the emulsions carry away bad stuff. Bad news, the emulsions carry away good stuff.  When distillation is stopped at 87c/190f, in the best case, the waste water should be clear but slightly amber in color. A greenish milky color shows an emulsion. A light green translucent watery solution is expected. By boing over 90c/195f, a thick emulsion will form stealing oil, which is the worst case. Stop the distillation at 87c/190f to avoid this problem.

If the distillation went over 90c/195f, you will have a thicker emulsion that contains valuble oil. Safe the waste water when separating out the oils and sediments. You can then boil this down to final oil, but may be smelly and bitter, best used in topicals.

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