Traditionally, humans have produced herbal extracts in a few ways, like cold pressing herbs, soaking herbs in oils, boiling herbs in oils, and preparing tinctures by soaking herbs in alcohol. Most of these methods work, but they have a few drawbacks: they are time-consuming, and the resulting product is of low potency. Products created using such methods also have unwanted ingredients like chlorophyll and even allergens.
However, modern herbal extracts are made using new technologies that allow the creation of much more potent extracts that are free of unwanted substances and have very low impurities.
As one can guess, this method uses CO2 gas for CBD extraction from the plant materials. This is among the preferred ways of CBD extraction since CO2 is safe for humans and is easy to handle as the gas is non-inflammable. Moreover, CO2 is also safe for the environment.
However, as one can see, this method uses supercritical CO2.[1] This kind of CO2 is created by storing CO2 at specific temperatures and under specific pressures. Supercritical CO2 is neither a gas nor a liquid; it is something in between. Supercritical CO2 is an excellent solvent and quite good for CBD extraction. CBD extracted using these methods is safe for human use and of high purity and potency.
This popular CBD extraction method uses hydrocarbon gases like butane or propane as solvents. Once CBD has dissolved in these liquified gasses, pressures are raised, and these gasses escape, leaving behind high-purity CBD extract.[2] These gases are used in closed-loop systems to avoid accidents, as these gases are highly flammable.
Once the crude CBD has been extracted using the above methods, it undergoes a few other processes to remove impurities. These methods allow the creation of different extracts, such as 99% pure CBD isolate or full-spectrum CBD extract.
This article was authored by:Â Dr. Preet Pal Singh Bhinder.
This article was peer-reviewed by Dr M Mansoor Siddique (PhD). Dr Siddique has over eight years of experience working with CBD and CBD products.
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