Distillation of cannabis oil is one of the most important steps in the cannabis processing chain. Distilling cannabis oil and creating high potency cannabinoid “distillate” is one of the most successful ways to profitably build a cannabis processing business.

Cannabis Distillate

Cannabis/hemp distillate is not only a stand-alone end product itself, but is also a precursor for many other end products such as isolate, water-soluble formulations, and novel cannabinoid synthesis. Distillation is one of our top specialties at Lab Society, and thus we pride ourselves on creating and offering the most efficient and high quality distillation systems on the market.

Distilling Cannabis Crude Oil

Distillation of cannabis crude oil is done after the cannabinoids are extracted from the plant material, and properly prepared via winterization or other post processing techniques. The crude oil used in distillation must be fully decarbed/degassed and minimal to no residual solvents, terpenes, or other light volatile compounds should be in the crude oil before it is ready to be distilled. Cannabis distillation is similar to the solvent recovery step in that we are vaporizing the targeted compounds and then recondensing them which purifies them in the process. The difference is, cannabis crude oil is a much heavier compound than solvents and therefore has a much higher boiling point. What this means is that a different style of distillation system must be used, and the temperatures needed to achieve effective distillation are much higher. The vacuum pressure needed for cannabis distillation is also much higher and is usually referred to as ultra-high vacuum rather than the light vacuum pressure needed to distill lower boiling point compounds like solvents.

Types of Distillation Systems

Benchtop Short Path Distillation

There are two main types of cannabis distillation systems. The first is known as a benchtop short path. The term short path refers to the distance between the boiling flask and the condenser. This “short path” allows high boiling point compounds to quickly evaporate and recondense without residing as a vapor for too long of a time. Heavy boiling point compounds can convert and become unwanted compounds if the path of the distillation system is too long. This is known as residence time and is a key reason why short path distillation works so well for cannabis crude oil. The term short path can also be applied to other types of distillation systems besides a benchtop short path as we will discuss further below.

Benchtop short paths utilize a boiling flask and distillation head which is connected to a condenser. Once the cannabinoids have evaporated and have been pulled through the distillation head by the vacuum pump, the condenser allows those cannabinoids to recondense into distillate. The distillate has a higher viscosity than most liquids, so the condenser must be warm enough to maintain flowability while also effectively condensing the cannabinoid vapors. Benchtop short paths are tabletop systems as their name suggests, but they are still able to run significantly large amounts of crude oil and are easily scalable by adding another system of equivalent size. Benchtop short paths utilize “batch” distillation. This means that after each run, the system must be cleaned and the boiling flask must be refilled with cannabis oil to perform another run. Benchtop short paths have a much lower barrier to entry compared to other types of distillation systems meaning they are easier to acquire at a lower start-up cost.