The invention extends the utility of apparatus used to extract medicinal cannabis compounds into an eluate by separating a portion of medicinal cannabis compounds contained within a portion of eluate at a first extraction target level providing enough clean solvent to continue extraction operations. A high efficiency concentrator such as a rotary evaporator or a wiped film evaporator processes eluate from one or more tanks or extraction vessels creating clean solvent when extraction targets are met or when clean solvent is exhausted. This manages eluate concentration levels and limits the quantity of concentrated medicinal cannabis compounds on site at any moment in time. The invention enables a business model for keeping medicinal cannabis compounds within a legal system, and reduces pollution because law enforcement would no longer have to burn large quantities of cannabis plant matter.

A method for purification and extraction of cannabinoids includes: providing a cannabis oil including phospholipids and cannabinoid acids; contacting the cannabis oil with a degumming solvent, wherein the degumming solvent and cannabis oil are substantially immiscible; and separating an aqueous phase including the degumming solvent and at least a portion of the phospholipids from an oil phase including the cannabis oil. The method may further include contacting the oil phase with an extraction solvent, where the extraction solvent and oil phase are substantially immiscible; and separating an aqueous phase including the extraction solvent and at least a portion of the cannabinoid acids from a second oil solvent phase including the oil phase and/or simply the liberated cannabinoids following acidification of the extraction solvent.

A cavitation mixing apparatus is provided for performing separations from solid material using subcritical liquid CO.sub.2. A cavitation inducing device inside a cavitation mixing vessel is held in place with a cavitation mixer mount comprising at least one fluid channel for equalizing gaseous pressure of CO.sub.2 around the cavitation inducing device. Also described is method of separating oils from a crude plant oil mixture by injecting crude plant oil into a pressurized mixing vessel comprising liquid carbon dioxide and mixing the crude oil with the liquid carbon dioxide under pressure using powered induced cavitation, the cavitation mixing vessel comprising an encapsulated cavitation inducing device.

The invention relates to methods of producing extracts from cannabis plant material, where the extracts comprise cannabinoids and terpenes. The methods comprise extracting fresh or dried plant material with a cold organic solvent. The methods allow for the extraction of cannabinoids and terpenes, while leaving behind impurities such as waxes and chlorophyll that are commonly found in extractions with room temperature (RT) or warm solvent extraction methods. The methods can produce extracts having more than 90% cannabinoids.

A method of and apparatus for recovering an alcohol solvent from a liquid mixture of the solvent and plant oil and decarboxylating the plant oil may include, pressurizing the liquid mixture to a super-atmospheric pressure, recirculating the pressurized liquid mixture a plurality of times through at least one membrane separator to separate some of the solvent from the mixture to provide a concentrated mixture of the plant oil with less solvent, reducing the pressure of the liquid concentrated mixture to less than 15 psig, heating it at a pressure of less than 15 psig to a temperature sufficient to vaporize the solvent in the concentrated mixture, removing sufficient heat from the vaporized solvent to condense it to a liquid solvent at atmospheric pressure and temperature conditions, and heating the plant oil to a temperature desirably of at least 215° F. to decarboxylate the plant oil.

This disclosure describes systems, methods, and devices for phytochemical extraction. One example extraction system includes two solvent columns, a material column, and a dewaxing column. The solvent columns store and provide solvent for stripping target chemicals from plant material in the material column. The solvent mixed with target chemicals passes into the dewaxing column, where the target chemicals are separated from waxes and lipids. Cooling is applied to elements of the system by way of an open-loop CO2 refrigeration method. Solvent is moved from the solvent columns to the material column by creating a pressure differential between the two solvent columns.

Methods of decontaminating bone tissue and an apparatus or system for the same are provided. The methods can be multi-batch processes and include contacting the bone tissue having contaminants with carbon dioxide to decontaminate the bone tissue and to form carbon dioxide having contaminants. The contaminated carbon dioxide is collected and the contaminants are removed to obtain purified carbon dioxide which can be recycled to treat contaminated bone tissue. The contaminated carbon dioxide can be purified by bubbling it through water and/or an organic solvent followed by acid treatment, filtering and liquefying the carbon dioxide. Contaminants that can be removed from contaminated bone tissue, and in turn, from contaminated carbon dioxide include infectious organisms, bacteria, viruses, protozoa, parasites, fungi and mold or a mixture thereof

A closed loop extraction process contains a filter assembly 20 for vacuum filtration of an extraction solvent 50 after it has extracted desired constituents from a plant material. High purity products formed from the process are also provided. A closed loop extraction system 10 contains a filter assembly 20 for filtering an extraction solvent 50 and extract prior to collection of desired products within a collection vessel 34. A filter assembly 20, used in the aforementioned process and system 10, provides a novel enhancement in the current strategies to extract active ingredients from plant materials 52.

The patent discloses a method for efficiently collecting and purifying Orobanche cumana (O. cumana) germination stimulants using aeroponic system and solid-phase extraction (SPE), including the following steps: (1) sunflower seeds germination, then planting sunflower seedlings in aeroponic device, and cultivating the sunflower seedlings in the aeroponic system; at the aeroponic stage, phosphorus-containing aeroponic nutrient solution is first used to cultivate the sunflower seedlings for 20 to 25 days, and phosphorus-free aeroponic nutrient solution is then used instead to subject the sunflower seedlings to starvation cultivation for 5 to 7 days; and (2) passing all nutrient solutions in the aeroponic device through an SPE cartridge for SPE to extract O. cumana germination stimulants. The obtained O. cumana germination stimulants are diversified, and have high concentration and purity.

This disclosure provides methods and systems for the supercritical fluid extraction of cannabinoids from cannabis. The supercritical fluid extraction of cannabinoids is performed with carbon dioxide (CO.sub.2) balanced with one or more hydrocarbons, such as propane, propene, and propadiene. As demonstrated, the extraction can be carried out at maximum efficiency and energy savings while keeping the wax formation at minimum by lowering temperature. The methods and systems disclosed herein reduce the production time and safety/environmental hazards and are suitable for proper and safe extraction in non-GMP and GMP environments.