Cannabis - Using HPLC and GC to measure cannabinoids

Now let’s talk about some HPLC and GC applications in the cannabis industry.

This is a new industry - for us in our world - and that is exciting from an analytical chemistry perspective.

The cannabis labs popping up all over the country have a couple of challenges.

We can use GC or HPLC to go after cannabinoids. But here are a couple of important things to know:

GC methods for cannabinoids use high temperatures, and thus can destroy the acids. So if you have THC-A or CBD-A that gets destroyed in the process. ‘You gotta know that.’

HPLC is the ideal tool for cannabis analysis because we can generally separate all the cannabinoids, both the acids and their non-acid forms. So we can differentiate them and measure them separately.

Challenges in Cannabinoid Separations

There are lots of challenges in the cannabinoid separations - and if you’re in the industry, you know what I am talking about - CBG and CBD are really tough to separate. We have developed some tricks to help you with that separation.

In the last couple of years, we’ve helped dozens of cannabis industry scientists and engineers with their cannabis analytical methods. Since it’s a new industry there are new techniques and cool things out there to make your job easier.

Here’s one example: We’ve developed fast GC and fast HPLC methods for cannabinoids.

If you have questions or an interest in learning more about HPLC and GC applications check out https://axionlabs.com/.