Moisture Analysis for Cannabis Flower – Understanding Water Content - Jini Glaros, M.S.

Tags: Moisture Content, Titration, Desiccation, Terpene Loss, Cannabis Flower, Karl Fischer, Vacuum Oven, Loss on Drying

Jini Glaros, M.S., presents "Moisture Analysis for Cannabis Flower – Understanding Water Content" at CannMed 24.

The cannabis industry has come to recognize a moisture content of 10% -14% as the ideal range for cannabis flower. However, this range may be inaccurate due to deficiencies associated with the method that has become the industry standard for calculating these values. Cannabis material contains a high concentration of volatile and semi-volatile compounds which may cause moisture results to be skewed abnormally high when a traditional loss on drying (LoD) technique is used. As such, our laboratory conducted a study where several different moisture determination techniques were utilized, to compare moisture values. In this study, the laboratory analyzed over 100 unique cannabis flower samples through the traditional LoD, Karl Fisher, vacuum oven, vacuum desiccation, and low temperature LoD techniques. Additionally, a subset of the samples was processed for cannabinoid and terpene content before and after moisture determinations to better understand the decarboxylation of cannabinoids and loss of terpenes that occurs with the various methods. This allowed the laboratory to propose a standard method for determining moisture content in cannabis flower that limits the product degradation and ensures a true moisture value, that represents only the water content, is being determined.

Learn More about CannMed: https://cannmedevents.com/