THCA is non polar liphophilic (fat loving compound) exploiting "like dissolves like" chemistry lets review a few solvents
Maceration: the process of taking live plants and pulling out the compound (here THCA)
Extraction: taking the soluble soup from maceration, and extracting the particular compound we want (THCA for example)
Solvent List:
water: polar and doesn't dissolve THCA (actually compared to THC THCA is more soluble than THC in water albeit really negligibly) so water wont work as far as dissolving thca
EtOH: ethanol definitely macerates and extracts HOWEVER, Cholorphyll A/B are amphiphilic they have both a non-polar and polar end (chlorophyll A/B have polar head and non polar tail)
and so does EtOH act amphiphilic having a polar hydroxyl head and a nonpolar ethyl tail, so EtOH dissolves both THCA and Cholorphyll A/B (what a bitch to freeze fraction the cholrophyll out too. You can leave the maceration soup in sunlight for few days bcuz UV destroys Chlorophyll A/B but thatll require patience leaving it sit around in sunlight)
Butane: we can watch youtube legal videos showing how non polar butane dissolves non poalr THCA and not so much chlorophyll (remember chlorphyll has a non-polar part so lil bit comes along)
Hexane: hard to get for back yard clandestine chemist (and fractional distillation of petro fuel no longer cuts it since they use more octane based hydrocarbons now days in car fuel - off topic.)However imho hexane is the best. It would dissolves the THCA and leave the cholorphyll behind
Acetone: see below
Intro This is a personal project of mine, one of many i hope to share over time with the community. I encourage others to play around with this and other solvents, so we can get a better idea of how we can isolate crystalline cannabinoids from raw oleoresins. Crystallization of THC-A with...
future4200.com
Check this article on pg 3 has nice lil chart re: Naptha, Petro Ether White Gas (spray weed wacker ether stuff,) Ethanol, Olive oil
keep in mind any usage of heat needs to be minimum below the decarboxlyation of THCA -> THC9
The ideal temperature for decarboxylating THCA into psychoactive THC ranges from 220°F to 250°F (104°C to 121°C) anything above 250 destroys it and pushes it into degredation CBN
But i went bantering on, to answer your ? directly, can you take live weed flower and wash it with warm water (not boiling bcuz it will start to macerate over time,) YEAH your water bath on some live plant matter isnt gonna ruin your flower buds, maybe lil sticky icky trichromes get emssed up a lil but the concentrate in the lvie plant flower still would remain in tact
rinse the dirt and insects off no probs (it rains on plants outdoors all time)
Solubility in water listed below:
Raw THCA (THCA-A)~3.5 to 5.0 mg/L (Slightly higher than THC)
Neutral Delta-9 THC~2.8 mg/L (0.0028 mg/mL)
Note: solubility and polarity are only certain aspects of this type of chemistry, we still take into consideration london dispersion forces etc to determine what dissolves what (hope i dont banter too much to point of confusion) we're dealing with drugs so i want this shit to be perfect