Why do trichomes sink?

Daub Marley

Daub Marley

Active Member
Why do trichomes sink?

I mean oil floats on the surface of water and the trichome heads are made of non-polar chemicals just like the oil. The repelling forces in the oil ensures a great enough distance between the molecules that it becomes less dense than water and floats. So what’s going on here? Is the disc cell weighing it down, or is the inside of the trichome under pressure?
 
Daub Marley

Daub Marley

Active Member
BHO sprayed onto water floats, so why is an absolute more dense? Just removal of the butane? If that's the case then purged BHO should sink right?
 
M

MiG pilot

Well-Known Member
The ball of a resin sinks instantly, but if you make out of it a thin plate, increasing the surface area, it will float.
Surface tension forces retain a floating raft, because the resin is not wettable.
If such a "raft" forcibly immersed in water, piercing the surface of water, then it will sink.
 
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Fadedawg

Fadedawg

Well-Known Member
It has a specific gravity greater than one, so compacted it sinks.

As MP notes, is is non polar, so repels water and in a thin film easily floats on surface tension.
 
Daub Marley

Daub Marley

Active Member
MiG pilot said:
The ball of a resin sinks instantly, but if you make out of it a thin plate, increasing the surface area, it will float.
Surface tension forces retain a floating raft, because the resin is not wettable.
If such a "raft" forcibly immersed in water, piercing the surface of water, then it will sink.
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That makes perfect sense for AA or a pressed resin, but what about trichomes themselves?They have a secretory cavity, so is that filled with a liquid? What's in there?
What about the volatile chemicals how much escapes through the cuticle when they are a gas?
 
G

god1

Well-Known Member
Daub Marley said:
That makes perfect sense for AA or a pressed resin, but what about trichomes themselves?They have a secretory cavity, so is that filled with a liquid? What's in there?
What about the volatile chemicals how much escapes through the cuticle when they are a gas?
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floating and mixing are two different topics.

heavy stuff can be made to float. it's simply about equalizing the forces. think boats. the density of a feather is less than steel, so it displaces less water.

just because something is non polar doesn't mean it will float on a polar substance, it just won't mix.
 
Fadedawg

Fadedawg

Well-Known Member
god1 said:
floating and mixing are two different topics.

heavy stuff can be made to float. it's simply about equalizing the forces. think boats. the density of a feather is less than steel, so it displaces less water.

just because something is non polar doesn't mean it will float on a polar substance, it just won't mix.
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Polarity makes a difference between hydrophobic or hydrophylic response.
 
Daub Marley

Daub Marley

Active Member
god1 said:
just because something is non polar doesn't mean it will float on a polar substance, it just won't mix.
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That's what I was thinking. Then I started thinking why it would be less dense because each molecule of THC, waxes (or other non-polar constituents) are generally heavier than each water molecule, so they must be more spread out to be less dense. With shatters and AA I think there is H-bonding going on that would explain its higher density, but trichomes?
 
G

god1

Well-Known Member
Daub Marley said:
That's what I was thinking. Then I started thinking why it would be less dense because each molecule of THC, waxes (or other non-polar constituents) are generally heavier than each water molecule, so they must be more spread out to be less dense. With shatters and AA I think there is H-bonding going on that would explain its higher density, but trichomes?
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Well, fact is not all strains are the same, in terms of content of the heads; So the densities will be slightly different. It's kind of hard to generalize about the shatter unless we assume most of the head is made up of un-activated thc and waxes. But in reality I'm not positive that's true.

I don't know if you use chilled butane as a solvent, but if you have, have you ever had a good look at the plant material after a wash under a high power scope? Nothing but the heads are removed. The stalks, and the other two types of glands, (the names escape me at the moment), are basically untouched.

Which implies to me that second washed and winterized shatter material would be the essentially the content of the heads. I don't believe the material in the heads are significantly altered, (in a reactive sense), during the extraction process. But I could be wrong, and of course potency tests don't give us the whole content of the head.

But yeah, they clearly have a higher density than water when they sink.
 
Daub Marley

Daub Marley

Active Member
god1 said:
second washed and winterized shatter material would be the essentially the content of the heads.
Click to expand...
I believe it is only the small amount contained in the vesicles.

Doer said:
Do Tricomes sink? Or is it according to temperature?
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That's what I'm wondering.
I'm skeptical but it would make sense that there would be some volatile gases trapped in the heads because they probably would not have the energy to escape through the cuticle as a liquid, so ice cold water would condense these gases and hot water expand them. Maybe hot water would make them float?
 
G

god1

Well-Known Member
Daub Marley said:
That's what I'm wondering.
I'm skeptical but it would make sense that there would be some volatile gases trapped in the heads because they probably would not have the energy to escape through the cuticle as a liquid, so ice cold water would condense these gases and hot water expand them. Maybe hot water would make them float?
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I'm assuming since you started this thread that you did the actual experiment that indicated that the heads would sink, is this correct?

(And I'm also assuming you're not claiming that the density of hot vs cold water is different, correct?) edit, I got to thinking about this wording and need to clarify, you not talking about changing the density of the water, ie, extreme temps, but rather talking about the change in density of the head? If I understand you correctly?

If that's the case, then you're talking about some kind of reaction in the head as a function thermal change that would effect the density of the head from say room temp to some elevated temp ... sure I could buy that, the question is how high do you have to go and will the sheathing stay intact?

Here's an interesting experiment: When I first saw MIG's pic's I wondered if the THC had been activated? If the majority of it has not been, MIG could go do that and see if he gets a change in density. He should, if the assumption is correct that the majority of the stuff inside is THC-A.

In theory just going from active to normal is about a 13% change in molar weight.

If we can get it to float that'd be cool.

But then again it's MIG's stuff.
 
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