Natural Product Research

Formerly Natural Product Letters

ISSN: 1478-6419 (Print) 1478-6427 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/gnpl20

Chemical profiles of cannabis sativa medicinal

oil using different extraction and concentration
methods

Cesar N. Pegoraro, Diego Nutter, Mario Thevenon & Cristina L. Ramirez

To cite this article: Cesar N. Pegoraro, Diego Nutter, Mario Thevenon & Cristina L. Ramirez
(2019): Chemical profiles of cannabis sativa medicinal oil using different extraction and
concentration methods, Natural Product Research

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/14786419.2019.1663515

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Published online: 12 Sep 2019.

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NATURAL PRODUCT RESEARCH
https://doi.org/10.1080/14786419.2019.1663515

SHORT COMMUNICATION

Chemical profiles of cannabis sativa medicinal oil using

different extraction and concentration methods
Cesar N. Pegoraroa , Diego Nutterb, Mario Thevenonc and
Cristina L. Ramireza
a
Departamento de Quımica, Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales, Universidad Nacional de Mar
del Plata, Conicet, Argentina; bCAMEDA (Cannabis Medicinal Argentina), Olazabal, Argentina;
c
Laboratorio de Botanica, Departamento de Biologıa, Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales,
Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata, Mar del Plata, Argentina

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

The present study shows the variability in chemical profiles of Received 29 June 2019
three different varieties of Cannabis sativa extracts used in medi- Accepted 24 August 2019
cinal cannabis oil when using two different extraction and evapor-
ation methods. Procedures were compared by analyzing rate of KEYWORDS
total terpenoids to the principal cannabinoids, tetrahydrocanna- Medicinal cannabis,
extraction methods,
binol (THC) and cannabidiol (CBD), using gas chromatography terpenoids, mass
coupled to mass spectrometry (GC-MS). The extraction of inflores- spectrometry
cences using soxhlet method showed the highest mass of final
extract. Also, the use of heating and the presence of oxygen
when evaporating the solvents, greatly modified the final profiles
due to evaporation or chemical reactions. These variations in
chemical profiles must be carefully taken into account and stand-
ardized in the elaboration of medicinal oils.

CONTACT Cristina L. Ramirez farmramirez@yahoo.com.ar

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.1080/14786419.2019.1663515.
ß 2019 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
2 C. N. PEGORARO ET AL.

1. Introduction
Cannabis sativa is a millenarian plant popularly used for presenting its euphoric and
medicinal properties. Citti et al. (2016) proposed the extraction of active principles
using ethanol, olive oil and CO2 for medicinal oil used in the treatment of several
pathologies. Often there is little, if any, standardization for galenic cannabis prepara-
tions, having different cannabinoid and terpene profiles, which are highly dependent
on the extraction procedures (Ramirez et al. 2018; De Vita et al. 2019).
Terpenoids present in the essential oil of cannabis, represent the volatile fraction of
the plant and were proved to have a synergistic action with cannabinoids (McPartland
and Russo 2005; Russo 2011). To the best of our knowledge, there are no previous
studies regarding the percentage ratio of terpenes to cannabinoids present in medi-
cinal oils prepared by different methodologies in galenic pharmacy.
Here we present a comparative study on four different methodologies of elabor-
ation of medicinal oil based on two extraction methods and two evaporation proce-
dures, both prior to a dilution stage.

2. Results and discussion

The results of the relative proportions in the composition of the extracts obtained by
different methodologies analyzed by CG-MS are shown in Table S1. For the sake of
 NATURAL PRODUCT RESEARCH 3

simplicity, we will analyze total terpenoid percentage, CBD and THC percentage rates,
normalized to CBD and estimated from the chromatogram area.
Soxhlet intensive extraction yielded six times the mass than maceration technique
since it exhausts the content of sesquiterpenes and cannobinoids in the inflorescences
more efficiently. The similarities in the rates between the extraction techniques (M-R
and S-R) are probably due to the use of ethanol as solvent for both procedures.
The lower evaporation of terpenoids occurring in rotary evaporator maintains a
higher proportion of these compounds, regarding heating methodologies. Also the
chemistry of the terpenoids present in different varieties of cannabis generate differen-
ces when exposing the extracts to high temperature because of evaporation process.
Functionalized terpenoids such as eudesmol isomers and bulnesol are less volatile.
Bulnesol, a-bisabolol (-)-guaiol and viridiflorol, having low vapor pressures (estimated
by USEPA EPI SuiteTM 5.13, 13.6, 3.63 and 12.3  10 5 mm Hg respectively; USEPA
2012) tend to remain after heating. On the other hand, terpenoids with high vapour
pressure like borneol and trans-2-pinanol (0.05 and 0.068 mm Hg, respectively) have
higher evaporation rates during the heating process. This latter, is specially noticed in
ZZ1 which has higher percentages of volatile monoterpenes. Figure S1 shows the ter-
penoid profile for the three varieties of Cannabis sativa after the S-H treatment. It has
also been reported that Speedvac and rotary evaporator carry an important loss of
components, specially monoterpenes meanwhile, when samples are dried under a
stream of nitrogen the loss of both terpenes and cannabinoids is negligible (Namdar
et al. 2018).
Methods including evaporation using heat in a molecular oxygen atmosphere during
a long period of time (several hours until consumption of alcohol) in open recipients,
not only carry volatile fraction losses, but also chemical reactions and therefore altera-
tions in essential oils chemical profiles (Mcgraw et al. 1999; Turek and Stintzing 2012).

Acknowledgments
The authors wish to thank the authorities of the Faculty of Exact and Natural Sciences of the
National University of Mar del Plata and CAMEDA.

Disclosure statement
The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest.

ORCID
Cesar N. Pegoraro http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1715-3217
Cristina L. Ramirez http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0765-8115

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