Hybrid CO2 Extraction Makes NuLeaf Naturals CBD Oil Unique

One of the things that makes buying CBD a challenge for today’s consumers is trying to differentiate between the different products that are available. The CBD industry isn’t new; there are thousands of CBD products from hundreds of makers all competing for your attention simultaneously. With such an enormous volume of products available, it becomes difficult for consumers to identify the features that make the products different from one another and choose what’s appropriate for them. 

In this article, we’re going to explain one of the major features that makes NuLeaf Naturals CBD different from the other CBD brands on the market. 

Before you can have a CBD product, you need to extract the CBD from the hemp plant. There are several different ways of extracting CBD from hemp, and our method is unique. You won’t find another CBD brand that handles the extraction process in quite the same way – and we believe that our method produces a purer, more natural and more potent product. 

Reading this article, you’re going to learn how we transform raw hemp flowers into finished CBD products at NuLeaf Naturals. You’re also going to learn what makes our extraction method superior to the methods employed by other CBD brands. First, though, let’s spend a bit of time discussing why plant extracts are used in the creation of herbal supplements.

Why Are Herbal Supplements Usually Made from Extracts?

In many ways, CBD isn’t so different from the other plant supplements that you might buy from a local vitamin supplier or health food store. When you consume a liquid- or oil-based supplement, you aren’t consuming the plant itself. You’re consuming the beneficial compounds of that plant, which were extracted from the plant through the use of a solvent. In some cases, the solvent is a chemical – and in other cases, it’s a gas. We’ll explain the two most common methods for extracting CBD in a moment. First, though, why are most herbal supplements made from extracts?

Herbal Extraction Creates a More Consistent Product

There are several reasons why plant-based supplements are usually made from extracts rather than the plants themselves. The most important reason, though, is product consistency. Using plant extracts helps to smooth over the natural variations between individual plants, producing a product that’s the same from one batch to the next. 

Herbal Extraction Creates a More Potent Product

Extracting the beneficial compounds from a plant also results in a purer and more potent product. Plants are full of materials – cellulose, for instance – that add no value to a supplement and are filtered out in the extraction process. Extracting a plant separates the active compounds from the inactive compounds.

Herbal Extraction Creates a Better-Tasting Product

In the case of many plants – and hemp definitely falls into this category – there’s also a third reason why you might want to use a supplement based on an extract rather than the whole plant. It’s because many plants don’t taste particularly good. Hemp flowers, for instance, are quite bitter. Most people don’t enjoy consuming them. A plant extract can be filtered and refined to remove bitter compounds such as chlorophyll and waxes, creating a more palatable product.

Why Is the Extraction Method So Important?

Now that you’ve learned why most plant supplements are made from extracts, let’s talk a bit more about why extraction methods are important. When you buy CBD or any other supplement, you want to know everything that you can possibly know about how that supplement gets from the original plant to the finished product. The reason for that is because the extraction method influences what’s in the final product. Some plant extraction methods involve the use of harsh chemical solvents such as ethanol, hexane and butane. 

When a chemical solvent is used in the plant extraction process, the solvent is then removed from the final product – usually by evaporation. That’s important because some solvents are highly toxic. You wouldn’t want to ingest any amount of hexane or butane.

What Are the Most Common CBD Extraction Methods?

These are the two most common ways of creating hemp extracts for CBD products.

• Ethanol: Ethanol is pure alcohol that’s typically made from corn or other grains. Ethanol is a food-safe ingredient. You certainly wouldn’t want to consume pure alcohol in excessive amounts, though, so it’s removed from the hemp extract by evaporation. Even after evaporation, though, it’s still possible for an ethanol-based CBD extract to have a trace amount of ethanol remaining in the final product. Some customers have told us that they’ve experienced allergy-type reactions when using ethanol-extracted CBD, so you may want to avoid this type of CBD if you’re prone to allergies and sensitivities. NuLeaf Naturals does not use an ethanol extraction process.
• Carbon Dioxide: CO2 extraction is the gold standard for CBD, and it’s the extraction method that we use at NuLeaf Naturals. In the CO2 extraction process, the hemp flowers are ground and packed into a chamber that’s sealed and flooded with pressurized CO2. The CO2 breaks the hemp’s cell walls, causing the flowers to release their essential oils for collection. Compared to ethanol extraction, CO2 is significantly more expensive because the equipment required to perform the extraction is very costly. However, carbon dioxide is widely considered the best way of extracting CBD because it leaves no trace solvents in the final product. 

What Makes Our CO2 Extraction Process Unique?

Reading this article, you’ve learned why almost all herbal supplements are based on extracts rather than whole plants. You’ve also learned what the most common CBD extraction methods are. Finally, you’ve learned that CO2-extracted CBD is always the right choice if you want a product that’s completely free of trace solvents. We use a CO2 extraction process for our CBD here at NuLeaf Naturals, but we’re not the only CBD company that uses CO2 extraction. What, then, makes our extraction process unique?

Although CO2 extraction is unquestionably the best way to extract CBD from hemp, there are two ways of performing this type of extraction: supercritical and subcritical. Both extraction methods have benefits.

• In the supercritical extraction process, the CO2 is heated and pressurized until it becomes a supercritical fluid having the properties of both a liquid and a gas. Supercritical CO2 is a very effective solvent that dissolves hemp’s cell walls to obtain a high extraction yield. The drawback of supercritical extraction, however, is that the high temperatures and pressures may destroy some of the more delicate cannabinoids and terpenes found in hemp. Most CBD brands employ the supercritical extraction process because of the higher yields obtained and the relatively lower costs compared to subcritical extraction.
• In the subcritical extraction process, the CO2 used to extract the hemp is maintained at a lower pressure and temperature and thus doesn’t behave as a supercritical fluid. Subcritical extraction takes longer than supercritical extraction and produces lower yields, but the process is also gentler. That allows a greater range of cannabinoids and terpenes to make it through to the final product instead of being destroyed in the extraction process. That’s important for those who find the entourage effect valuable and want to consume CBD products that are as close to the original plant in their contents as possible. 

The feature that makes NuLeaf Naturals Full-Spectrum CBD Oil so special is that we combine both supercritical and subcritical extraction to give you the benefits of both processes. We begin with subcritical extraction to preserve the most delicate cannabinoids and terpenes and ensure that those compounds are active and present in the final product. After that, we follow up with supercritical extraction to maximize the CBD yield and ensure that each bottle of CBD oil is as potent as it can be.

Hybrid CO2 Extraction Makes NuLeaf Naturals CBD Oil the Best on the Market

Combining the supercritical and subcritical extraction methods means that we process each batch of hemp twice when performing the extractions for our CBD products. That greatly increases the cost and the time required to extract each batch. We believe that the extra effort is worthwhile, though, because it results in a product that’s extremely potent while also having the widest variety of naturally occurring cannabinoids and terpenes of any CBD oil on the market. Our hybrid CO2 extraction process makes our CBD products completely unique, and we think the difference will be evident to you from the very first time you try our CBD oil.

Do you have questions about our products, or are you not sure which one is right for you?

Our Expert Team is here to help via phone, email, or online chat:
Telephone: +1 (720) 372-4842
Email: [email protected]
Online chat: nuleafnaturals.com

Don’t hesitate to get in touch with us between 9am and 5pm MT, Monday-Friday.