There is lots of work going on to create cannabis that is water compatible. You must be aware that when marijuana extraction is done, it also extracts CBD or THC in the form of oil, which is not soluble in water.
Therefore, they need special kind of formulation so that they become compatible with water easily. There are there different classes of formulations available for that and they are as follows:
- Microemulsions
Macroemulsions are one of the most common emulsions having droplets that is averaging diameter of more than one micron and their droplet size distributions is generally very wide.
Hence, they are bit unstable and separate into the oil layer floating at the top while water layer remains at bottom or often with mixed layer also in between. Due to their instability, macroemulsions are not suitable at all as a water-compatible cannabinoid.
Microemulsions are usually translucent and any thermodynamically stable mixture having water, oil and surfactants will have average droplet diameters less than 100 nm.
Due to many undesirable side-effects that is caused because of concentrated surfactants, microemulsion-based, water-compatible formulations of cannabis oil are quite disadvantageous.
Besides that, it is quite difficult to achieve desired cannabinoid concentration just within the beverage without exceeding the maximum levels of permitted surfactant.
- Liposomes
Liposomes are usually spherical structures having diameters ranging from 50 – 5000 nm which is formed by either one or more bilayers of concentric phospholipid having an aqueous phase within inside and also in-between the bilayers.
CBD liposomal drops can entrap water-soluble active ingredients within the internal water compartment along with water-insoluble active ingredients in the bilayer membrane.
Latter property will make it possible of using liposomes to formulate extracts that is water-compatible cannabis. However, this will involve complex preparation procedures, as with microemulsions, too high surfactant concentrations.
Besides, it will be difficult to produce any liposomal formulations by using any natural cannabis extracts, which will need the use of either isolated or synthetic cannabinoids instead.
- Nano-emulsions
Nano-emulsions can be emulsions with very narrow size distributions of droplets centered below about 250 Nano-meter.
Nano-emulsion-based formulations where all droplets will be lesser than 100 nm that are optically translucent, can achieve clarity which is of progressively higher degree as droplet sizes will be diminished.
Such formulations have got several attractive properties e.g. long-term kinetic stability, low viscosity and higher interfacial surface area.
Nano-emulsions are made by using significantly lower surfactant amounts as compared to microemulsions or liposomes. As they are better water-compatible and hence can easily be mixed into water and also in any beverage.
The reason why cannabis oil of Nano-emulsions needs low surfactant concentrations as compared to the alternatives is because the driving force needed for their formation will mainly be mechanical and not chemical.
Nano-emulsions are produced by the utilization of ultrasonic cavitation-derived higher shear forces, which can break oil droplets to nanometer sizes.
There are few sources from where you can obtain industrial-scale or laboratory grade ultrasonic liquid processors that is specially designed for production of high-quality of Nano-emulsions.