With cannabis cultivation using up plenty of resources, reducing waste and maximising outcomes is vital.
The cannabis industry has a major issue with cannabis waste. In 2020, 20 per cent of all dried cannabis was destroyed by Canadian licensed producers, and over 500 tonnes of cannabis have been destroyed since 2018.
Nextleaf Solutions has announced that the United States Patent and Trademark Office has granted the Company its 18th issued US patent. The patent describes a system in which spent cannabis biomass is heated in stages to reclaim residual cannabinoids while simultaneously generating carbon with a desired porosity level.
Read more: PharmaSeeds discusses improving cannabis yield
When utilised, this patented process allows the company to maximise its cannabinoid molecule yield, reduce waste destined for landfills, and create a new business vertical at minimal cost. The Global Activated Carbon Market is expected to garner 2.7 million tonnes and have a total addressable market over $5.1bn in 2022.
Nextleaf CEO, Paul Pedersen, stated: “Given the US House of Representatives passing the MORE Act – a bill that would end the federal prohibition on cannabis – and the need for the US Government to address the opioid epidemic, we believe cannabis legalisation will become a reality in the United States in the near term.
Read more: Do we still need master growers now that there’s more research on cannabis?
“With a US patent stack protecting what we believe to be the most efficient methods of producing distilled THC and CBD in a regulated market, Nextleaf is well positioned to benefit from US legalisation.”
Nextleaf says that it owns one of the largest collections of US patents among all cannabis companies, as well as a Greater Vancouver-based extraction plant producing low-cost cannabinoid ingredients under its Health Canada licenses.
Its intellectual property includes 18 US patents and over 95 issued patents globally on cannabinoid processing including extraction, distillation, and acetylation. With this latest issued patent, Nextleaf has a success rate above 95 per cent for pending application to issued patents. The average success rate of pending to issued patents in the pharmaceutical industry is 42.8 per cent.
[activecampaign form=31]
