Hi, I have experience deacrboxilating tryptophan using MEK and carvone. Aldo carvone does not work too well I love it since it is so easy and everithing is OTC with the only need to synthesise chloroform. I know MEK is OTC in some places, but not where I live. However, I know acetophenone works very well and can be synthesise from scartch ina OTC way, so I wonder, could anyone give me a procces? I know the basics but I want a write up.

Btw, I have heard that tryptophan suplements eork terribly for this. I personally can buy pure tryptophan thanks to a friend. I think the problem are the fillers in the supplements, my best idea to eliminate that is to simply disolve the suplements in a solvent wich tryptophan is not very soluble in. Then just filter out the rest. Or if not just follow rhis procedure showed in US patent 4,820,825 or CN104926709A. I personally like best the second one.

Thanks

The filler may be microcrystalline cellulosis which is not soluble in anything. So you should better dissolve the Tryptophan instead - but I'm not sure what additive may be in there.



Why does it not work too well?

So you already tried it and it did not work?

But maybe it was because you used MEK and this has a low boiling point, so you dont get enough thermal energy to conduct / finish the reaction in the regular time window. Maybe it was not the carvone but the low reaction temperature.

Or are there any reasons why you indeed think that Carvone is bad for this?

the ones who know aren't going to post a writeup, especially in the new members area.
but here's a useful book on fillers.

I like carvone, but i think it is mot the best of catalist

Very sad. Thanks for the book. Where should I look for the answer?

post more, be patient, and follow the rules; you'll get all the answers you seek.
I started out on this forum like you, eager to learn. Now I'm sort of a mentor of all things chem/biochem-related.

acetophenone is the most effective; it needs no other additive.

for clean up, acetone is the solvent to use; impurities aren't soluble in it, but tryptamine is.

Hello,
I thought I might share a result I got in this area since I can only post there for now.
It seems pretty easy to get pure tryptophan as dietary supplement over general online stores, anyway that's how I got mine.

I've tried a few methods for decarb of tryptophan:
1. got very poor results using DMSO as solvent with any ketone I tried (acetone, cyclohexanone) --> yielded a black/red tar at best and was very stinky (sulphur scent) and impossible to get rid of DMSO.

2. got very good results (or at least promising due to lack of accurate analysis of end product) by using xylene as solvent with a dash of cyclohexanone as the ketone, reflux for 30min-1h and then A/B extraction with acetic acid/NaOH/DCM. The extracted product was yellow-orange, solidified upon cooling, and had a smell reminiscent of dmt yet more flowery (I'm assuming it is typical tryptamines scent).

I hope it'll help someone...

Thank you a lot! Very usefull. I asume rhe tar is due to oxygen contamination. I had the same result once

This is what it should look like, crashed out from acetone, pulled from acetophenone (A/B). No tar, no inert gas. Single hplc peak, and 160 m/z parent ion. 60% yield.