Hello everybody,

when SWIM started with his first MHRB extraction 9 month ago he had a hard time to find some naphta in Germany.
Since he wanted a pure solvent, he doesn´t liked lighter fuel or coleman fuel because of residues after evap. And he didn´t wanted to do a destillation with stuff that has a boiling range up to 180°C, because of the need of a oil bath.
So he did some research on the net and found a solution which might be usable and easy to get all over europe.

SWIM´s talking about a kind of petroleum ether.
In Germany it is available at pharmacies as a kind of medical benzine (not benzene!!!). It is normally used to clean the skin from the sticky residues of strips like band-aid. It has a boiling range from 40-60°C and is really high pure, so no unwished residues!
It is quite affordable for about 8 Euro per liter.

Here are some nice details about this stuff.

In a STB extraction you can shake(!!!) the solution in order to get a really high surface rate. No need to break an emulsion, because there forms nearly none. (100gr MHRB/1.5 liter water/150gr lye)
After shaking it seperates nearly to 100% after 20 minutes at room temperature.
3 intense shakes per pull -> 1 hour per pull
3 pulls with 330 ml benzine each pull

After that SWIM performed a step witch he doesn´t recomend for everybody!
Reducing the amount of solvent by destilling in a warm water bath to 200ml. Recondensing the solvent for further use.
This step is potentially dangerous (EXPLOSION! ) so please do it only with the right equipment and know how.
Otherwise you might blow yourself to the stars.

You can also reduce the amount of solvent by just letting it evaporate.
This doesn´t take long because of the low boiling temperature.
After reducing the amount SWIM putted the jar over night into the freezer at -18°C.
And DaaDaa 2.01gr. of nearly pure white cristals had appeared.
2% yield
Next time SWIM will cool it down much slower, because the xtals are very small (max 0.5-1mm)
One thing to mention: at -18°C this solvent carries nearly no goodies, so there is nearly no spice (too little to weigh at 10ml) left in solution.
But as it warms up to room temperature the xtals redisolve partly, so you have to be fast with your filtering procedure.

SWIM hopes this "discovery" might be a solution for at least a few of you.
By the way it disolves only tiny amounts of the yellow oil so the cristalls are between pure white and ivory in color.
Yummy

Good luck and be the force/spice with you

Garfield

are you sure that it's not diethyl ether,aka sulphuric ether or just ether? does it smell of petroleum or has it that strange smell you could notice sometimes at hospital?

Benzinum DAB or Benzinum medicinale, these are the correct names for the stuff, is definitely no ether!
The other name petroleumether comes from the same properties as the ether group (nonpolar etc.), but it is a crude oil product.
Look here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum_ether

The DAB in Benzinum DAB stands for "Deutsches Arzneimittel Buch" translated: german pharmaceutical book.
from wiki:
"Pharmacopoeia (American English: pharmacopeia) (literally, 'drug-making', in its modern technical sense, is a book containing directions for the identification of samples and the preparation of compound medicines, and published by the authority of a government or a medical or pharmaceutical society.
In a broader sense it is a reference work for pharmaceutical drug specifications."

The DAB means you can be sure that it is very pure. Every charge is tested and analyzed.
In this case:
Benzene is less than 10 ppm
n-hexane less than 2%
not evap. substances less than 0.001%

hope this clarifies


In Lak´ech

Garfield

Yeah, petroleum ether has basically nothing to do with ether(s), it's mostly aliphatics.

hi due to the same problem as you got in case of naptha , i have also just bought petroleum ether 40 to 60 , but as i've read on the internet naptha boils at 86 degrees , so should we not get petroleum ether 80 to 100 instead of 40 to 60 ,
i am an idiot as far chemistry is concerened so pls help , also petroleum ether 60 to 80 is used as a replacement for hexane as i read on wikipedia so should'nt 40 to 60 extract less
i'll be using this myself now and see the result , anyone out there with knowledge on petroleum ether pls reply and let me know whether 40 to 60 is perfect or i need petroleum ether with a higher boiling point pls help
thank you

Yes, I can attest that this is the good stuff. I even found one supplier selling 5l for 25€ back in the days.

Hi Jin,

naphta has a boiling range from 80°C to sometimes over 180°C (depends on the brand) it´s a wild mix from heptane to iso-bliblablup.
I would not recommend the use of hexane without a fumehood, because as far as I know, hexane is one of the most poisonous alkanes.

My tests showed no significant difference between petroleum ether 40-60, 70-90 (very special stuff, contains 50% heptane) and 80-110, but I made these tests in a rush.
I have the impression that the 40-60°C pulls even a bit more at room temperature. Perhaps because it´s already near boiling temperature, but that´s a guess.
Just to give you a number I perform 3 pulls with 250-300 ml each pull on 75gr MHRB and get ~2% yield. Perhaps even less NPS is possible but my jar is very wide so I need a bit more in order to be able to suck it out with my 20ml pipette.

The best points for me are, that I can shake the mix without fuss about emulsions and I still get nearly white xtals and it evaps really fast. It is easy to distill and to recondense.


I too found some cheaper suppliers than my local pharmacy a few weeks ago.
Is that what you found also "med-grade"?

Yep, it's medical grade (i think this washing benzine needs to be medical grade so wounds don't get infected by it ?)

I just asked, because on my search for cheaper suppliers I also found one who sells petroleum ether 40-60°C with more than 2% benzene :evil: in it.
Just wanted to clarify that we are talking about the same.

In Lak´ech

Garfield

I was curious about the whole naphtha unavailability thing in Southern California and found a board for the "Analog Photography Users Group", of all places, and there were a couple of men discussing it. Apparently the California Air Resources Board has banned certain products for LA County. Naphtha is one of them. Also, I've discovered that Naphtha, Petroleum ether, and benzine are basically the same thing. I love the internet. I just let my fingers do the walking through the web now that there's no yellow pages!:-) I think that anyone who lives in SoCal who wants naphtha, though, would probably just have to dig around the dark corners of neighborhood hardware stores if they really wanted it. I'm sure that they have old stock that they're allowed to sell until they run out. Maybe....

Hey everyone.

I know this is an old post, but if anyone notices it SWIM'd like to ask which wundbenzin did you use that does evaporate clean? Which product specifically?

SWIM uses the one from medicalcorner24 which is 40/65. He gets very nice product, still he's worryed it is not pure enough even though it is stated DAB, and MSDS says it 95-100% naptha and up to 5% n-hexan.

On evaporation test he gets a bit of residue. Not much, its really hard to even take a picture of that, but its like a ring around where it evaporated. Also a very very small amount of oily residue in jar left.. Still not sure whather it is residue from solvent or some left overs in jars.. He did quite few tests since he got this solvent, some left no residue, some do. The thing is he can't get a solvent in his country, only one that is almost the same as this wundbenzin, in his local pharmacy shop, but the cost is x10. This one he ordered online and that is the only way.. Not much options left..

The residue is like that:

https://ibb.co/cJpwWh6
https://ibb.co/b5Dk0cM

This could be due to, e.g., detergent residue on the evaporation glass. Glassware for detergent analysis is routinely washed with HCl before use.
Then it has to be the glassware.

Hi. Total noob here. I'm from Germany and looking for an alternative to Naptha to do the Salt-Tek. Is the Benzinum medicinale recommended in this thread here suitable? Is the Heptane a better option and does it work with the Salt-Tek? Any precautionary measures needed due to toxcitiy or anything I should know? Lol

Just to say, you can always buy D-limonene online ... sure it's a different approach but it's more pleasant to work with, imho. check 3D-printing shops

Hi Ringo123, welcome

Benzinum medicinale is usually great, but it's not always the same, so you should still do an evap test if you have a new bottle. I bought the one from medicalcorner24 and was happy with it so far.

Another nice one to buy in Germany is Klax Wasch- und Reinigungsbenzin from DM market. It's ca 5€/L.

n-Heptane should work great as well, but will probably be more expensive.

You can buy naphtha alternatives in any hardware store in your country I heard. It is just 6 € / 1 L bottle.

People from Germany have used this totally fine. Boiling range must be higher than 60 °C but lower than 100 °C. Not sure about the hardware store names but any of those will have it. It will be in the paint thinner section where you also find acetone and spiritus for campfires.

No need for expensive stuff from apothecary etc.