I must apologize if this has been hashed out already, but I keep getting some kind of error message during my searches.

Has anybody make any ground on using professional ultrasonic jewelery cleaners for initial plant material extraction? I read something a while back that said ultrasonics could both help solvate DMT or could possibly cause the molecule damage if overexposed, but I never saw anything conclusive on it either way. Has anybody done any trials to see if this is a viable option? It be a shame to pass up something with such great potential.

Thanks

Bump.

Would it be possible to move this question to a more general forum? Seems like there's a lot of potential here.

Hi overunder,

If you provide some more information people may get into it. SWIM has no idea what a ultrasonic jewellery cleaner is and how this can be used for plant extractions.

Maybe if you could outline the proposed procedure?

this may have arisen from a post I made

though I don't think an ultrasonic cleaner has the power nor the correct frequency to achieve successful extractions.
every source I've looked into regarding ultrasound-assisted extraction uses a cell disruptor (probe) with a controller.
These devices are specialized and typically cost over $2,000.

but i guess it wouldn't hurt to try on some ground bark. just add bark to water in a crest or branson (commercial jewelry cleaners are probably too weak) and crank it up to high; let it run for a couple hours, then do A/B or STB on the liquid. save everything, of course

Hmmmm... The title caught my eye.

I think what the original poster means is use of high energy ultrasound in order to break cells and release their contents in the solution, resulting to a more efficient extraction (as one would for example repeteadly freeze and thaw a fresh cactus sample to break its cellular intergrity). Such methods using ultrasonic vibrations are used in the lab to break cells such as bacteria ,for homogenising a mixture.

It seems that indeed there are ultrasonic jewelry cleaners, so they could be used for such a work if indeed they can rupture the cells. Also, by looking over at wikipedia if im reading correct their prices start at 20 US dollars.

Aye, but the sound these sonifiers produce during the process are just awful! Let along their price range (as benzyme said) for an equipment that does said job.

Wish I knew more about these things. Alas, I'm only an information re-hasher here and don't have much new to add. You're right Benzyme, I think the original post I was reading on this idea was from you, and I believe it mentioned commercial grade jewelery cleaners, Crest brand possibly? At the time the vibe was positive on these things' potential. Only new idea I could introduce was already mentioned above, repeated freezing and thawing of mhrb material before the initial solvent extraction. As the ultrasonic idea is somewhat cost prohibitive maybe someone whos already got one can do a little research for us. If it turns out the less expensive commercial units really worked it'd almost be a revelation in the mhrb/dmt world. No doubt much credit awaits the dreamer who can confirm this method.

If anybody on this forum can get some specs of these specialized lab ultrasonic extractors SWIM (being an electronics hobbyist in her previous life) may try and assemble one. Two parameters are most important - power and frequency.

20 min later.

SWIM already got the data.

100 to 500 W
20 to 30 kHz.

Could have been worse.
Well, let her see...

This page has some sonifiers including the specs of their models.

http://spectraservices.com/BRANPROD.html

Whatever you do it's a good idea to know very well what you're doing. Use of such equipments entails some risk. For instance, make sure you have an ice bucket ready since the solution can get very warm during the sonification. And never sonify for more than 15-30 sec. Sonify-rest on ice-sonify again. Some frequencies will create emulsions, some will break it. The sound is awful, so make sure yo wear ear protection for you or others next to you. Prolonged exposure to the sound will cause some damage to the hearing etc etc etc.

But of course you'll research all these and much more in depth before going on to build and use one.

Doesn't using freezing or acids or bases do the exact same thing in breaking down the cell walls?

In essence why even bother?

I used to work in a tobacco processing plant many years ago (I know i know) and they had a large chamber that would break the cell walls of materials bigtime. What it would do is pull a heavy vacuum. This would break open the cell walls. Then while at vacuum steam was applied for a few minutes. This would soften the plant material immensly. Previously dried and brittle material would now be soft and pliable. I imagine the same technique used on bark etc would expose way more alkaloids for extraction. Who knows.

Getting the PH to 13 or 14 seems to break down the cell walls just fine. And it's silent. Do BLAB, get 2% or so yield of full spectrum goodness. Nuff said.

Pokey

Yes, but ultrasound should be faster and it requires less chemicals.



Just out of curiosity.

If not that we would be sitting in the trees hurling shit at each other .

SWIM's already found and interesting inexpensive transducer with power rating 250 W and freq 1700 (!) kHz. It is much higher than the usual 20-40 kHz so there will be no high pitch annoying whine.

did SWIY try it out yet?
I hope SWIY is using robust materials; probes are typically fabricated from titanium alloy to withstand the intense localized heating and pressure.

SWIM got a 220 W/20 kHz model W-225R, and will test it soon.
the key is to use a stirplate to mix the solution while sonicating it.

No input here on the jewlery thing.

I get the same error with he search function so I use googles advanced search and plug in "https://www.dmt-nexus.me/forum" <- for the domain search.