I wanted to ask a question about 69rons tek for Mesc HCL Cleanup. The cleanup Tek says wash mesc HCL in 20ml Acetone twice and then 20ml IPA once. However it doesnt say how much Mesc HCL to start with ...

So my question is...

How much Mesc HCL do I add the 20 ML Acetone to??

I dont want to screw up like I did with the Mesc Acetate and MEK Wash and add way too much acetone to the Mesc HCL and risk losing to much...

I will be making sure both Acetone and IPA are as anhydrous(water free) as possible by using epsom salts to dry them out!!!

Thanks!!!

Futura,

From reading your posts, you sound more or less like my friend when he was working on his first extraction. Don't rush it, and expect to make mistakes - it's inevitable when you're starting out. Keep a logbook of your procedure so you keep track of what works & what doesn't.

Most of your questions have been asked before. Put in a few hours of research and you can probably find answers to them somewhere on the web, if not in this very forum.

As for your question about acetone, I think the rule of thumb is about 20 mL acetone per 1 g crude mescaline HCl. I would recommend making pure HCl - it's easy and requires little more than patience.

Also, I'd try to acquire ACS grade acetone if I were you (though this is not so easy). You will never know what kind of impurities are in hardware store acetone. If you do go with hardware store acetone, at least evaporate a test sample to see if it leaves a residue behind.

Alternatively, you could use pharmacy-bought isopropyl alcohol for your wash. You should be able to by IPA that is >70% IPA, < 30% water. You can remove the water with home-made anhydrous magnesium sulfate. Washing with 99% IPA can remove a whole lot of junk from your mescaline, but my friend says it may reduce your yield by around 75% (so don't throw away those washes!).

Good luck & be safe

I plan on getting Pure Acetone from Beauty Supply store and not from Hardware Store and using 90 Grams Epsom Salts(after putting Ep Salts in oven for 2 hours at 400 Deg.) per 12 Fl. Oz to dry it out...Is that correct??

I cant get 99% IPA..But I can get 70% IPA and dry it out but wouldnt removing all the water make it 99% anyway?? Same with 91%IPA wouldnt removing water make it 99% as well??(I am going to do the epsom salts thing with the IPA as well)...Im confused on this point...I was going to get 91% IPA from Pharmacy and dry it out...would 70% IPA be better??

Would Phlux's clean up TEK work better?? "Put Crude Mesc HCL in Vial,barely cover with distilled water till all is dissolved,add about 20 times the amount of Ice Cold Anhydrous Acetone as you did Water...Stir vigorously...Non-Mesc Alkaloids will precipitate out because polartiy of solution is changed when adding large amount of Acetone...then filter out precips and evaporate Water/Acetone to get cleaned up Mesc HCL"

Would this stop a lot of the loss that occurs with Acetone/IPA washes??

I understand even using phlux's tek that an IPA wash should still be done anyway...is that correct??

I know thats a lot of questions...but you seem vey knowledgeable and I hope you can help...as well as anyone else wanting to help it would be greatly appreciated!!!

Thanks

futura

check your ph as you go, acid conc dont matter then-- add small amounts of acid to water/np. mix, check ph, keep going until the water layer is ph6-7
technically a ph around 5, but ime going lower than 6 doesn't pull more alkaloid, just junk, requiring multiple cleanings, or recrystalization.(assuming you just evap the hcl/water mix)
best to just force precip, and skip all the cleaning steps imo

How do I force precip Mesc HCL??

dry crude m.hcl
add to mek. slowly/safely bring mek to boil, or until all hcl dissolves. dont pre dry mek like in most "teks"
if it all wont dissolve, add a tiny squirt of water until it does.
boil the mek down 20-50% in volume--experiment to get the right ratios with small amounts
if the mek gets cloudy again, its time to stop, and let it cool in the freezer. filter the needles when the grow

I wouldn't trust beauty store acetone 100%, I've heard that it can actually be worse than hardware store stuff. At least dissolve some in a test dish to make sure it leaves nothing behind.

I've heard different cooking times for making AMS from ep salts. I think my friend did 4 hours at 400 or something like that... Anyways, you can verify whether or not the conversion was successful by weighing the powder before and after. Since the anhydrous molar mass is 120.366 g/molm and the heptahydrate molar mass is 246.47 g/mol, if the weight goes down by about half you're good to go.



Yes 91% IPA would be better to start with. It'd leave you with less water to remove from the solution.




Well, you've go to realize that a lot of this stuff is really amateur science. Lots of people are experimenting with new strategies, and only a small number of them have access to the analytical equipment to actually verify results. Phlux is probably one of the most experienced community members, but I'm not convinced that the cleanup tek you're referring to actually has a basis in chemistry. I just don't understand the principles behind why it should work. The fact that Phlux did not include any acetone:water ratios in his description of the tek does not make matters any easier (all he said was "a few drops of water and then lots of acetone" IIRC).

If I were you, I'd stick to the tried & true method of rinsing with a solvent, and then decanting the solvent off. It's easy and hard to screw up. Of course, if you can boil MEK as dg describes, that could be even better. However that is much easier said than done, and doing something like boil flammable/toxic solvents raises the danger exponentially.

a bit more advanced, but requires nothing but safe practices
vent hood or outdoors
sparkless hotplate--an electric wok filled with sand works nicely- glass vision ware(glass skillet) works fine, baking dishes dont

for the increased purity its worth it in my book, though i ate plenty of impure sanchez(dirty evapped hcl salts)in the old days, and was more than happy

(posted in the other thread too)



2 mins @ 80 watts will turn the dirtiest crystals into white ones.
no need for heating, or using any extra solvents

OK what on earth is this??? Please explain in detail!!!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonication

at moderate to high power, it dislodges impurities from the crystal lattice. this results in small, but pure, crystals
at low power, it seeds/grows crystals.