Hey friends,

Ok, so my first extraction went wrong because I used Heavy Naphtha (Turps/White Spirits). I did an X on 50g MHRB, performed multiple pulls etc. The problem is, the solvent wont evap and won't freeze precip. Well, it kinda does, but the result is this slightly clear/white oil. Not goo, 'oil'. I Re-X'd twice over, and it was still the same result.

So.. it occurred to me while tossing around not sleeping, that I could possibly mix in some Phosphoric acid with water, throw in the solvent, shake some hell into it, and my thinking is that the low ph will convert the dmt back into salt form, being soluble in the water and not the solvent. So then decant the crap solvent, re-base and re-x as normal. So- in effect, it's starting an A/B over again. Does this work?

I'm at the stage where I've acidified and chucked the solvent. But now there is sediment in the acidic solution, what is this? Should I heat the solution and shake the bejesus hoping for solubility? Should I decant from this? Is this the dmt in salt form? Keep? Discard? Help needed here!

Any contribution appreciated!

This is called 'back salting'.
Since you have it in acid stage now...just base to ph12...add nap/heptane and pull/freeze.
Not sure what the sediment is...see if its still there after the pull.

Great to know enough people have been in this situation that it's been coined! I'm going to add the NaOH now, and leave it to settle down. I'll be heading out for a few hours soon so around 6-8 hours time to pick up and let you know how I get on!

Filthy turps/white spirits.. My first extraction and I listen to the village idiot!

I have extracted since using heptane, on a new 50g batch (using your tek) Easily 1g from my first pull. Just wanting to salvage some spice as it doesn't deserve to be abandoned in filth

Ok, so something really weird happened! When I came back to the rebasified mix, there seemed to be mass in there! I looked closer, and there was LOTS of long pointy transparent needles all collected together forming a big clump of mass..


What is this?? Is this crashed out dmt? Never seen anything like it!

Anyone?

I've left some out to dry and it seems to be crystallising into transparent needles. I'm going to try to dissolve these in some warm naphtha and see what happens.

It doesn't seem to be soluble in naphtha.

Added some water.. completely soluble. Added phosphoric acid to water to acidify (though I suspect the spice is already in salt form) mixed, added sodium hydroxide to base and pulled from, pull is now in the freezer.. so we'll see!

If anybody does know what these are then please shed some light?

In your OP you said that you acidified the pulled solvent....

Are you saying that this precipitated out of the solvent??
Or did you acidify the original bark/water/lye mix...?

Also there is a difference between Turps and White Spirits (Heavy Naphtha)

Yeah that's what I pulled, into the acidified water from the solvent! I added some NaOH and tried to pull again using hexane. It pulled some, but I'm more interested in these crystals in the base mix! No clue what they are, I dried some out and they smell like dmt to me..

And I ended up using both, tried to pull from the original base mix twice, once using the turps, the second time with white spirit, and as I couldn't get a yield from it, I mixed them both together and put them in another glass baking tray to leave for a longer period, still nothing, so that's why I wanted to resalt the dmt from it.

Baffled me this one has..

If after adding the base, it dissolves in water, its not dmt, because freebase dmt is not soluble in water. It might (mono/di or tri) sodium phosphate , for example, formed from the reaction between sodium hydroxide and phosphoric acid. One of the different forms of sodium phosphate might have a lower solubility in the solution you were playing with and hence precipitated. Maybe it smells of DMT because there is a bit of DMT coating it from when you crudely separated spooning it out.

Just to make sure its not DMT or that there isnt a significant amount of DMT coating it, use some acidified water to dissolve it, rebasify, and repull with good solvent. If there's any DMT, you're gonna recover.

Hope that helps

Thank you Endlessness

That seems to make some sense. I will do as you suggest when I free up some equipment that's currently in use and let you know! Interesting, but baffling. Maybe I need to sit down and work it all out better, and hopefully get a better grasp on what happened!