Is freebase DMT soluble in butane? If so could a dry tek be used to say basify the dmt with sodium carbonate, and then place the dried material in a blasting tube for marijuana and, instead of using dry alcohol or acetone, use butane as the solvent?
I personally make BHO on a regular basis and because of how volatile the solvent is I thought drying this extract out would be super easy. I am afraid to use acetone as a solvent because the only way i can successfully eradicate it is by drying in the oven, wouldn't that make the dmt vaporize too, or does DMT and acetone separate much more easily than THC and acetone does?
What are your thoughts... worth a shot, why or why not?

Everything I've read says that freebase DMT has a low solubility in butane, but that's all been forum chatter, I've never seen any actual data on it.

I can't actually think of a reason why it *wouldn't* be soluble (as it is just another NP solvent), but that's what I've seen.

Blessings
~ND

My guess is that it might not be as efficient as traditional techniques, mostly because the concentration of DMT in source material (~1%) is much lower than the concentration of THC in cannabis (~20%). With cannabis the THC is just sitting on the outside of the flower, but with bark it's throughout the volume. Powered material would be a must.

I think the end result would not be easy to work with - you'd definitely get a goo because there's no time for crystals to form when the butane boils off. I guess you'd still need to vacuum purge it too, which would not be as necessary with crystals.

With cannabis the desireable compounds are located in trichomes on the outside of the leaves and flowers, this is why it's advantageous to run solvent over it quickly and blast the goods away from the plant material. With DMT it's located within the cells of the plant, so longer contact with the solvent is preferable. Blasting some based bark with butane will work to some extent, but it's unlikely to yield very well. Butane blasting is much moar suitable for something like Salvia (also terpenoids located in trichomes on the outside of the leaves) than it is for alkaloids.

You can just evaporate acetone under a fan in a well ventilated area, there isn't any need to use heat or an oven to evap it.

Honestly, I'd say it's probably not worth it, but all my knowledge is theoretical. If you've got the right equipment and extra bark to experiment with, give it a try with a bit and let us know how it works out. You can always follow up with a traditional extraction to recover anything it misses.

The idea that it is blasted off the outside is false. The THC resides throughout the plant material. Trust me I have been growing and processing as a preferred provider in Washington state for the past 2 years. I am also working on my 3rd year of a chemistry degree. The butane completely soaks all plant material. Sure it would be a quick process, but like you said DMT exists in low concentrations so not much to be extracted anyway, should work fine in that regard. Only thing that concerns me about solubility is the extremely low temp of the butane. Like dissolves like, so freebase DMT which is non polar should have no trouble migrating into the solvent.

Yes the trichomes have the highest concentration, but not all of the THC, otherwise why would it be beneficial to grind your product before blasting, which it most certainly is.

You say you don't need an oven to remove acetone, but that is not my experience with THC. I have left an extract to sit for months and it still tasted of acetone, in the end i baked it on like 350 for at least 30 mins and made an edible. Do Not extract THC with acetone. Iso hash blows too, always leaves a flavor. Only use Ethanol or butane, unless you have access to non sulfur contaminated propane, or super critical CO2.

Sorry for the triple post if anyone can combine them that'd be cool. Anyways.


I will be trying this soon and reporting results, I am simply waiting for the dry tek paste to dry then I will blast. Worst comes to worst i re-extract with acetone or Ethanol.

Thanks Endlessness for the idea, it was your ethanol sodium carb eco friendly tek that gave me the inspiration to give this a try.

Not in my experience, I use acetone all the time to extract trim/bud and the acetone smell never sticks around more than a day when under a fan. Usually it's gone in 6 hours. It's the water in the acetone that stays the longest. Maybe if you are extracting lots of material it would be more likely to trap bubbles of solvent. 350F is way overkill though, even for decarbing, that will definitely destroy any terpenes and turn some of your THC to CBN. It would just need to be over the boiling point of water/acetone, so 200F would be a better temperature, perhaps for a longer time.

I'm pretty sure the THC is indeed only contained in trichromes - it's secreted there to protect the flowers from UV. There's a few different kinds of trichromes though (some are tiny and on the stem), and the trichromes can be on the interior of the bud, which is why it helps to grind. Interior trichromes initially start as exterior on the bract surface, but then are covered up by swelling calyxs as the buds mature.

Funny, I was thinking about this (as per the OP) this morning, before I'd even seen this thread - my computer was off for two days until this evening!

I figured that at normal pressures butane would be fairly useless as a solvent for DMT. Because - freeze precipitation. If DMT precipitates from cold alkanes, and butane has a bp of -0.5°C it seems to me you'll need an awful lot of butane to pick up very much DMT. Unless, that is, you use a pressurised system which can operate at a higher temperature (40-50°C at a wild guess). Then you might want to start looking at the critical temperature and pressure for butane. And at that point consider switching to carbon dioxide.

Either way, with butane it has the potential to get very messy ("BANG" messy). Not recommended.

I would suggest using a closed system, like a refrigerator heat pump, to recycle the butane. Maybe even re-purpose a refrigerator heat pump. Cyclopentane might even prove to be a better solvent than butane. (Many refrigerators use cyclopentane for the adiabatic coolant nowadays, although I suspect they may be operating at slightly below atmospheric pressure.)

What you are saying may be true, about trichomes being everywhere, which would account for the need to grind the material, however I have blasted things with no trichomes, i have a 60x microscope i use to view my buds to verify maturity, amber trichomes. Basically i have blasted green leaf and it still contains THC and no trichomes, the hairlike structures, or crystals if you will. If I imagine in my mind what you are saying about it only being in the trichomes, I can't figure out how the bud secretes its essential oil if it does not contain at least trace amounts in the plant material itself. Our skin grows hair, but aren't all the materials within it also contained in the body. Not scientific, but i think you'll understand what I am saying.

I only use 100% acetone so my experiences are different than yours, i couldn't get rid of the smell. Yes 350 is overkill, but i don't know why it wouldn't evaporate. I raised the temperature until it smelled no more. I wouldn't suggest that temp to anyone. 250 is usually my max but i haven't noticed loss of potency at that temp(250) or below, maybe if you did it for a long time, I just wait till there are no more bubbles, then it is done. 200 is preferred but a big batch can be harder to purge only takes me a few minutes 20 max if i start slow at 170 degrees F. I however don't use acetone for bud extractions, only butane. I tried it a couple of times and you get poor quality oil, acetone and ethanol are too polar and pull a bunch of chlorophyll, nobody wants green or black oil that tastes bad.

My paste is drying next to a dehumidifier on max. It is turning into a hard pink substance.... sod carb is mixing with the powder and drying together... maybe a day or two till its dry.

Anyone else get a hard substance? I am using ACRB powder. Should i repowder in coffee grinder?
Whydo the teks call for 1:1 root powder soda carb, that seems very excessive, especially now that i have tried, couldn't we use probably something closer to 1:1 max dmt-tannate yield in moles to soda carb in moles. Why does everyone use so much base? Or am I just confused?

what downwardsfromzero is saying makes the most sense as why not to do it for me, the cold temps...
Now i do not use a closed loop system but it does maintain pressure, there is no way for me to measure it but it is there.

I do it in an area where i am not worried about explosions. To each their own, but I will suggest that if you don't have processing or lab experience, of which I have both, don't use extremely volatile solvents.

I will maintain the experiment and report back.

like I said, worst comes to worst I just pick up the rest with acetone or naphtha.

Since the butane is pressurized at room temperature in the can is it possible that while pressurized in the tube for a short amount of time it might maintain a preferable temperature range in order to dissolve the small amount of DMT in the bark. I am only using 50 grams for this experiment. Only a small amount needs to be extracted, so maybe do multiple fast passes only when everything is warm will do the trick?

We will see. If it works it will cut the time and work down by a long-shot, butane dries in minutes not days.

Butane is also less than 3$ a can so... I usually buy a case though so it is even cheaper. This is something I always have around.

I'm guessing you get odourless butane.

Yes, there are definitely compelling economic arguments in its favour as well as the potentially great simplicity of the equipment required. After all, my thought experiment was founded exactly on these grounds!

I'm all for experiments conducted by competent people.


What if you were to moisten the substrate with a little, e.g., heptane before blasting with the butane?

I think that this is an interesting experiment to do. OP why don't you try it and report the results here? Pluskudos if you include pics. If it works, it could be TEK'ed.

I have personally noticed that lower molecular weight alkanes are decreasingly effective solvents for dmt. This fact can be neatly exploited for recrystallizations. Petroleum ether works better for re-X'ing than heavy naphtha.

But, since the butane will be boiling while passing through the extraction pipe, it may have a better solubility for dmt than expected. Only an actual experiment will point this out.

Be careful with flammabe or even explosive butane vapors! Don't EVER work indoors.

I tried with half a can yesterday. When i do bud i use 2. Very low yield. It is probably more than I think, but because I used a large pan it is very spread out. Still I would say it is unsuccessful as of yet. I will try the conventional extraction methods to compare yields. The possibility remains that this is poor quality material as I have yet to try it otherwise.

I have a few more things I want to try out first before calling it a failure completely, however at this point I wouldn't suggest it to anyone unless you are looking for a quick hit as I was able to attain this at least. I only tried about 10mg or less just to see if it works. I felt some body effects and maybe some visual distortion. I will try the remaining goop soon.

It looks like amber oil not real red, but not yellow like I hoped for.

Moistening with heptane or some other solvent sounds like a good idea, I will probably try that. I think I will need to order more material though as I am getting low.

Like Pitubo said: pics!

I'd suspect yields to be very low, alkaloids have little solubility in butane; the partition coeff is too high.
figure in butane's high volatility, it isn't an ideal solvent.

now adding an entrainer (cosolvent) changes things..

Butane alone, or with an entrainer?

I love your thinking!!! Tho I believe what your doing is defatting... Relplacing the vinegar step.. dry that material and now and extract as normal and let us know...