Hello dear nexus-chemists!


I have a filtered acetone kratom solution that I want to boil down to a tincture.
My plan is to simply add a few cl of water to the solution and then boil away the acetone but I am worried that some alkaloids might be lost in the process (because they are less soluble in water) and that there may be some acetone left in the solution.
I would like to avoid exposing the alkaloids to dry heat so they should remain in solution at all times.

Are the alkaloids even able to be dissolved in water?

What you can do is use a waterbath to avoid overheating it but it would be best to simply distill off most of the acetone. And then just letting the small rest evaporate if you wanna be really safe and avoid dry heat alltogether.

Also you really should look up if you maybe need to look into using drinking ethanol for the tincture if the active compounds of kratom dont dissolve in water.

Given that you already talked about having some distilling apparatus you can either buy high proof alcohol or concentrate it yourself.

Yes but not nearly as well as in organic solvents. My thinking was that it doesn't matter all that much because the hard work of extracting the alkaloids from the plant material has already been done. I specifically wanted to add the water first and then boil down the solution as a whole (gradually removing the acetone) to make it easier for the alkaloids to migrate to the water.
Adding ethanol would probably work but it would make the process more complicated and expensive. If possible, I would like to go the non-alcoholic route.