so- i did something kinda dumb....

i was trying to fortify some mullein with some spice and disolved the spice in what i thought was some used acetone....

turns out it was actually xylene that i had used some fasa in and it still had a faint odor of acetone....

now- don't get me wrong, the xylene was cleaned so there's no fumaric acid or acetone present.....BUT it is xylene which means that it has taken nearly 4 days to evap the tiny amount i used. now, the leaf is nearly xylene odor free (P.U.!!) and i am fielding thoughts on whether i should do some sort of cleaning process here. i DEFINITELY don't want any residual xylene in my leaf!

my thinking was to let this sit under a fan for a couple days more until it is bone dry and completely sans odor, then maybe resaturate in acetone and let that evap in the hopes that it will clean off some of the (if there is any) xylene...

thoughts?

L&G!!

sounds like a good plan you have, of letting it dry and adding more of a cleaner-evapping solvent to help get rid of any xylene traces

That sounds like the way to go. Xylene does indeed evap eventually it all xylene has access to air, but if you were making a gooey changa, it's very possible that there will be hidden xylene.

I'd probably redisolve the mix into acetone and start again.

might be the best call actually. i'd say it's probably 95% evapped out as of right now. i think what i might do is redissolve the changa in acetone, strain out the leaf, add a little more acetone, strain off....maybe two or three times to get everything out of the plant material then just reinfuse some fresh leaf... probably gonna lose a little magic in the process but it's better than getting even the slightest trace of xylene in your lungs..

all in agreement?

L&G!!

That sounds like a good way to lose about half of your yield to me.

How so?

It's not going to get up and run away. You just have to make sure you're thorough. You can probably even use the same leaf.

Might aswell just re-saturate with acetone once or twice. That should do the trick

alright, first acetone soak underway... i'm pretty confident this'll do the trick...

on a side note- what do you guys think is a cleaner, faster-evapping solvent: acetone or heptane? i've often wondered about this...

L&G

I've never used heptane, but I think it's meant to be slow evapping and doesn't hold as much DMT as the faster evapping acetone. I generally use acetone or IPA.

Ive always asumed heptane to be the faster evaping solvent, ive never been able to access any heptane, but from what I read here on the forum, sounds like some members are making changa and drying it in a matter of a couple of hours.

If anyone has any heptane and acetone, pls do a side by side evap and check which evaps faster

It's been a while, but I think acetone is faster. I would guess it's probably cleaner/more easily evap'd too.

20ml heptane & 20ml acetone head to head, set up in identical measuring glasses and in symmetrically equidistant positions in front of a fan.

We'll see which one evaps faster.

I always figured heptane because folk use it for slow recrystalisations. Unless I'm mistaking it for something else.

Well, the acetone is several minutes faster than the heptane...but by the end, the acetone had picked up some water from the air...it's one of those misty summer mornings and the experiment was setup next to an open window in the sun room, with the fan directing the noxious fumes toward the outside.

Acetone is definitely faster, but picks up moisture like crazy if it's around.

Acetone only picks up moisture if it has cold air in contact i.e. the fan. If you use a fan to evap acetone you need to keep it on something warm to stop the water vapor particles condensing in it.

You felt how cold that stuff is when you get it on your skin?

Ahhhh. I didn't think about that. Thanks soulfood.

so, in the name of being experimental, i have done the following:

first soak in acetone (took half a day to fully evap to the point of no odor)

second soak (today) in heptane to further clean away any residual xylene. i even got the heptane good and hot before adding it to the leaf so all the spice would be resaturated and redistributed and the xylene would hopefully be washed from every possible nook....

fingers crossed....

L&G!!

alrighty then- final outcome:

this was the perfect fix and a really good thing to know when it comes to cleaning leaf. i might even have traveler throws this in the wiki... the first re-saturation with acetone cleaned probably 99% of the xylene off the leaf. the second re-saturation with piping hot heptane cleaned off any remaining xylene AND removed all excess moisture/water left behind from the acetone. i now have dry, fluffy mullein that smells like mullein and spice without the faintest hint of any solvent. it is extremely delicious and POTENT!

most excellent!!!

WITH THE DEEPEST LOVE AND GRATITUDE!!

I must be missing something, but how does soaking in acetone then evaporating the acetone do anything?

I mean, it seems like the xylene would still be in the mixture of acetone and leaf just as it was before, I dont understand how this helps without at some point seperating the acetone from the leaf mixture (which would get rid of the spice...

I must be missing something, could someone explain to me how this works please ?

because xylene is volatile so it evaporates, though traces might have been trapped inside the leaves (which is what antrocles wanted to avoid). So redissolving in acetone will divide the tiny traces of xylene that might have gotten trapped, in a big surface area, and as the acetone evaps it gives the xylene time and opportunity to evaporate completely.