I've read that its cause you can't use it with Naphtha, but what i haven't seen answered is why not?

they say you cant....

But I did successfully base once with sodium carb..then pulled with xylene. Broke the emulsion with salt, then salted the spice out with vinegar and did an acetate conversion with a double boiler..it worked very well. Just make sure you use enough sodium carb to raise the ph high enough or it wont work so well..

Im not sure about naptha but I would assume it would pull just the same, except it wont pull full spectrum red or orange stuff..only white or yellow.

Spice becomes more soluble in solvents at higher pH's. As it's only poorly soluble in naphtha anyways, it's not going to work as well with a lower pH. I think you could probably pull a little bit, but it would be no where near as efficent as basing with lye, or using a stronger solvent.

How about using calcium hydroxide as a base?
Would that raise the PH high enough & also stop emulsion if used in 'excess'?

The only downside (that i can see) is that calcium hydroxide is a a lot more expensive

I should add that it would be aquarium calcium hydroxide so solubility in water should be good

for CaOH, it has to be dry teks (research wiki, q21, amorfati and ron's mescaline tek)

Could you explain why it has to be a drytek please?

I was planning on doing a freeze/thaw cycle with vinegar/MHRB, then filter, settle/decant, then basify with the calcium hydroxide & pull with Naphtha

I do like the look of Q21's tek as its what made me want to use lime, is pulling with Naphtha a problem ifits not a drytek?
I have searched but found no solid advice on why it can only be used in a drytek...

because calcium hydroxide is poorly water soluble, your yield will suck. Either use sodium carb (potentially having emulsion issues) and pull with xylene or something similar (later salting out), or use lye, or use CaOH in a dry tek only

It doesn't matter where you source your calcium hydroxide from, if it is calcium hydroxide its solubility will be bad in water no matter the purpose it is sold for.

Calcium hydroxide is not only poorly soluble in water, it also creates loads of salts and/or other substances from the plant material that are insoluble in water as well when they bind calcium. You may be aware that some cider brewers treat the pressed apple juice with calcium chloride which forms insoluble complexes with pectins that float away and can be removed, thus assist in making a cider of better taste, complexity and clarity.

In an A/B or STB the undissolved calcium hydroxide will be a pain, often staying as a haze in the NP solvent. SWIM had such an experience. And even if you throw just enough calcium hydroxide in your, say A/B to bring the pH to 13 and also ensure that all the calcium hydroxide dissolves, the formation of calcium-bound compounds will be unavoidable and will give you similar problems.

Of course, you're free to try and see for yourself. You may as well add just enough to basify to 13 with a pH meter and see what happens. I have not heard of anyone mentioning doing so, so it'll be interesting to see how it goes. But if problems arise it'll be difficult to troubleshoot it.

I do appreciate the advice, the calcium hydroxide im looking at is for aquarium use & claims to be 'pure calcium hydroxide with unsurpassed purity and solubility characteristics'

I think i'll start by experimenting with low amounts, ifit goes belly up ill switch to drytek or back to lye.

do as you please, and post back so others know.. nevertheless, when people with chemical knowledge and experience in the exact question you are asking tell you why it doesnt work (inf's answer was pretty thorough), dont you think it would be time better spent if you made experiments in other areas where we are still not sure about and increase the knowledge of the community? I mean, whether it says on the label that the CaOH is pure or whatever, it makes no difference as inf said, CaOH is CaOH.

For example, why dont you make two small side-by-side extractions, half with sodium carbonate and half with lye, and keep all other variables the same? Then you can tell us how well each one worked. Or whatever other comparisons and tests..

But again, do as you please, we can only tell you what we think and what we know from our own experiments

Thanks for the advice, i'm just going to do Q21's tek as it's quite simple...

Although i will be using kalkwasser so not sure how to measure out unless 1g of kalkswasser = 1g of lime

Yup.

Kalkwasser is just aquarium talk for lime (CaOH) and usually in the region of 95% purity. I use it for all lime based procedures.

Yeah my bad, i thought it came as a liquid solution of CaOH & H20, so would have to add it carefully to this as its a drytek, but reading the manufacturers website it comes as powder

http://www.seachem.com/P...ages/ReefKalkwasser.html

Im assuming i just add this powder in the ratios that Q21 suggests... i like the way Q21's tek is kinda like brewing a potion or something, i like stirring
Id like to see more pics of this tek, seeing it change colour/consistency etc... gonna get searching later...

I want to write 1324423 cusswords since I fell into the "lye will kill you" trap and therefore used Na2CO3 (sodium carbonate) for basing.

Why I'm burning the remainings in the bottle

1. You need A LOT to reach any considerable (11+) pH. For instance 300 ml of a basic solution (250g MHRB) pH 4.5 took 350 g of sodium carbonate to reach the pH level of 11.

It was something like this:
350 g - pH 11
200 g - pH 10.7
100 g - pH 10.5
75 g - pH 10.3
15 g - pH 9.8
5 g - pH 9.1

These amounts transform the liquid in some thickish paste which always generates a top layer of undissolved Na2CO3.

2. It's poorly soluble in water (22g/100ml) and since you need great amounts most/some doesn't dissolve leaving a concrete similar structure behind. And if you are really lucky it clogs your separatory funnel

3. Emulsion is so nicely mixed you don't even know if you put the solvent (this was with DCM) in

sodium hydroxide dissociates much more readily than calcium hydroxide, distributing more hydroxide ions in solution which will bind more of the the protonated alkaloids in an A/B extraction.


food-safe hippy teks just facilitate a phobia of conventional chemicals which are much more effective. there's no need to fear these chems when you educate yourself with proper handling and storage. there are also eco-friendly measures one can take when recycling/disposing of them

I'm quoting Nancy on this one. "Just say no kids" (to sodium carbonate).

i did do an a/b using sodium carbonate, pulling with limonene. my yields were not great, and i had a nasty emulsion to deal with, but it did work. that said, i would not go this route again. CaOH is a much better option for eco/hippy tek

sodium carbonate is def very useful for fumerate conversion to freebase, so dont thro it out of the picture.

I find KOH nicer to work with as a substitute for NaOH, it just takes a wee bit more to get desired ph.

How much did you use for how much bark and which pH's ? Thanks.

it seems that many teks that use NaOH, use an excess of it--just to "spike" the ph up to 13 or so.
i have not had access to a digital ph meter since my biofuel studies.
to get really accurate its all done with math--which is not on the top of my head right now.
to get close, an example would be if a tek called for 80 grams NaOH, i wuld start with 90 KOH, and check ph with papers.

Em, my question was about sodium carbonate (Na2CO3) ? And math theory is useless when you're not adding stuff to water. Believe me