I'm interested why Calcium Hydroxide (cal), isn't used as a base? It is insoluble in Alcohol, and poorly soluble in water. It is also a stronger base than Sodium Carbonate.

I do this tek with lime. It works great. The reason it's written with soda carb is for purposes of availability. Baking soda is generally even more widely available than lime and can easily be converted to soda carb with heat. So that's the general reasoning here. Substitution options abound for this tek, but the initial focus was to make a simple effective extraction methodology that is as widely accessible as possible.

Dreamer is right, as always

And this is the 5% yield? How can it be so high? Is it the plant material or the technique? I will attempt this tek on Acacia confusa in the future.

Ah Ok. I said Calcium Hydroxide because it seems far superior to Sodium Carbonate. It also doesn't dissolve in Alcohol, so basified and dried extracts should be produce better quality 'pulls', if theory is correct.

As mentioned in the chat, Bodhi, the excessive yield is due to the (innocuous) sodium carbonate impurity, which was not soluble in the solvent used for the analysis therefore didn't show up in results. But that sodium carb excess can be removed easily either by doing something like the amor fati method, or redissolving in dry acetone/IPA/ethanol and evapping.

And as mentioned earlier one can use calcium hydroxide as a base which will be less soluble in the ethanol.

I would like to see this tek get done with vodka too, see what kind of results one can get. Any volunteers?

Using Vodka, the least water solube base would be the best idea, ie Lime.

Onto another idea.(best attempted outdoors because of the smell)..What about Using Ammonium hydroxide(household ammonia) instead, and then letting it evap off?

In theory this is a possability being a base and volatile, should leave behind clean basified material, ready to pull with Vodka, or whatever.

Yeah lime would be good for that reason, though if one would clean off excess sodium carb with water as linked above, it should work fine too (at least worth a try).

Regarding household ammonia, my biggest fear is other impurities/additives in the ammonia. Some have detergents, but even the ones that don't might not be clean-evapping. Would be important to check ingredients and also do an evap test. Also considering ammonia will be very diluted, there will be that extra water in the mix, specially if you want to add enough to make the whole thing properly basic (I wonder how much ammonia would be necessary ). But yeah I think worth a try, I'd like to read the results if anybody tries it.

I've used vodka in this tek several times, though I used lime instead of soda carb. The results are not quite as clean as with 95% ethanol but the difference is fairly negligible in the end after going back and forth to acid and base a couple times. The only thing with vodka is it takes a whole lot longer to evap under a fan than 95% etoh.

Regarding the purity of household ammonia, the volatility of the ammonia at least makes it amenable to purification. That said, you'd need to know what you're doing before messing about with too much ammonia vapour in your kitchen. It is somewhat poisonous. And it stinks.

Non-sudsy ammonia should be pure enough but the usual caveats apply. Increasing the concentration of the ammonia would be the major conundrum and is something of a challenge for the kitchen chemist.

If I was not busy I'd try these things out straight away, including the lime thing - although I found lime + limonene to be something of a pain in the posterior. But I hope one day to try it with ethanol.


There would also be the ammonium salts of whatever counter-ions the DMT was paired with, which may or may not be soluble in ethanol.

Quality 33% Ammonium hydroxide with no additives is available online/ as is foodgrade lime.

Not sure about the ammonium salts. I was thinking of just add base, dry off (outdoors, def. not in Kitchen), and pull with acetone.Simple as that.

No need to bother with vinegar.

Neither am I, but the possibility of these being soluble in ethanol or acetone, or presenting other problems (e.g. hygroscopicity) is, IMO, worth considering. Because they will be formed if ammonia is used, that much I'm sure of. Of course, this shouldn't affect your experiment but needs to be taken into consideration as a potential source of difficulties or contamination, likely after the fact.

It's great that you're trying this, I'd suggest a 2:1 molar ratio of ammonia to expected alkaloidal yield - what do you think?

Too busy to try this i'm afraid, but i'm sure it would evaporate off having done it's work.
If i could do this i'd use 33% Ammonium hydroxide, outside of course.

Indoors people can use Lime instead.

I don't think vinegar is needed for either.

Ah. Over-hopeful misinterpretation of the phrase "I was thinking of" followed by some verbs and stuff. Ah well.

Vinegar would still be of use in a clean-up, as in the OP.


I feel the need to illustrate the point about ammonium salts:

If DMT imaginate was reacted with ammonia, (some) ammonium imaginate would be formed, along with the freebase DMT. If it turned out that ammonium imaginate was soluble in ethanol, this would confound the extraction of the DMT.

Evaporating the ammonia would not lead to the disappearance of the ammonium compound, or if it did, the starting compound would remain instead of the freebase.


It's very probably a bad idea to inhale the pyrolysis products of carboxylate salts of ammonia.

I also stopped using vinegar, it's kinda gross, does not evap clean at all. I started using either fumaric or citric acid in pure water, much cleaner results that way.

Honestly at the point yor getting into replacing the ingredients with things ammonia and dry acetone so on, while you may get better results, yor moving away from the original intentions of the tek, namely using food safe ingredients that are universally accessible at a local market anywhere in the world.

That is a possability. Good point.



Seriously, is there any need to use 'any' acid at all? The filtered extract should be clean enough and excess base can be washed away with water, no?
Perhaps on a clean up stage, yes, but wouldn't this also react with the base, and make salts?



Fair point although consider this: If one regularly orders online, these can be had quite cheaply and of good quality. Acetone and 5% ammonia solution are household products too. Foodgrade lime is a household product and moreso a safer option than calcium carbonate, especially since it is less likely to dissolve, and contaminate.

Hi,
I would like to ask:

If dmt fb is not soluble in water, can i polverize/basify/dry and make two or three water wash/decant/separate (and trow away water), dry the paste and then start the first acetone/ethanol pulls ? can this result a more clean end product or is totally a messy step ?

Or another thing: when i acidify/filter/evaporate/dry can i wash with acetone and then continue the tek ? acetone dissolve dmt slats (winegar/citric) ? also here can result a more clean product eliminating some fat oil ?

I like this tek, i don't know and not try yet if the result can be used in a ecig method, i try to dissolve the goo from this tek in PG and works very well.

That, xa, is an interesting idea although you'd have to be sure that the DMT particles were not so small that they'd be washed away with any other solid material. On consideration, I'd say it's best to have a principle step of dissolving the DMT away from the base for this reason.

It's a prudent lab practice to keep washings until you're reasonable sure you haven't washed any goodies away.

So if i understand well the dmt don't dissolve in water but can be suspended and i risk to separate and trow also dmt fb ? if i give time to set down is possible ?

I use lime for the base, i know that is more insoluble in water and alchool and acetone.

What you mean with: "I'd say it's best to have a principle step of dissolving the DMT away from the base for this reason." can you explain this ? sorry but english is not my language.

ok,

If i pulverize/acid and base step (like q21q21)/let to dry completely.
Then pulls with alcool or acetone/separate/filter let to evaporate.

Wash with distilled water ? can this get rid of some impurities ? the water can grab dmt fb away ?

then continue the tek...