An old man on a mountain in the Netherlands has some questions regarding a Solvent he uses in spice extractions.

He has been using a solvent in his STB spice extractions from MHRB that yields great quantities of spice that is incredibly pure.

It is sold as "Wasbenzine" in the Netherlands,
but has been having trouble figuring out what exact solvent it is and
what it's called in English. On the "Wasbenzine" bottle sais it
contains the HydroCarbons 7 to 9. It sounds very similair to Naphtha,
allthough Naphtha may be a mixture of different Hydrocarbons. Anyone?
Google translate translated Wasbenzine from Dutch to Benzene in English.
So the old man is rather confused as to what exactly this Wasbenzine is.
Any help would be appreciated.

It's Naphtha..

Benzene is carcinogenic, naphtha is not a breath of fresh air but I think it's safer. Hydrocarbons 7 to 9 is heptane, octane, nonane. In general, the bigger the carbon chain, the higher the boiling point, so while heptane bp is under 100c, of nonane its already around 150c. Lighter naphthas evaporate easier (and thus easier to dry your final product and not leave significant traces). I already worked with c 5-8 and it was just fine, 7-9 im not sure if its still considered "light" or "medium" naphtha, but anyways it should work just fine for extracting

There is Wasbenzine with and without aromatic compounds (at least in Germany). If it has such compounds I would not recommend using it, since arenes may be carcinogen or mutagen... There has to be some reference on the label stating whether there are arenes in the product.

Good point. Also aromatic compounds make the solvent useless for freeze precipitation or recrystallization since DMT and impurities are too soluble in it.