Hello,

Due to not having a freezer, nor fumaric acid, I decided (after seeking confirmation from my fellow Nexians) to do a salting with vinegar of my naphtha pulls...

I have already "discovered" that the amount of vinegar needed (the one I'm using is 7%) depends on how saturated the naphtha is and varies (so far) between a 2:1 and a 1:1 ratio of naphtha/vinegar...

Each volume of naphtha from my fridge is treated separately, but after each reaction seems to be complete, they are all transferred into the same bottle for separation...

Upon adding the fourth volume of "treated" naphtha to this bottle, I noticed that a white crystalline formation is suspended exactly on the "border" of the naphtha and vinegar, it seems as if half of it is sticking in the naphtha and half in the vinegar (more or less)...

What could this be?

I don't suppose many people have taken the route of salting naphtha pulls with vinegar so I'm not necessarily expecting experience-based answers here

As far as possible contamination goes, the only thing I can not be 100% sure about is the fact that my naphtha, vinegar, NaOH all came in plastic bottles (PET) but that could be just me being paranoid, I have no reason to think that plastic contaminants would form crystalline formations such as this one...

A factor to take into consideration might be that the naphtha came out of the fridge and was treated when still cold, but it's separating at room temperature so there is a change in temperature...

For those of you who need to know more in order to come up with a possible answer/explanation: I followed Cyb's hybrid salt tek using mhrb...

Thank you for taking the time to read this.

PLUR

PS Sorry but no pictures

Edit - After typing this I noticed the formation was breaking up into smaller "floaters"... Perhaps it could have been formed during my swirling of the bottle after adding the naphtha...

When I used to back salt my spice with hcl I used to get this weird brown stick like stuff. I used a cotton on the tip of my bastor and it cured my problem. Whatever the crystaline stuff is, you probably don't want it! Lol.

Also, you might want to consider adding a little water to your vinegar so that you have more liquid for your dmt to absorb into cuz the vinegar is already strong enough, it just needs volume.

I am not sure I can follow exactly what you are doing here, such as why you keep naphtha in in the fridge and what do you mean by "treated separately".

But anyway, this in-between thing you see is an emulsion, so nothing to worry about. It will either go away with time or will just get reduced to too little to worry you.

I am more concerned about you mixing naphtha with PET plastic though - sloppy practice.

The naphtha is sold in pet bottles, still looking for alternative in metal or glass container...

I precipped in the fridge because I don't have a freezer... The remaining naphtha still contains a lot a spice... From 5 pull jars I have 5 volumes of naphtha, each of which was salted separately with vinegar and combined in a single bottle for further separation...

Could the emulsion be a result of my using regular tap water and not demineralized water? Like mineral impurities (calcium?)?

After leaving the bottle alone for a couple of hours the emulsion is still there, floating on top of the vinegar layer...

I will either try to trap the emulsion in a coffee filter or pipette it away into a separate container and let evaporate as to be able to further examine this substance...

just suck up the vinegar with w/e is in it in a baster or get a sep funnel and filter it..evaporate the vinegar to a goo, add sodium carb and wet it and mix into a paste..dry it and pull with iso. After you filter the iso etc evaporate it. Done.

Iv seen the same thing I thougjt it was dmt acetate floating (as i believe it floats on water?)
Getting that last layer cleanly is always a problem..
Usually when its done and the np is left to sit another layer appears after a few hours...is this the remaining water/vinegar separating?

If it doesn't resolve itself then get rid of it(or seperate it if you think your spice is there).

At the moment my naphtha is in a jar, the vinegar in another...

The last bit of naphtha and the top layer of vinegar were pipetted off together in put in a 50 ml. graduated glass column for separation, after pipetting off as much naphtha as possible then add water until the "emulsion/contimation" reaches the top of the column so I can separate it and keep the rest of the vinegar.

I'll report back as the saga continues

The mystery was absorbed into my coffee filter hence no empirical evidence as to it's nature or composition is ever to be obtained...whatever it was, it will not be in my final product...

lol yeah ive seen the mystery white blobs just vanish too maybe it was something in the vinegar that was pulled by the np...

It appears I have used an excessivd amount of vinegar to do the salting, and it's taking too long for it to evaporate...

Could I add excess sodium carbonate and pull with naphtha?

Yes. Add soda carb til its a paste.

Thanks...

As I don't want to use all my sodium carbonate in one go, I'll leave it to evap a little longer...

Next time, rather than doing each pull with fresh naphtha, I may salt the naphtha from the first pull then reuse it for the second and so on...

Also, I guess the extra oils and other compounds that are pulled with hot naphtha are not going to be a problem if the salting technique is used, but I'll have to wait and see...

I'll update when I have some results...

The stuff that had precipitated in the fridge has been re-x'ed and consists of very white crystals, haven't weighed them yet, but I assume that most of my yield is still in the vinegar...

PLUR