Stone
RE: Purification
I've just moved this over since the other thread is getting kinda long to deal with. :-)
Wow! Thanks Dosadi! That some good information. It's going to take awhile for me to digest all that and longer before trying it because of a nearing move. I'll post results eventually. :-)
bacchus - I used HCL, NaOH, colemans, ph ranged from 5-10 but my meter kinda sucks... the garden variety. If anyone else has more purification ideas please share them here. ;-~
Dosadi
RE: Purification
Stone: Yeah, that is one of the downsides to this otherwise quite nice UBB system. Threads are a Good Thing.
chaldeon
RE: Purification
Great work, Dosadi! Have we heard from anyone with first-hand success with "Desi" yet?
chaldeon
bacchus
RE: Purification
I'm kind of dubious about the Coleman's.It's widely refered to, but when I did an evaporation test, it still smelled like fuelfor like a week. Also "pH 5-10" is a pretty big range! I've been in a couple arguments about this, but I firmly believe that basifying to at least 11 is one of the keys to success. We ARE refering to mimosa right - I forget. I can guarantee that Yoda's method, which I'll post here if any one wants, will work. I'm sort of aquainted with the author.
lux
RE: Purification
Thanks Stone, Should've noticed and moved us over myself but, was too absorbed in the content vaule to notice all the (unnecessary) scrolling. Really feel we're finally getting somewhere here.
ONWARD!..........
Someone at the end of the last thread was raising questions about the alkaloid content of wild Phalaris? ARRRGH!...just spent two weekends locating acres and pricing out a John Deer Bailers. Please advise!(smirk)
RWB
RE:Purification
Hey bacchus: although my first extraction attempt was unsuccessful (using JLF phalaris extract), I was pretty happy with the naptha I chose -- Rossinol (?) lighter fluid. It comes in a a small, plastic yellow squeeze bottle, and "naptha" is the only listed ingredient.
I did an evaporation test by squeezing about a tablespoon of the stuff out onto a mirror. After 10 minutes it had completely dried, leaving only the faintest visible trace of residue (around the original outer ring only), with absolutely no smell of any kind. Just a suggestion...
Also, isn't the pH scale an exponential (or logarithmic) one? Meaning, a pH value of 8 is ten times more basic than a value of 7?Finally, if you know Yoda, would you ask him to come back to Trevyn's forum? He is SORELY missed there...
bacchus
RE: Purification
RWB-lighter fluid is a good call (Zippo brand seems ok too). Too bad it only comes in tiny bottles. The coleman fuel is so cheap though... You are correct about the pH scale. I don't think Yoda will return to Trevyn's. He claims to be much too busy to deal with the level of bullshit he encountered there. I'm sure he means no offense to any of the non-idiots who hang out there, but...well we get the picture. Any serious discussion could just as well take place here, EDOT or the Lycaeum.
Stone
RE: Purification
OK, I've been hearing about Yoda's method all over here. I'm not sure if I've seen that or not. Could someone point the way? bacchus? Also, all my extractions have been w/ phalaris. I absolutly hate colemans for the final extrax.. DCM sounds like the way to go. Speaking of wild phalaris strength... I know this answer sucks but, it REALLY depends. Mostly on how stressed the grass is but still fairly green... you also must be sure its the correct species... or nota chance. :-~What's the general consensus for starting with phalaris - frozen? or dried out? Frozen is all I've seen.
Nicodemus
RE: Purification
So now Coleman's is said to not work? Who has used it in the actual extraction with success... anyone? Also, Yoda's method mentions acidifying to a pH of 1, is this really necessary, what are the "dangers" of diluting the acid to a pH of 2 or 3, or would it just demand a longer soaking period if the solution was less acidic.
thanks for your help.
bacchus
RE: Purification
It's not that Coleman's doesn't "work"- I think it IS adaquately nonpolar. I'm concerned that it doesn't all evaporate cleanly, so the final product might be contaminated with who-knows-what. I've heard of people distilling it to attempt to get a purer solvent. As for the pH1 thing...maybe 2 or 3 is OK, maybe not. Experiment! When I say to follow Yoda's method exactly, it's cause I know it will work. Throw in too many variables, and it may not.
Stone, you may not like this but....IMHO, doing this with phalaris is a waste of time and money. If you want 5MeO, than you can just buy some, totally pure, from JLF. It is made by a commercial lab, that is probably legally required to be much more environmentally safe than our kitchen chem labs are. They are using pure chemicals, as opposed to hardware store stuff. Know what I mean? Now mimosa or desmanthus, that's another story. You can't just pick up the phone and order some nnDMT, so DIY is your only option (or buying it black market if you're lucky)
RWB
RE: Purification
Stone, for Yoda's method see:
http://woods.bianca.com/shacklet/Trevyn/yoda.html
Dosadi
RE: Purification
Nice! It would be a bit more readable if he were to put spaces after his commas and periods, but....
bacchus
RE: Purification
I assure you, Yoda's formatting was originally impecible! Trevyn transcribed it for his page, which was nice of him, but it's not so pretty.
Stone
RE: Purification
bacchus - I whole-heartedly agree with your comment about phalaris being a waste of time. When I look back at all the time and money I have put into that project and what I have got out of it [nothing]... it just makes sense to buy the 5-meo. Let this info be of benefit to others... JUST BUY THE 5-MEO! As for the coleman's... I ALWAYS get goo on the final extrax. I can defat till the stuff is as clear as pouring it out of the can but mix it with the base and GOO!
RWB - Thanks for the URL!
Scholar
RE: Purification
Dosadi brought up the point of knowing the exact ph level of your desired substance (DMT) in order to further seperate it from the other "gunk" that may be present in your solution....does anyone happen to know at what ph DMT would salt out at?
lux
RE: Purification
Hey RWB (and others),
Q: Does anyone get any value out of the forum over at
Trevyn's?
I've heard so many references to it that I spent and hour scouring archives but, found interface poor and the current posts totally vacuous. Where's the valuable thread there - if it exists. Or, are we covering it well enough here?
Thanks
lux
RE: Purification
FYI:Just wanted to briefly mention the existence of the new thread: "DMT: The "Law" and Thee!" at "DMTWorld News Babble" and invite any of my esteemed collegues here (smirk) to post related thoughts on that topic when moved.
Thanks!
P.S. Thanks for all the valuable education here on this thread.
Learning a lot.
Dosadi
RE: Purification
Scholar, I spent several HOURS last night combing the web for this information and could not find it. I found every OTHER possible type of info about DMT - mass spec graphs, heat of vaporization, atomic weight, atomic specta, etc etc etc but no Ph info! All I know is that it isn't "very" basic - none of the nitrogenous bases are. There is one of the Phalaris documents on the Lycaeum which says to acidify to Ph 5 to salt out the alkaloids, which implies that the Ph of the DMT freebase is around 9, which makes sense to me.
Acidifying to a lower Ph level like Trevyn's method does (Ph 1, very very acidic) will make the process go more quickly and you'll salt out a higher percentage of the base (how much higher, I don't know), but you will also be salting out or dissolving a whole buch of other stuff that you don't want. I am quite sure that Ph 1 is WAY more acidic than you need. If you want to experiment, I'd do it like this:
First, do a double-layer workup to get the stuff as pure as possible. Next, dump the gunk in water and slowly acidify using well-diluted hydrochloric acid until you reach Ph 5. Apply a little heat and stir for a bit. Filter off the undissolved gunk and save it for later. Evaporate the Ph 5 solution and see what you get. If you get any non-crystalline gunk in your extract, your Ph might be too low, or the heat may be dissolving non-DMT stuff, or a combination of the two. In this case, try skipping the heat first and see if that helps. If it doesn't, redissolve your extract and try using less acid. Needless to say, once you start playing around with this level of fine-tuning your Ph, you will probably need a good Ph meter. But hopefully this won't be necessary.
If you get NOTHING in your extract, do the same thing as above but add heat and/or lower your Ph a little more. I do not anticipate that this will be a problem, but I can't say for sure. If you get any crystals, re-extract the remaining gunk at Ph 5 again to see if you get more crystals. Keep doing this until you aren't getting anything more. This will tell you how effective your extraction was. If the extraction ater the first do not product much more crystals, you have found a working method and you should be all set. If it takes five extractions at Ph 5 to get it all out, more heat or longer stirring/simmering time might help.
Skeptic
RE: Purification
But don't forget that if this were done the product would be the salt. One would have to basify and extract the freebase to turn this to smokable DMT.
Skeptic
RE: Purification
Oh, and Lux:
No, Trevyn's site is absolutely worthless... lowest signal to noise ratio of any net dialogue INCLUDING a.d.c. at its worst (and that's saying something).
Yoda did give us his extraction method there, so I guess it wasn't completely pointless. But you could get the same technique from August at the Lycaeum.
bacchus
RE: Purification
Dosadi-believe it or not, at least with mimosa, this method is HIGHLY selective for DMT and nothing else. There is no need to even go backand try to wash or otherwise purify the final product - just 1 acid extraction, basify, and 1 nonpolar extraction. For sure, the product is not 100% pure DMT freebase, but it's close enough that you're not going to know the difference. If anything, I think the pH of basification is where experiments would be more valuable. Too high, and some gunk seems to get solubilized that would otherwise stay in the aqueous layer.Still it DOES have to be pretty high,at least 12 I believe. But if you just like to tinker, go right ahead...
Dosadi
RE: Purification
Skeptic: Yes, the salt will have a higher vaporization temperature because of that heavy Cl atom, but it can still be smoked. Even such heavy molecules like cocaine can be smoked in the salt form, although it becomes much harder to avoid overheating and burning. Freebase is always better if you can get it. But if you can isolate the pure salt, it is a snap to turn it back into the base.
Bacchus: Are you extracting bark? Part of the reason that phalaris is such a PITA to extract is that the plant is a grass, which means that it is basically a bunch of thin cellulose balloons holding liquids
Bark has a much higher percentage of insoluble structural material, and what moisture is present serves as a transport medium for the plant's chemical defenses, of which alkaloids are one. So the "wonder plant" is Mimosa after all. I suspected as much. Has anyone tried Acacia? It looks like it has just a little bit more DMT than Mimosa. What is it that makes Mimosa so attractive, other than it has DMT and you can get this stuff out? |->Man, screw pahalaris! I will probably throw out my JLF phalaris extract without even trying anything with it. To think of all the time that has been wasted on that crap over the years....
bacchus
RE: Purification
Dosadi-mimosa hostilis ROOT BARK is da kine, the holy grail. It is easy to work with, and gives a very clean product. Get it from Botanical Preservation Corps. I suspect Desmanthus ROOT BARK (from Herbal Shamen) is equally good, but I haven't tried it. If one was planning to purchase any material for extraction, these 2 are really the only ones worth considering. If you live where the "good" kind of acacias grow, that would be worth a try too.
Phalaris is easy and quick to grow, and I guess can be put to good use in a potion with syrian rue, if you like that sort of thing. As you've found, it's a huge PITA to try to isolate anything from it, and if you do, you'll be getting mostly 5MeO anyway, so why bother?
lux
RE: Purification
Skeptic, Thanks for the reality check. Bacchus, Re: "...mimosa hostilis ROOT BARK.."Q: do you have a URL or address on Botanical Preservation Corps? Any clear bark-to-final-product ratio known yet?
FYI: If we successfully detail this alchemy, and it seems we may be getting close, I'd be willing to fund & publish the first "How To" print publication. But we really have to nail the method down to a no-brainer, "from field to kitchen to frontal lobe" kind of manual (complete w/ 4-color graphics of course).
Thoughts any one?
Dosadi
RE: Purification
Lux, it appears that Yoda's method works just fine if you use plant matter that is decent (Mimosa, maybe others) and not Phalaris. That could fit on one piece of paper, black and white. I wouldn't bother sinking any money into a printing, just take the writeup on Trevyn's site, add spaces after the commas and periods to make it readable, and that should do it. Maybe Yoda's method could benefit from a smallish rewrite - it is a bit too "conversational", which makes it a little harder to follow than it needs to be.
Also, it has some optional parts which could be made manadatory or removed for greater clarity and simplicity. A true "no-brainer" method would tell the user exactly which chemicals to use, exactly when to use them, exactly what order to do things in, etc. It might also be able to dispense with any discussion of the chemistry theory behind the extraction(s) - if people want to know more than the mindless step-by-step recipie, they can consult more general extraction documents. Hmm, maybe I will take Yoda's document and try to strip it down and reword it myself. I'm curious to see how tight I can get it without losing any necessary info. I'll let you guys know when I have something to look at.
bacchus
RE: Purification
The point of Yoda's method is to combine a basic description of the principles AND a set of easy to follow instructions. By simply saying "first do this, then do this" it might be clearer to some people, but:
What if you have some petroleum ether, and I have some DCM? The first is lighter than water so is in the top layer, the second heavier, so will be in the bottom layer. Do you want to tell people they need exactly a specific set of chemicals? Yoda used standardized .1N HCl and DCM. It worked swell for him. Most, but not all, people reading the instructions are going to use Muriatic acid from Home Depot, and petroleum ether from wherever. See what I mean? A certain amount of flexibilty with materials and methods is a good thing, but a neo-chemist is going to need at least a little background to figure out the best way for their particular situation. just my 3c.
Dosadi
RE: Purification
My first crack at a simplified method is in a new thread in this forum. Have a look-see and reply in that thread with your comments. Bacchus, the idea is to make the procedure mindless, and this cannot be done as effectively if you are giving options to people who don't know the principles on which the procedure is based. Once you get into the realms of different solvents, use of a sep funnel vs. the "baggie method" vs. using a turkey baster, defatting at the start or not, etc. you might as well write up a much more detailed document covering the theory of acid-base polar-nonpolar alkaloid extraction. There are already many of those floating around the net.
Yoda's method does not provide enough theory for a theory-based document, but it provides TOO MUCH theory for a mindless turn-the-crank recipie. My revised method uses muratic acid, lye and naptha and no substitutes. Everyone should be able to get these. It also uses only the turkey baster seperatory method, which is what everyone ends up using anyway. It does not use the words "defat", "emulsion", "polar", "nonpolar", "alkaloids", "salt", or "freebase". It should not be necessary to teach someone organic chemistry in order for them to be able to successfully extract DMT from plant material. See my post in the new thread for some ideas I have on possible further simplifications to this process. I need input from people who have used Yoda's method successfully or have seen it done to get some more info on which parts are important and which are less so. Dammit! I wish I could work on this myself, but I just cannot right now so I will have to rely on the experiences of others.
vine
RE: Purification
Lux - BPC's address:
BPC
PO Box 1368
Sebastopol CA 95473
$2 for catalog
The great majority of sources claim a 1% alkaloid figure for M. hostilis.
August claims 1oz M. hostilis=280mg of crystals w/ his method.
--Vine
lux
RE: Purification
Dearest friends: Dosadi, Bacchus, Your banter is so helpful for us newer to the art and searching for the way. Your back-n-forth really has inspired me to learn so much more about organic chemistry, etc. Hey Dosadi, if there's no need for the book... all the better! Bacchus, although your posts have always been full of detailed specifics and well written, from the standpoint of a rote beginner here I have to agree with Dosadi's approach to teaching this process. Less options = better results (for the novice anyway).
Perhaps the final paper (URL, FAQ, whatever) could contain a postscript with references to more of the theory and optional approaches to achieving the same end. (?)Will go check out your new thread D. Thanks for the address V.
-lux
P.S. Did our Yoda just disappear? What up, Y-man?
lux
RE: Purification
Gang,
Just moved this over to: PURIFICATION II [from: Purif. (was Natural...)...
getting long again.
See ya there.
-Lux