Hi, I have a friend who has acquired a 2KG supply of Mimosa Hostilis Inner Powdered Rootbark on behalf of a friend. In any case, he has been following the tek listed here: http://www.spiritelf.com/substances/index.php?doc=63 and I have to say I am highly impressed by it's simplicity. (I know there is some debate around straight to base teks like this, but they do seem to work well for mimosa, since this contains little fats, or chlorophyll etc (so no need for defatting, or the acidification stages). In any case my friend would like to use this tek - but as he has such a substantial supply of mimosa (roughly 4x the amount that is being worked in this tek) he is curious as to whether he should simply use 4x the amount of water and chemicals used in this tek too - or if maybe it doesn't work like that? He also notes that this tek doesn't give a specific value for the initial water/sodium hydroxide mix - and while he is aware that the author was probably keen to preserve the simplicity of the tek, he feels that this value should be able to be clearly established. He is highly uncertain if simply 4xing the amount of water used and the amount of Sodium Hydroxide (and the amount of Naphtha) will preserve the correct PH value - and the correct chemical balance also, or if doing this might have some kind of adverse effect? He notes from reading other teks that in several instances some amateur chemists have failed to successfully complete this experiment due to using too much Naphtha and other chemicals. Having spent a considerable sum of money in setting up this experiment, he is keen to do everything he can to ensure that he doesn't screw up. He would therefore welcome any advice anyone on this forum feels able to offer. He would be most grateful in particular if any such advice referred directly to the above tek alone and not to some deviation of this, or to any discussion about the relative merits of any other possible teks - as this is only likely to confuse him considerably. Thanks.
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2KG Mimosa Hostilis Straight to base?
- Thread starter raid517
- Start date
opticuswrangler
Esteemed member
It is a good idea to figure out as many teks as possible, knowledge is a good thing. If you are confused, you may not be ready.... Why in the world would you risk 2K of MHRB on your first extraction, if you do not know what you are doing? It sounds to me like you are setting up for a spectacular failure. Maybe it would be better to do a few 50 g experiments before you ruin 2K of bark?
I am not really confused. The tek I pointed to is really very simple. I have read many teks and this sounds the most promising. However a very small scale experiment might be an idea. Nonetheless the correlation of relative quantities is still of interest to me. For example one would imagine (since this is supposed to be science) that there should be a direct mathematical correlation concerning the ratios of chemicals to the amount of powdered woodbark to use? If indeed this was science, there should I imagine be the possibility that one could devise a chart - or perhaps such a chart already exists? Anyway without a chart like this it seems most of us are simply left guessing.
The Little White Elf
Rising Star
SWIM would try less first even to do just a 100 or 200g to just get an idea of how the whole extraction works. With 100g you should end up with around a gram of the good stuff and thats a good start. You learn things as you go along like what the best way to get it out of the naph and how to end up with cleaner product. It would suck to end up with a bunch of nasty end product. If you do decide to do a large batch you can just use as much as you think will be easy to work with and have something to measure your PH and you cant go wrong. SWIM has found that the marsofold TEK works good to get every thing out of the bark and to end up with a cleaner product. SWIM would try a smaller batch though if this is your first time you will end up with enough for a bunch of experiences off of around 100 to 200g of bark.
Hi OK SWIM went with the tek posted at the top of this thread. He has 4 wine 1 gallon win bottles and he pretty much followed the tek to the letter 500g of mimosa (although powdered in this instance) 200g of sodium hydroxide 3 litres of water 1 litre of Naphtha per 500 grams of bark and so on. After an hour this is what he ended up with: [img:fd2919823d]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v226/raid517/04082007007.jpg[/img:fd2919823d] He would very much like to know if this looks correct? The two jars on the left are simply a mimosa, sodium hydroxide and water solution. They have not had any Naphtha added to them yet. Swim is a bit short on Naphtha and intends to reuse the Naphtha in the two bottles on the right after he has completed a full collection cycle from them. So to be clear the two jars on the right do contain Naphtha. SWIM does not think that leaving the mimosa on the jars on the right in the sodium hydroxide solution for a day or so will cause any particular harm - and at least the situation is rescuable if the extraction from the initial two jars is unsuccessful. Does anyone care to offer a view?
Well the tek said 1 litre, so that's what SWIM used. The more I read the various teks, the more of an impression I get that there is no set method for this. I have read PH values of between 12.5 and 14 (all claiming to be ideal) varing times to leave the Sodium Hydroxide and bark solution, ranging from a few hours, to a full day and varing amounts of water to use for 500g of mimosa ranging from 3 literes to over 10. At the end of the day I think you just have to toss some Naphtha in there and hope for the best. SWIM would probably have liked to use less Naphtha, if he thought this was possible, but he has't read a tek so far that said that one could do this. Most seem to say 1 littre is required per 500 grams. Anyway please remember, it is SWIM (and his friend SWIY) who are doing this - I am simply communicating with them by email.
freedominphilly
Rising Star
[quote:8474b5e91f="raid517"] SWIM would probably have liked to use less Naphtha, if he thought this was possible, but he has't read a tek so far that said that one could do this. Most seem to say 1 littre is required per 500 grams. [/quote:8474b5e91f] Noman's tek call for 1 ml naphtha for 1 gr of bark.
Quote from tek in top link: "After you are done mashing the root bark for a few minutes (which will still be fairly hard if only soaking 2 hours) then add 250 to 400 ml of clean room temperature naphtha (more makes separation from the soup easier) and stir the solvent into the aqueous mix for 20-30 minutes (longer is better)." That is for 500 grams. Unless that is some really high yield bark, it won't freeze precip well because the concentration of alks will be too low. The above tek calls for evaping rather than freeze preciping anyway but I'm assuming that swim will be preciping since he intends to reuse his naptha. I can't really say what will have happened to the alks in his other two jugs by then. It'll be yellow and oily for sure and probably wont precip at all but one can evap since he doesn't need the naptha again, but leaving it that long at that high a concentration of lye aint good. As far as lye quantities go, 13.5 is right for A/B's - those calling for a lower pH are wrong. For straight to base, like this one and mine, the pH is [i:c347aab6ab]way[/i:c347aab6ab] beyond 14. IMO, your friend still hasn't used enough lye - I'll bet you a dollar he gets more out if he adds another 200g. He'll also be leaving a lot behind if he only does one NP extraction as called for. Three is minimum.
Well someone is right about something and someone is wrong. SWIM followed the tek as closely as he could - but after decanting the Naphtha to the glass jar on the right and putting it in the freezer on a very low setting overnight, he saw nothing, no crystals nothing. (Be aware however that we are talking about nearly 2 litres of Naphtha in a single jar, so I don't know if that is significant He could I guess evap off some of this and then use freeze precipitation to raise the concentration, but how much he should evap is another question). In any case he has decided to follow advice here and has split the Naphtha among the four jars. Since some of this was lost during natural spillage, this equates to around 350ml per jar. If SWIM does in fact need to do repeated extracting cycles (which is reasonable if he is to collect most of the alkaloid, this presents a problem if freeze precipitation is not workable, since if he uses evap he will loose all of his Naphtha. It's a head scratcher really - as obtaining the Naphtha in the UK wasn't so easy - and there is a postal strike on now too, so getting more may be difficult. As for leaving the mimosa in the base solution, well hopefully that shouldn't be a problem - as the original Tek at the top of this thread details how he did repeated extraction cycles. thus leaving the alkaloid in the solution for for a number of days. If your advice is indeed to add 200g more Sodium hydroxide to each bottle, is it possible to do this on top of the Naphtha? I mean can you do this when it is already added? Getting 'more' out would definitely be useful, since currently through freeze precipitation he has gotten nothing. He will try one more cycle tonight with thorough mixing and then see how it goes. If freezing doesn't work, then he will evap down to 50% and then try again.
Hi, OK SWIM has a big problem now. The layers on 3 of the bottles look like they are as separated as they are going to get. One is almost on it's way and will probably be at it's maximum separation in another hour or so. So he decided to go ahead and try an extraction. However the Naphtha that has come out of solution is no longer clear.. It is a pale yellow/orangey sticky colour. In his most ardent aspirations he would hope that this meant that there was a high concentration of DMT in the solution. But he has never heard reports of this sticky thick orange layer before - and wonders if really he has just completely fucked it up? The colour actually looks a bit like the colour of urine really and he can see small mass of cloudy particulates floating in the solvent, but perhaps (only slightly perceptibly) not quite mixed with it. It looks like what you would see if you mixed a fine powder in well with some oil. These particulates show no sign of settling out - as they seem to be held in suspension in the solvent and have remained this way for some time. (several hours in fact). SWIM wonders what on earth this is - and if there is any way he can filter it out, or if he does filter it out what exactly is it he is filtering? Is he being too premature? Should he leave the mix to settle out for a couple of more days? He has ordered more Naphtha and this should arrive either tomorrow or by Wednesday (he has ordered plenty this time) so he wonders if adding more to the mix might help clean things up a little? He could always evap off whatever he doesn't need when it comes to the collection stage. Any advice would be welcomed.
The Little White Elf
Rising Star
As you can see there are a lot of things that you learn as you go and it would have been better to try a small batch first to see how it works. As for the emulsion layer the one you say looks orange, try heating it up a little and if that does not work then try adding some more lye to it. The color is from the oils in the bark and will make some nasty yellow extract. Doing a freeze precipitation will help to keep some of the oils out of the end product.
Well so long as the situation isn't unrescuable? I mean SWIM presumes that adding maybe 2 or 300ML of Naphtha to each bottle and will facilitate both easier collection and better layer seperation? He is also kicking himself repeatedly because his PH meter has still not arrived. There is a postal strike in the UK right now and it is seriously screwing with things. SWIM wants to be certain he can hit a PH of 13.5 so that he can proceed with the experiment in the way that it was originally envisaged. Also can he freeze precipitate this yellow oily layer, or should he wait and add more naphtha and simply do nothing until he can see a distinct clear layer?
[quote:a21ab7b673="raid517"]He is also kicking himself repeatedly because his PH meter has still not arrived. There is a postal strike in the UK right now and it is seriously screwing with things. SWIM wants to be certain he can hit a PH of 13.5 so that he can proceed with the experiment in the way that it was originally envisaged.[/quote:a21ab7b673] If swim added 200 g of lye to each of those bottles, his pH is way way way over 13.5 and past a pH meter's range.
OK SWIM decided to do a test pull anyway. He put approximately 100ml of this greenish tinted naphtha in his very cold freezer. After only an hour he looked (only very briefly) and from what he could tell it looked like there were an awful lot of largish white crystals gathering around the edge of the glass and throught the liquid. If this is indeed DMT, SWIM will be amazed that it worked so fast and given the large amount of crystals he saw he can only imagine the quanitity he might obtain from a full extraction. He is skeptical however at how rapid the process seems. I mean an hour for crystals? Surely that can't be right? He intents to leave his test sample to the morning to see what transpires, but he thinks if this works, the basic principal is simply to keep washing the salts out of the base solution with naphtha, then evap down the naphtha to a reasonably high concentration and then to freeze precipitate out the crystals until the process simply no longer works. He still thinks that it's too early to say what these white crystals are (or if they really are crystals but he can say with certainty that there are literally thousands of these tiny white globules in this small sample alone.
[quote:c6d6c7b82e="Noman"][quote:c6d6c7b82e="raid517"]He is also kicking himself repeatedly because his PH meter has still not arrived. There is a postal strike in the UK right now and it is seriously screwing with things. SWIM wants to be certain he can hit a PH of 13.5 so that he can proceed with the experiment in the way that it was originally envisaged.[/quote:c6d6c7b82e] If swim added 200 g of lye to each of those bottles, his pH is way way way over 13.5 and past a pH meter's range.[/quote:c6d6c7b82e] So is that a good thing or a bad thing? There are people here and elsewhere who say to add even more than this. On one forum post someone said that with lye, you couldn't go past a ph of 13.5/14 anyway - which seems natural as lye will have it's own natural PH value.
The Little White Elf
Rising Star
You dont want to suck up that middle layer you will get lye and all kinds of nastys in it. You want to get it to separate and the best way is to heat it up and 200 g is too much lye you could add a little more or wait for your meter. But too low of a ph can cause the layers to separate slower. Freezing will work to get the goods out but dont suck up the middle layer and try it. Also for freezing make sure it is concentrated enough to get all the stuff out of the.
To be clear, there was no 'middle layer'. just a dark layer and a light very pale yellowish layer of solvent. The only thing SWIM sucked up was the layer of solvent. The freeze precipitation thing was/is a tad confusing. If all of these whitish globules are crystals, it is very surprising to SWIM (who knows very little about chemistry) that such crystals could precipitate out of what seemed like an impure mixture? (The yellowish/greenish colour looks like the oils/pigment from the bark - but it doesn't look like the much darker/black secondary layer). SWIM always thought that crystals could only form in a very pure mixture?
Well whatever this stuff is, it isn't ice, or anything like that. Based on the evidence of his initial experiment SWIM decided to go for a full extraction from the 4 bottles. What he ended up with looks like it could possibly be as much as several grams of a yellowish crystalline substance. It looks a bit like (yellowish) wet rock salt right now. (Or wet rock salt that someone has urinated on). Swim has only just taken his initial test sample from the freezer, but overall he is astonished how much of this substance there appears to be. He intends to wait another day, or until his supply of ammonia arrives (something else that has been held up by the UK postal strike) before collecting the larger extractions from his freezer and then do an ammonia wash to try to purify the crystals as much as possible. Bare in mind, this is just the first pull - and hopefully he will obtain even more in subsequent pulls. But if this is DMT, the initial results appear encouraging.
zero
Rising Star
Well, if I'm reading this correctly, I would say your best bet would be to combine the naphtha from those three extractions and evap all the way down. That way you'll see what you have... and whether its yellow crystals, or yellow oil, it doesnt matter. You can recrystallize from there and clean it up.