BASI DMT Benzoate Salting from Isopropanol

[modern]

("BASI" stands for Benzoic Acid Saturated Isopropanol)

Items needed:
Benzoic acid has interested me recently however citric acid should work as well in theory similar to cielo since similar properties. IF citric acid works will be great for Mescaline citrate since insoluble in ISO but maybe not good for dmt citrate judging by cielo results? MAY act differently?

99+% Isopropanol small amounts is all that is needed since alkaloids are HIGHLY soluble in the solvent. MUCH EASIER TO OBTAIN AND MUCH CHEAPER than EtOAc and other solvents. Can be reused rather than evaporated like was done in the past.

Calcium hydroxide would be the best option however sodium carbonate should work since solubility is low as well. Lye will also work but need to be careful with amounts used

Microwave to dry and remove excess water when alkalizing the material

DMT benzoate has been confirmed by myself from freebase so the next step will be doing an extraction from start using Iso however perhaps a crude extraction would be a better option? Microwave DRY tek comes to mind. I'll be testing to see if this works with mescaline and cactus alkaloids as well. If doesn't work as an extraction method maybe just as another salting combination?



So once the freebase alkaloids are in the 99% isopropanol you make a solution of BASI and add an amount of salt equivalent to amount of suspected alkaloids present.
If you have 1gram of DMT you add 1g equivalent of the BASI. Excess does seem to stay in solution but I've only done a single run sofar.

Once you add the BASI there is NO CLOUDING. I didn't wait overnight but you start stiring the mixture and almost like magic with saturated solutions of DMT you get a paste if too concentrated or you start seeing a precipitate form. MIXING does seem to be required. If you have a paste you should add some fresh isopropanol to dilute and allow the precipitate to settle.

After about an hour the precipitate settled and I filtered the solution and let it dry.

I added more BA/BASI to test if more would precipitate and left it overnight. In the morning the glass had some shiny shards/crystals as well as the precipitate on the bottom I filtered again.

Added to the freezer and left it a few hours and once again it precipitated some more. Ill test this freeze precipitate seperatly to see if DMT Benzoate as well.

The freeze precipitate doesn't sink (maybe my fridge isn't cold enough?) but it can be filtered off.


In my experiment I started with a heptane freeze precipitated DMT freebase so will need to test how other alkaloids and impurities will affect the formation of the DMT benzoate. I'd imagine that there will be even more 'jungle spices' like with xylene/naptha pulls when starting from plant material.

Depending on the alkalizing agent used there may be some contamination of calcium benzoate or sodium benzoate however it should be minimal particularly with calcium hydroxide.

I plan to test if a precipitate forms from crude cactus extract(dirty xylene extract). I don't have enough material to backtest pure material like I did with the dmt.

So if you guys would be interested in a different salting/extraction to see works and doesn't. After I test this I'll probably freebase again and test with 70% isopropanol or 70% ethanol and 'salting out' with sodium chloride to test if you can freeze precipitate out if doesn't come out at ambent tempatures like with 99+%


Big thanks to @Jan e Kharabat for the tip on benzoic acid and also @Loveall for help with cielo when I was working better understanding and @Transform for the help with my questions.

 

[Jan e Kharabat]

I myself haven't had much success with dry teks. In my experience, calcium hydroxide doesn't break down the plant material very well, and decanting IPA out of it is a pain. The fine particles come along and you have to pass it through a filter paper, which means more mess and a possible yield loss. I have never had good yields with dry teks, but that could be just me.
I prefer the everything in one bottle method, it's least messy and I have had around 1.8% yield with it.

 

[modern]

I myself haven't had much success with dry teks. In my experience, calcium hydroxide doesn't break down the plant material very well, and decanting IPA out of it is a pain. The fine particles come along and you have to pass it through a filter paper, which means more mess and a possible yield loss. I have never had good yields with dry teks, but that could be just me.
I prefer the everything in one bottle method, it's least messy and I have had around 1.8% yield with it.

So after even more researching a wet tek of a very saturated solution of sodium hydroxide will freebase plant alkaloids then you can even use 70% isopropanol and there will be a phase seperation it seems with 99%+ isopropanol. I'll test this splitting my dmt into two with starting weights and pull with 99% and 70% iso. Lye cant be used with ethyl acetate but from my research it is a common drying agent for isopropanol

I need to weigh how much viridis leaves I have to see if I have enough to have measurable end product.

 

[modern]

So I tested using 70% iso plus a very saturated sodium hydroxide solution. There was a phase seperation and since I made the 99% to 70% I knew the exact volume. The amounts matched however it as still wet as I later discovered. So I separated the top phase and proceeded to add BASI from 99% I had saved from the first success. I kept adding and even added more BA and kept stiring. I'm sure I added well over the amount needed and no precipitate formed. So I decided to take 1ml and placed it on calcium carbide I have and it formed bubbles so wasn't dry enough.

Now I've joined the two phases again and added more sodium hydroxide since I added enough BA that it neutralized the original solution. I didn't have a phase seperation so I added salt rather than adding more lye. I added enough until the solution was saturated and there was a solid precipitate and the aqueous alkaline phase even seemed to be precipitating some sodium hydroxide as it was cloudy. The top alcohol phase on top was a yellowish hue. I'll be adding sodium hydroxide flakes directly to the alcohol so it pulls the water out. I'll add around 10+% of the weight as I've read that figure. Tomorrow I'll decant and test the BASI again made from 99% iso. If it works then I'll work from there. I only have 5g dry of viridis so I'll need to delay testing from plant material.

The base soup I pulled with hexane and tried "the benzoic acid tek" TEK - The benzoic acid tek
There was zero clouding so I believe all the dmt migrated to the isopropanol since it is VERY soluble and the aqueous phase also had salt saturation so pushed everything over.

DRY tek using minimal liquid lye solution will be the better option using 99% iso if we can't make water water extraction work. I'll update tomorrow or this weekend when I finish the experiment.

 

[modern]

So today I got around to doing salting my 'dry' 70% iso from the sodium hydroxide flakes and it was VERY dry BUT was it 99%+ IDK but I left it in the freezer all day and zero precipitates formed but I filter than I added some sodium sulfate just to test if any clumping and ZERO clumping all good I thought. so I filtered once more with a double filter this time to remove a 'haze' from the solution and it was clear. Now I added 1g to 20ml of 99 iso and added to the solution. There was a precipitate that formed after stiring a bit I thought great. BUT it was strange and later turned into a gelatinous gump. I assume some hydrate form of sodium benzoate. So see if I can possibly recover any dmt from this goo. Never occured with the first attempt at 'drying' without the sodium hydroxide flakes.

So I'll abandon the idea of using sub 70-90% isopropanol for this. I'll reattempt using lye and allowing it to dry then pulling. From what I've read solubility is minimal so should be ok? Then move over to wash soda if it works.

 

[modern]

After more research the only two alkalizing agents that would make sense for this technique is sodium carbonate and calcium hydroxide. Sodium carbonate is practically insoluble so final contamination should be minimal. The only thing is you need to pull from dry material.

I harvested more psychotria leaves and now have a total of 10g completely dry. I added sodium carbonate solution enough to wet cover the leaves slightly and added more sodium carbonate the ph is in the high 11 range but not saturated solution. 10g/100ml is enough for most plants with a ph around 11.7. I left the leaves soaking in the degergent solution of 12 hours. When I returned the water was a very dark color almost black like with lye. I heated the solution to attempt to dry but I'm pretty tired so decided to just leave it soaking another 12 hours overnight. I'll then evaporate all the water from the plant material leaving sodium carbonate and dry leaves. From there I'll soak the leaves for some time... I'm considering doing atleast 2 soaks 1 only soaking for 15 minutes and another for 1h but since I only have a very small amount of starting materal I'll work on time required later. I doubt much is needed. After that its I'll add some BASI and stir to see if a precipitate forms. I'll need to freeze precipitate most likely due to small content.

EDIT: freeze precipitate of dmt benzoate was around 30mg from 50ml IDK exact figures of solubility since didn't measure properly before.


Sodium hydroxide is soluble in isopropanol so will not a viable option. Other alkalizing agents may work like potassium hydroxide? IDK solubility of potassium benzoate in isopropanol.

If this current POC works I'll test mescaline citrate formed directly in isopropanol solution. IDK solubility of mescaline benzoate but that'll be the next test.

I also have an idea for an extraction using just water as the solvent but want to finish this one first.

 

[Jan e Kharabat]

I don't really understand what you're doing there... But I'll suggest reading through the forums a bit. Simply soaking leaves in sodium carbonate won't work and that 30mg precipitate is probably no DMT benzoate. But you can put it in your vaporizer and see if it starts vaporizing at around 150-160 degrees Celsius. If so, you can inhale the vapor and check for activity. If it's active, your method is working.

 

[_Trip_]

Yeah dry tek should work well, sodium carbonate will sufficiently base the dmt and iso will pull without sodium carbonate contamination. If indeed benzoic acid crashes dmt out of iso then you're method will work it could crash out contaminantsbut unlikely worth a follow up lab test to be sure. But you will need to complete dry the material otherwise the water content will carry over into the iso with the sodium carbonate.

I still like crashing out with d limo plus the spice taste like oranges when you smoke it

 

[Jan e Kharabat]

Will it work even without a cook or without shredding the leaves?

 

[modern]

The freeze precipitate comment was from the original post. I also messed up and it was 30mg from around 25ml so solubility is around 1-2mg per ml in isopropanol MAYBE MORE?

So the very first dry run on this tek and already see much room for improvement. Best would be to do acid/water pulls on the plant material and before reducing completely adding the sodium carbonate powder so it freebase and then bake or slow cook/microwave to dryness. This saves you lots of solvent and also the less solvent you use the better to prevent excess alkaloids from remaining in solution after salting. You can always just save for the next extraction.

I dried the wash soda leaves completely on low heat then added to microwave in 30 second bursts until powder dry. Once dry I added isopropanol to cover the entire content and mixed. I did 2x pulls for a maximum of 30 minutes. There was a MASSIVE amount of solvent loss due to remaining in the plant material. Even squeezing I wasn't able to recover much. From here I decanted but needed to filter the solution. This also caused some solvent loss but not as much as the plant material. After filtering the solution was a clear green color with zero precipitate. I added the benzoic acid directly to the alcohol since I didn't have any remaining. I stirred and it all dissolved I added a little more and stirred again. This time there was a precipitate that formed and wouldn't dissolve. So I added a bit more BA and it dissolved in solution but a little more precipitate formed so added once more and this time the amount seemed to remain the same. I added the solution to the freezer but nothing precipitated. I have EXCESSIVE solvent so from my calculations as much as 100mg may be trapped likely less.

I've now decanted off the isopropanol then filtered the precipiate. Since this is a dry run I've decided to evaporate the isopropanol to see if more precipitate formed. The yield is too small to measure so far hopefully more will precipitate out for atleast 20mg of content. There doesn't seem to be any contamination even from the chlorophyll. Psychotria has a fairly clean profile so maybe with rootbark this is not the case.

As far as the dmt benzoate forming and precipitating from isopropanol I can confirm it does. I tested the activity and it is indeed active at expected amounts. I've not tested the freeze precipitate from the OP.

I'm also certain this will work with mescaline however rather than benzoate citric acid should be used. Even if not anhydrous the monohydrate shouldn't affect much since the alcohol will dilute it enough like with cielo goo.

 

[modern]

After allowing the plant material to completely evaporate off the isopropanol I added some more lye water and hydrated it well. Added hexan and pulled with an excess of 50ml. I added a tiny amount of benzoic acid hexane and it did cloud a bit I kept added until it stopped clouding. I decanted and there was clearly some benzoic acid contamination. So I added a little bit of the iso that I'm evaporating to dissolve the excess benzoic acid and almost all of the crystals disappeared so likely was a small amount of dmt in the hexane due to the clouding but seems tiny. I could leave the isopropanol soaking longer or the dried water pull will be more effective in pulling the dmt.

The hexan became very yellow will pulling from the 10g leaves which is likely the plant oils. I'll try to see if the hexan pull after the isopropanol has an amount worth considering.

 

[_Trip_]

Will it work even without a cook or without shredding the leaves?

Yh, think of it as a STB. Powderising leaves would likely increase yield of course too.

 

[modern]

So I did another test using cactus this time to test my theory... I'm fairly certain mescaline citrate preciptates out of solution but upon filtering and allowing to to dry overnight it 'disappeared' and also turned to a red goo. I assume it is similar to CIELO being too dry causing a goo to form. I'll try again with benzoic acid since it worked with DMT.

Started with 1.1kg fresh weight made a tea and reduced down to around 100ml then added sodium carbonate enough that ph paper showed blue so 11.7-12ish. Dried completely then microwaved until no more steam came off. Blender and did 2x isopropanol pulls first with 100ml only recovered 50ml so added another 50ml and left it longer and pulled 50 ml. A vaccum pump would help recover more isopropanol so I'll be trying to make a DIY one. I applied citric acid directly didn't weigh but wasn't excessive... Nothing happened as expected so stirred and precipitate started. I allowed it to settle for 1 hour then decanted most of the isopropanol. Visually its around an amount I'd expect so was quite satisfied. Filtered off the remaining thru filter paper and left it overnight. Was saddened to see oil stains on the paper and some red goo on the bottom. So I added water to collect the goo on the watch glass and put the filter paper in the water to try and salvage this. I added sodium carbonate again and will reattempt with benzoic acid. I've not seen solubility reports of mescaline benzoate but hopefully it is similar to DMT benzoate.... Older post on DMT benzoate showed it is sparingly solubale in isopropanol so the key is first making a reduced tea then using minimal isopropanol to pull the dmt freebase.

The final photo is my attempt to test if I can reuse the isopropanol by adding sodium carbonate to nutralize the acid and hopefully it is similar to ethyl acetate. Regardless accessablility and price of isopropanol is a win for me. This is a bit more work however much less odor, no issues using plastics, and iso is 5x cheaper and widely avalabile.

 

[modern]

So I tried to salvage the goo and it seems to be working... if I can manage to get atleast around 80mg benzoate salt I can do a test to see if it is indeed mescaline benzoate or atleast a majority is. I'll add a photo in a hour or so once it settles.

I have been able to test the 'recycled isopropanol' and it indeed worked without trouble. The only issue is knowing how much sodium carbonate to add to neutralize the acid in the alcohol. I added a little excess just to make sure and when decanting left a little on the bottom since shouldn't make a difference. Similar to ethyl acetate however 'bubbles' are less common due to extremely low presence of water. The main thing is not adding excessive acid powder when salting and also adding slight excess sodium carbonate to make sure.

This would be a great alternative for those that don't have access to the other solvents commonly used, heptane, xylene, ethyl acetate due to restrictions or bans. Isopropanol here is 5x cheaper than any of these solvents and much more accessible without drawing any attention. Sold as electronics cleaning agent in 1-5L.

Benzoic acid seems to be the acid of choice with isopropanol direct salting... I thought cielo would work with cactus but needs that little bit of water to say a solid salt. I'm considering trying DMT citrate in the isopropanol. Maybe the lack of water will prevent it from forming a goo like with EtOAc?

EDIT: Looks like very little precipitate settles so I placed in the freezer... I'll need to try this next time salting with benzoic acid at the first attempt. Recovery is terrible.

 

[Transform]

I have been able to test the 'recycled isopropanol' and it indeed worked without trouble. The only issue is knowing how much sodium carbonate to add to neutralize the acid in the alcohol. I added a little excess just to make sure and when decanting left a little on the bottom since shouldn't make a difference. Similar to ethyl acetate however 'bubbles' are less common due to extremely low presence of water. The main thing is not adding excessive acid powder when salting and also adding slight excess sodium carbonate to make sure.

What form of SC have you been using? It's definitely best to use anhydrous SC, made by toasting sodium bicarbonate if you can't obtain 'soda ash' directly. This helps to prevent sodium carbonate dissolving into any residual water in the IPA. Neutralising an acid with a carbonate produces water, so sufficient anhydrous SC is need to mop up this resulting water.

 

[modern]

What form of SC have you been using? It's definitely best to use anhydrous SC, made by toasting sodium bicarbonate if you can't obtain 'soda ash' directly. This helps to prevent sodium carbonate dissolving into any residual water in the IPA. Neutralising an acid with a carbonate produces water, so sufficient anhydrous SC is need to mop up this resulting water.

I have access to sodium carbonate directly from a chemical provider so I believe it is anhydrous.

I'm going to do another small run with dmt just to test citrate salt and benzoate again. I've read past reports of citrate becoming a goo in ethyl acetate so just testing without water present. DMT benzoate seems to work well for me atleast. This will not replace heptane but a nice alternative for those without access. If it works for dried cactus tea I'll use since smell of xylene is quite strong to me and I usually make tea to reduce volume anyways.

 

[modern]

So the benzoic acid salting shows promise since it remained in salt form. This is the attempt at recovering from the citric acid that turned to a goo. I also used the 'recycled isopropanol' for this which shows that extremely minimal water content shouldn't be an issue? My isopropanol is allegedly 99.8% so IDK. 99% atleast.

Looking at this when thru the alcohol was misleading on the amount. Looked like minimal powder however when I decanted the crystals stuck to the glass and when I scraped it has some volume. This is before scraping.... First photo is a top view inside... follow photos are bottom of the glass. I have dissolved in hot water to collect it all and placed on a watch glass. I'll allow it to evaporate and see if the crystals are more attractive or possibly changed forms due to adding hydrating.

If I can get around 80mg I'll be able to do a test on activity and try comparing to my experience with 50mg hcl and harmalas.

This should be mescaline BTW... DMT benzoate I have confirmed for myself but still didn't test the freeze precipitate. 30mg after I salted twice until no more precipitate formed. Solubility of DMT benzoate I'd estimate around 2mg/mL of isopropanol but my freezer isn't the best so maybe little higher? Also always need to use minimal isopropanol for this reason but when pulling solubility of freebase alkaloids seem to be VERY high.

 

[Transform]

Looking good!

Also always need to use minimal isopropanol for this reason but when pulling solubility of freebase alkaloids seem to be VERY high.

I can confirm this point - a single drop of alcohol can liquefy (or at least, goo-ify) a huge pile of DMT freebase. My hypotheses are that it may form a eutectic mixture, or that it has a lot to do with DMT's tendency to manifest in an oily form.

 

[modern]

So the DMT citrate at first formed a solid precipitate however once the alcohol evaporated it slowly started to form a goo so citrate is a no go for DMT and mescaline.

 

[modern]

Now for the mescaline Benzoate. Do not try to recystalize with water as it will form a transparent goo. I didn’t photograph but the the result after the alcohol dries is similar to thick granulated sugar which is easier to handle and dose. When attempting to dry with isopropanol it worked however needed to scrape lots of transparent goo which becomes hard to dose due to clumping to a solid mass.
Photos are the transparent goo after trying to heat dry. Then adding isopropanol you see lose crystals but there is lots of transparent material which you need to scrape.
Weighed the material recovered and it was around 180mg of mescaline Benzoate so should be equal to around 140ish hcl. I’ll test this with harmalas this weekend.