Can I use Diethyl Ether instead of xylene for a mescaline extraction

[MatLag]

Hi fellows,

Everything is in the title... I've some lab grade Diethyl ether, and I really hate the smell of xylene. Can I perform a mescaline extraction with it (I'm going with Kash's tek)? Will it be as efficient as xylene?

Thanks folks!

 

[Mindlusion]

Hi fellows,

Everything is in the title... I've some lab grade Diethyl ether, and I really hate the smell of xylene. Can I perform a mescaline extraction with it (I'm going with Kash's tek)? Will it be as efficient as xylene?

Thanks folks!

No, mescaline is a pretty polar molecule, with the three methoxy groups on the arene and a primary amine on the tail end. Mescaline freebase is poorly soluble in diethyl ether, it's better than naphtha or hexanes, which wouldn't work at all, but the solubility is still pretty poor. It would work fine for DMT but not great for mescaline. You could still perform the extraction but it wouldn't be nearly as efficient, you'd have to use something like 3x as many pulls and use 10x as much solvent as you would need for xylene. Toluene is less stinky, more volatile, a better substitute.

even better, look into dichloromethane. It is volatile (40C b.p.), and sufficiently polar to dissolve just about anything, similar to chloroform, and the smell is not bad.

 

[MatLag]

Hi Mindlusion,

Thank you for your complete answer, that's nice of you ! I'm glad to learn everyday a bit more about chemistry.
I'll give a try with dichloromethane then.

Cheers mate