Can xylene pulls can be backsalted?

[Kalitechnik]

Hey folks please help me on this one as i am wondering, can my xylene pulls be backsalted?
Do i understand correctly that i can use water with citric acid to backsalt my xylene, and later add the base solution and do the pet ether pulls to freeze precip my xtals?

And how to do it corectly? If i will have around 350 ml of xylene, how much acidic water i should use, and how many times i should do it?

 

[1Starway7]

well as much as i respect your opinion i would like to kindly say that xylene is solvent of my choice and i am using it and it doesnt smell so bad if i do just 3-4 quick pulls and than backsalt it. The odour is mininimal. And lets end this topic wheter xylene is good or not, since this topic is mainly about xylene as solvent of choice. And actually i am thinking about trying to edit this way of extraction into some TEK, that is well documented. So if anyone would be interested to use it it will be easy accesible.

fine ...i wish you luck!

 

[acacian]

Hey folks please help me on this one as i am wondering, can my xylene pulls be backsalted?
Do i understand correctly that i can use water with citric acid to backsalt my xylene, and later add the base solution and do the pet ether pulls to freeze precip my xtals?

And how to do it corectly? If i will have around 350 ml of xylene, how much acidic water i should use, and how many times i should do it?

Solution with a ph 4 will be fine. So just dissolve enough citric acid to bring it to that ph and then do 4 or 5 50ml pulls on your xylene with your acidic water. Put each aside after separating and combine. Then make basic again and pull with fresh solvent.

For good measure I like to measure the ph of my polar solution after doing the pulls. The freebase saturated NP solvent will likely push the PH of your polar phase up a bit.. if it’s still acidic after doing the pulls then happy days. If it’s around neutral I may do one extra acid wash with fresh solution just to be sure I’ve got everything.

Since you know your extract is clean at this point, you might even like to pull with fresh xylene to observe some different, but about equally clean crystals.. if you prefer the urchin crystals you can always dissolve in naptha and recrystallize Watching flat crystals form is really fun.. you can do a time lapse over the hour that follows and have a groovy film of the crystals forming.

 

[acacian]

@Transform, is there a difference in efficacy dissolving DMT with the different xylenes? Is it better to have an isolated form, or a mix? Or does it not matter?

Also, I've had a lot of difficulty actually finding out what is the exact holding capacity of DMT in these two solvents (toluene and xylene). Anecdotally they seem much the same to me, but I haven't been able to locate anything that concretely documents their holding capacity per ml.

Happy to see more members experimenting with these. And I recommend trying the extract from your xylene or toluene before salting and pulling with naptha. Maybe less so in the case of Mimosa, but with some Acacia there is a great deal lost when you pull with naptha. I think my possible route of choice may become to do an initial pull/pulls with toluene/xylene, salt the alkaloids from that, make basic and then pull with DCM.. which seem a better candidate for crystallization of 'jungle' (or in my case "bush spice") than the former two. The xylene/toluene can be re-used for initial pulls - but I would keep separate lots of "salting xylenes/toluenes" for different plants as it feels wierd using the same lot of solvent with differen't plants.

You've all inspired me to do an extraction!

 

[Kalitechnik]

@Transform, is there a difference in efficacy dissolving DMT with the different xylenes? Is it better to have an isolated form, or a mix? Or does it not matter?

Also, I've had a lot of difficulty actually finding out what is the exact holding capacity of DMT in these two solvents (toluene and xylene). Anecdotally they seem much the same to me, but I haven't been able to locate anything that concretely documents their holding capacity per ml.

Happy to see more members experimenting with these. And I recommend trying the extract from your xylene or toluene before salting and pulling with naptha. Maybe less so in the case of Mimosa, but with some Acacia there is a great deal lost when you pull with naptha. I think my possible route of choice may become to do an initial pull/pulls with toluene/xylene, salt the alkaloids from that, make basic and then pull with DCM.. which seem a better candidate for crystallization of 'jungle' (or in my case "bush spice") than the former two. The xylene/toluene can be re-used for initial pulls - but I would keep separate lots of "salting xylenes/toluenes" for different plants as it feels wierd using the same lot of solvent with differen't plants.

You've all inspired me to do an extraction!

Great share the results with us.

As far as i understood MHRB extracts they are not so much "jungle". In general there is no big difference at least for me.
Possible with acacia it might be different.

The only "problem" as i find is that the extract that comes directly from xylene stinks and tastes horrible since its quite difficult to get rid of all the xylene residues. At least this is what i understand. Therefore the whole idea of backsalting it.

one thing that keeps feeding my imagination is the process that @doubledog suggested.
that after bacsalting and basing we could just filter the solution to get the freebase, without a need for pulling with naptha.
that should also keep all the "jungle-bushy" goodness?

 

[acacian]

Great share the results with us.

As far as i understood MHRB extracts they are not so much "jungle". In general there is no big difference at least for me.
Possible with acacia it might be different.

The only "problem" as i find is that the extract that comes directly from xylene stinks and tastes horrible since its quite difficult to get rid of all the xylene residues. At least this is what i understand. Therefore the whole idea of backsalting it.

one thing that keeps feeding my imagination is the process that @doubledog suggested.
that after bacsalting and basing we could just filter the solution to get the freebase, without a need for pulling with naptha.
that should also keep all the "jungle-bushy" goodness?

Hey @Kalitechnik , if there are residues in your xylene I'd be looking for a brand that is more pure. Pure xylene shouldn't leave a residue.. the extract should be fine if the quality of your solvent is good and there aren't too many non-alkaloid impurities. I use toluene extracts from very full spectrum Acacias and it is never harsh..

Yes you can do as @doubledog suggested, however a polar wash will be required afterwards, as your filtrate will be heavily contaminated with NaOH.. you could just as easily pull the jungle bushness with a NP solvent. Remember it doesn't have to be naptha you do your final pull with. You can salt from xylene and pull with fresh xylene (or any other non selective solvent like toluene or DCM). That said.. I would love to actually see someone do this.. I've never tried it myself as I figured the NP solvent negates the need for washing off the NaOH. Make sure your filters are lab grade so they catch fine particles. But be sure on what you are consuming before you do so..

 

[Transform]

Yes, xylene pulls can be backsalted using acidic water, like water mixed with citric acid, to transfer the desired compound from the xylene into the aqueous phase. After the backsalt, you can add a base solution to the acidic water to rebase it, and then perform petroleum ether pulls to freeze-precipitate your crystals. For the correct procedure, you should gradually add the acidic water to the xylene in small portions, starting with around 50-100 ml per 350 ml of xylene, and repeat the process multiple times, adjusting based on the pH levels, to ensure efficient separation. Techai is essential to understand the chemical principles and safety precautions required for this process.

Yes, and make sure that you read the discussion before posting - we're on page four of the thread here and your (LLM-generated?) suggestion has been covered already. Is it something that you've tried yourself?

 

[Transform]

@Transform, is there a difference in efficacy dissolving DMT with the different xylenes? Is it better to have an isolated form, or a mix? Or does it not matter?

There shouldn't be much of a difference, not that I actually specifically know. It would be academically interesting to establish if there's much of a difference, and useful practically to establish some exact figures for those solvents.

Also, I've had a lot of difficulty actually finding out what is the exact holding capacity of DMT in these two solvents (toluene and xylene).

Have any members observed the point at which crystals, goo, or other solids start to form during evaporation of those solvents? I have a suspicion the solubility of freebase DMT may be exceedingly high, a bit like with ethanol.

 

[acacian]

I think so as well.. DMT is ridiculously soluble in these two solvents right until they're almost gone. Although my observation is that redissolving DMT in either xylene or toluene takes a little longer than in ethanol or DCM. So for that reason alone I mix for just a tad longer than I would with DCM.

 

[Transform]

I think so as well.. DMT is ridiculously soluble in these two solvents right until they're almost gone. Although my observation is that redissolving DMT in either xylene or toluene takes a little longer than in ethanol or DCM. So for that reason alone I mix for just a tad longer than I would with DCM.

My instinct regarding the time required for dissolution leans towards the fact that xyl./tol. molecules are simply larger than DCM or EtOH, so it takes a bit more for them to penetrate the solid DMT matrix. The effect of EtOH on DMT crystals appears to be practically instantaneous, but I haven't yet had the chance to observe DCM.

Of course, my hypothesis could be false since, e.g., ostensibly "small" water molecules can take a good while to dissolve salt or sugar (but maybe some of you will also spot why that's not an entirely fair comparison…).

 

[acacian]

Cool @Transform that's really interesting! DCM is about the same dissolution speed as ethanol from my observation.. maybe slightly slower.. but DMT disappears before your eyes in DCM much as it does with ethanol. It would probably actually be as good as acetone for making changa/enhanced leaf too - provided your DCM is pure, since it is so soluble right until its almost gone and evaps WAY faster than acetone or ethanol.

The only thing re: observing the threshold of crystal formation with any of these three solvents is that the crystals start forming hours after the solvent has finished evaporating. The point at which the extract is goo as opposed to dissolved in very small amount of solvent can feel like a bit of a grey area.. I usually go on smell and see how easily it runs - but sometimes (particularly in the case of toluene) there might be a very small amount of water left too. How would you go about best getting a read on this?

 

[Transform]

Cool @Transform that's really interesting! DCM is about the same dissolution speed as ethanol from my observation.. maybe slightly slower.. but DMT disappears before your eyes in DCM much as it does with ethanol. It would probably actually be as good as acetone for making changa/enhanced leaf too - provided your DCM is pure, since it is so soluble right until its almost gone and evaps WAY faster than acetone or ethanol.

The only thing re: observing the threshold of crystal formation with any of these three solvents is that the crystals start forming hours after the solvent has finished evaporating. The point at which the extract is goo as opposed to dissolved in very small amount of solvent can feel like a bit of a grey area.. I usually go on smell and see how easily it runs - but sometimes (particularly in the case of toluene) there might be a very small amount of water left too. How would you go about best getting a read on this?

Yeah, I only got crystals from ethanol through a weeks-long evaporation in the freezer (i.e. completely lunching it out for a while ) Otherwise it's just goo, and the water residue from a slow RT evap carries a risk of introducing mould. Experiments need to be done on establishing the limit for sensible crystallisation from ethanol. This would help further that pet project of mine

So, am I correct in recalling that DCM also dissolves harmala rather well? I'm just loth to evaporate the hard-to-find, toxic and environmentally damaging DCM in an open system. Condensing the vapours would get a bit fiddly without a bit of decent equipment, making this one for me to mull over a little longer (like way too many other things ) - rather like your final question here. I'll have too sleep on that, it's been a long, hot day here.

 

[acacian]

Yeah, I only got crystals from ethanol through a weeks-long evaporation in the freezer (i.e. completely lunching it out for a while ) Otherwise it's just goo, and the water residue from a slow RT evap carries a risk of introducing mould. Experiments need to be done on establishing the limit for sensible crystallisation from ethanol. This would help further that pet project of mine

So, am I correct in recalling that DCM also dissolves harmala rather well? I'm just loth to evaporate the hard-to-find, toxic and environmentally damaging DCM in an open system. Condensing the vapours would get a bit fiddly without a bit of decent equipment, making this one for me to mull over a little longer (like way too many other things ) - rather like your final question here. I'll have too sleep on that, it's been a long, hot day here.

I have been told that it does dissolve harmine.. as for harmaline I am not sure. I have a rue extraction on the go that I did a DCM pull with.. it is horrible emulsified at the moment. But yeah for that reason could be great for changa.

With evap since it’s so fast in a well ventilated space the toxic aspect can be eliminated.. but I hear you re: environmental angle. I should really look into redistilling ..