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Cloudy Garbage in Naphtha, how to avoid ?!

NullEntity

NullEntity

If you had no limits, how far would you get
ive done several extractions at this point and one thing that Bothers me and makes my process longer then it has to be is this annoying stuff that forms within my Naphtha. ill show photos, but this stuff bothers me so much, is there a way to avoid this. i would assume some of you must have run in to this and might know some knowledge on this.

i feel like this might be some obvious but it would help big time if someone guided me in the right direction best regards <3

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Voidmatrix said:
What are you extracting from?

One love
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MHRB fine powder, that has sat in a acidic base 3.7-4ph then strained and basified. what ur looking at is the basified solution with naphtha, this stuff forms in my naphtha layer and gets in the way of my decanting
 
Voidmatrix said:
I've gotten that before, but only slightly. You're talking about the weird bubbly layer right? It seems like the start of an emulsion or something.

I'd say put it in a heat bath for a while.

@Transform (df0) wanna weigh in?

One love
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ill try it out rn
 
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i did a heat bath and waiting not much happen so i left it room temp over night to settle hoping it would separate. i then tried the sodium carbonate wash and it helped get the cloudiness more brighter and cleaner looking but that cloudy layer still haunts me. i lucky assumed i got all my actives out by adding more naphtha and decanting multiple times then reducing it, unfortunately very wasteful but had to make sure i got all the sauce out. my best guesses is this is happening either from me using my stir plate or my glass Droppers/Pipettes force a stream of it under the layer and make this emulsion happen. so ill just have to hit the sides of the glass when adding naphtha too the flask.

@Transform @Voidmatrix
 
Particulates are also a major cause of emulsions, unfortunately. If the naphtha is added before the lye has had sufficient time to digest the smaller particles it can lead to increased likelihood of "mayonnaise" formation. The naphtha coats microparticles and refuses to budge, or something.
Looking at it, it may be naptha droplets coated with a detergent-like component. Microscopy may show the phase-type of the emulsion if you were really interested!

The actual amount of naphtha in the emulsion may be fairly small (if we're lucky). To me, it looks like a stage where you can concentrate on retrieving as much clear naphtha as you can - which, it appears, you already did
(y)


Rather than evaporate the excess naphtha, an alternative would be to 'back-salt' into vinegar or similar, and then perform another miniature extraction on the vinegar pull(s).
 
Looks to me like emulsions. You dont get emulsions if you first defat with non polar solvent such as d-limonene during the acid phase when the alkaloids are in salt form, and therefore insoluable in non polar solvent. That is the beauty of acid first then base extraction techniques.

If you've defatted first (which removes the oils, grease and waxes) during the acid phase before basifying, you wont get nasty emulsions.

They may settle eventually after about 1 week.

Straight to base extraction techniques are generally used for bulk extractions with course material, and used on materials which are known to contain little to no oil grease and waxes. All plant material inherently contain varying amounts of oil grease and waxes though.

MHRB is said to contain very little oil grease and waxes but still a defat is beneficial to avoid emulsions, and also from contaminating the non polar solvent and ending up in the final product, because as you know oils grease and waxes are soluble in non polar solvents in both the acid and base phase of the extraction, so best chance to get them out while the alkaloids are not soluble.
 
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Phenethylamine23 said:
Looks to me like emulsions. You dont get emulsions if you first defat with non polar solvent such as d-limonene during the acid phase when the alkaloids are in salt form, and therefore insoluable in non polar solvent. That is the beauty of acid first then base extraction techniques.

If you've defatted first (which removes the oils, grease and waxes) during the acid phase before basifying, you wont get nasty emulsions.

They may settle eventually after about 1 week.

Straight to base extraction techniques are generally used for bulk extractions with course material, and used on materials which are known to contain little to no oil grease and waxes. All plant material inherently contain varying amounts of oil grease and waxes though.

MHRB is said to contain very little oil grease and waxe but still a defat is beneficial to avoid emulsions, and also from contaminating the non polar solvent and ending up in the final product.
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I think it was an issue of excessive agitation from the use of a stir plate. Prevention is definitely better than cure, and the easiest way to go about this is going more gently with the pulls.

MHRB typically doesn't require defatting, although it is conceivable that some batches may be richer in some phytochemical or other which does tend to promote emulsification under certain conditions, such as insufficient base addition or insufficient soak time.

Both of these factors can also be influenced by variations in the amounts of tannins and other plant acids, so it would appear prudent to perform a small test extraction on any new batch of material to check whether it behaves differently compared to the previous one.
 
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