Crystals smell like limonene

[awalmartbag]

Hey everyone

I completed my first extraction yesterday. I used the standard A/B method and freeze precipitation. For the first NPS step, I used limonene. For the second, heptane (so I can evaporate it).

Wet crystals initially smelled like heptane, as expected. I heated them to 50C for an hour and a half and then let them sit overnight. Crystals now look dry, but they smell like limonene. They're also slightly yellow instead of pure white.

Should I do a heptane re-x to get rid of the limonene impurity, or just make a new batch? I admit I was sloppy with this one, and I've only got about 1g of DMT from 200g MHRB.

 

[downwardsfromzero]

You won't get a freeze precipitation using limonene. To recover DMT from limonene you'll need to back-extract it into acidic water such as diluted white vinegar. If you used limonene for your pulls I can only hope you kept it. How did you even get 1g? What was "the first NPS step" - a 'defat'? MHRB doesn't need a defat.

A re-x will clear up some of the limonene smell, but that stuff is sticky so you may well need to re-x twice, or perhaps do a mini A/B instead.

 

[awalmartbag]

Oh, didn't know defat wasn't necessary. I just followed the Lextek procedure, which has two A/B + NPS extraction steps, one being a defat. What I did was:
- acid cook MHRB
- basify and pull with limonene
- acid wash
- basify and pull with heptane
- freeze precipitate

So any DMT should have ended up in the heptane. I did keep the heptane for cleaning and reuse.

Thanks, I'll try a mini A/B.

 

[downwardsfromzero]

I can only hope you kept the limonene as well. That's where most of your yield *should* be.
Pure cognitive flatulence, please ignore

Or at least - keep the limonene, it's expensive.

 

[awalmartbag]

Oh no... why is that? I thought the acid wash would protonate the DMT and pull it out of the limonene.

 

[downwardsfromzero]

Sorry, I'm failing basic reading comprehension tonight it seems :lol:
I really suck at multitasking
You're fine, but the yield is a bit disappointing.

(I was literally crying at the video I posted, maybe that made reading a bit more difficult.)

 

[awalmartbag]

Haha no worries. I think I used way too much heptane - 200ml, so there's probably still a lot of DMT in there that didn't crystallize...

 

[downwardsfromzero]

Haha no worries. I think I used way too much heptane - 200ml, so there's probably still a lot of DMT in there that didn't crystallize...

A mini A/B would sort you out here as well, saving you from having to evaporate expensive heptane.