TEK Ethyl acetate approach [CIELO]

[_Trip_]

It'll be interesting Cheelin, if you get a increase.

I would agree Loveall, however I don't think the microwaving is the issue per say (Cheelin's results only dropped 10% with the microwave method). I believe it is more to do with the fact that when I used the microwave method I would evaped too much moisture out of the paste. I haven't worked with this Bridgesii in a while and the tek has been refined since then. Blending the paste could be helping to a small degree as well.

As mentioned the tek has been refined somewhat so 70% may be due to this refinement I'm not overlooking that fact, having said that there could still be potential for increased yields with blending the paste and hot pulls.


In my opinion, I would think a 70% increase may indicate it is likely other factors than just paste-water-content and mix. We'll see how Cheelin goes. Colder pulls do decrease yields maybe warmer will increase them.

Btw, I see your tek is getting some kudos, congrats!

Appreciate it Cheelin, It still needs some refinement but lab and prelim results are looking good. I must add without Loveall or this Tek it would definitely be non-existent.

 

[Cheelin]

Well, lol, this should be interesting.

15g cactus powder that has consistently yielded 1.1%
3.75g lime
45 mL distilled water
8 min stir
10 min rest
Paste looked like my normal.

6 pulls, (1 min stir/ 2 min rest) per pull; 1st pull 35mL fresh EA at ~65C, pulls 2-6 same temp but 22mL each.
Dark green pulls, at pull 4 paste turned into sticky snot, 62% total solvent recovery.

Decided to do 3 more pulls in a separate jar, each st 65C and 22mL. Slightly lighter green pulls, still sticky snot, 91% solvent recovery.

Both sets of pulls were uncharacteristically cloudy after pulling, cleared well after overnight settling, were then decanted & filtered, first 6 pulls salted with 0.45g citric acid, pulls 7-9 salted with 36g citric acid, both clouded appropriately after stirring.
Passively crystallized for 48 hrs.

Jars filtered, dried, hot water washed, evap’d.

Good news, not so good news: the good, total yield above 1.1%; the not so good, not 70% higher. Pulls 1-6 0.162g, 1.1%; pulls 7-9 0.034g, 0.2%; combined 0.196g, 1.3%.

65C is too hot, turns paste into sticky snot, which reduces max surface area:solvent contact, reducing extraction potential. Perhaps a temp above ambient but lower than 65C would extract more. Someone else will have to work on this one.

 

[Cheelin]

Did final decants today on used solvent washing samples; hope to do extractions with them in next couple days.

Update is here: Ethyl acetate approach [CIELO] - Preparation - Welcome to the DMT-Nexus

 

[Loveall]

I've started a separate test salitng with different organic acids just for the fun of it after doubledog posted some pretty mescaline tartrate xtals this morning.

I extracted 50g of powder into EA (703g) after about 45 minutes of work . I split this into 6 small jars with 65g of extract each and reserve the rest (703-65*6= 313g).

Expecting ~ 65mg of mescaline citrate equivalent in each of the small jars.

I'm passively salting each jar with 120mg of different organic acids:

- Citric (control): Usual cloudiness
- Malic: Cloudy
- Tartaric: Cloudy
- Vitamin C: Cloudy
- Fumaric: Cloudy
- Benzoic: No clouds (bottom left in second picture), instead, I saw bubbles in EA after adding this acid. So it seemed like it didn't work originally, but now I'm seeing a tiny amount of xtals forming (?). This acid is interesting because it should be soluble in Xylene, so one could use it to salt that solvent directly, lazy stile (CIXLO?).

Will report back on what precipitates in each jar and weight of each salt. The weight ratios could illuminate the salt stoichiometry too. Hopefully we get a bunch of different CIELOs.

Update after a few hours:

- Citric (control): Cloudy, typical opaque needles are forming on the wall
- Malic: Cloudy, no sign of needles, will wait longer
- Tartaric: Cloudy, seeing needeles similar to citric
- Vitamin C: Cloudy, no sign of needles will wait longer
- Fumaric: Two layers, one cloudy (top) one clear (bottom). The clear layer is growing and in it there are shards, not needles. They look like flat glass pieces. They sparkle strongly at an angle and look very transparent head on. They are so pretty!
- Benzoic: No clouds, tiny amount of crystals. Will give it more time...

After ~24 hours:

- Citric (control): Clear, beautiful needles as usual. Will recover and measure weight soon.
- Malic: Cloudy, still no sign of needles
- Tartaric: Cloudy with xtals forming very slowly. Not sure I would repeat
- Fumaric: Clear, beautiful slender shards. Could also be described as wide needles, some are pretty large (~as tall as a fingernail). Could be a viable alternative to citric, pending yield measurement . I believe fumaric solubility is 35mg/g in EA, which is lower than citric at 50mg/g. Should be enough to substitute in the TEK, but the process window and forgiveness for screw up is not as large.
- Benzoic: Clear as before, still a tiny amount of crystals (no change). I wonder what the miniscule amount of xtals are. Could be an equilibrium with the mescaline salt, or it could be a trace alkaloid salt that is not soluble while the mescaline salt remains soluble (?). I've added 1/4 tsp more of benzoic acid to see if I can force the mescaline salt out. So far

A pattern seems to be emerging: Linear organic acids that have symmetry (citric, tartaric, fumaric) produce xtals, while others (malic, vitamin C, benzoic) do not. The central -OH group in malic makes it less symmetric I think. If this pattern continues, succinic and maleic should produce decent CIELO xtals too, perhaps I will test those one day for fun.

After two weeks crystals where collected. Turns out Malate did eventually precipitate, it just took a looong time.

Yields from same 65ml of solvent salted or each along with xtal morphology (see attached image)

- Mescaline Tartrate: 54mg, small plaque xtals
- Mescaline Malate: 41mg, large rod xtals
- Mescaline Citrate: 61mg, needle xtals
- Mescaline Fumerate: 49mg, flat needle xtals

Tartrate, Citrate, Fumerate yields are self consistency with the monomescaline salt form (all ~0.15mM). However, monomescaline malate is not (~0.12mM). On the other hand, the dimescaline malate is compatible (0.15mM moles of mescaline).

Perhaps monomescaline malate does not precipitate, and the dimescaline malate precipitates instead. Maybe that that is why it took a lot longer to form.

 

[Cheelin]

Nice work!

What are the HCl equivs on those?




Hot solvent results, above.

 

[shroombee]

Well, lol, this should be interesting.

15g cactus powder that has consistently yielded 1.1%
3.75g lime
45 mL distilled water
8 min stir
10 min rest
Paste looked like my normal.

6 pulls, (1 min stir/ 2 min rest) per pull; 1st pull 35mL fresh EA at ~65C, pulls 2-6 same temp but 22mL each.
Dark green pulls, at pull 4 paste turned into sticky snot, 62% total solvent recovery.

Decided to do 3 more pulls in a separate jar, each st 65C and 22mL. Slightly lighter green pulls, still sticky snot, 91% solvent recovery.

Both sets of pulls were uncharacteristically cloudy after pulling, cleared well after overnight settling, were then decanted & filtered, first 6 pulls salted with 0.45g citric acid, pulls 7-9 salted with 36g citric acid, both clouded appropriately after stirring.
Passively crystallized for 48 hrs.

Jars filtered, dried, hot water washed, evap’d.

Good news, not so good news: the good, total yield above 1.1%; the not so good, not 70% higher. Pulls 1-6 0.162g, 1.1%; pulls 7-9 0.034g, 0.2%; combined 0.196g, 1.3%.

65C is too hot, turns paste into sticky snot, which reduces max surface area:solvent contact, reducing extraction potential. Perhaps a temp above ambient but lower than 65C would extract more. Someone else will have to work on this one.

Assuming you normally use 6 pulls to get 1.1% yield, could you try 6 pulls with room temperature EA and then pulls 7-9 at 65C? How would pulls 7-9 at 65C compare to pulls 7-9 with room temperature EA?

 

[shroombee]

After two weeks crystals where collected. Turns out Malate did eventually precipitate, it just took a looong time.

Yields from same 65ml of solvent salted or each along with xtal morphology (see attached image)

- Mescaline Tartrate: 54mg, small plaque xtals
- Mescaline Malate: 41mg, large rod xtals
- Mescaline Citrate: 61mg, needle xtals
- Mescaline Fumerate: 49mg, flat needle xtals

Tartrate, Citrate, Fumerate yields are self consistency with the monomescaline salt form (all ~0.15mM). However, monomescaline malate is not (~0.12mM). On the other hand, the dimescaline malate is compatible (0.15mM moles of mescaline).

Perhaps monomescaline malate does not precipitate, and the dimescaline malate precipitates instead. Maybe that that is why it took a lot longer to form.

Wow! This little side experiment with the photos needs to be in the TEK, at least in the appendix.

 

[_Trip_]

Good work Loveall that's some beautiful looking crystals.

Cheelin interesting results not a bad increase almost 20%.

I again achieved another (almost) 70% increase with the same material; 2.75:1 ratios, blender, a couple quick 3-4 minute bursts, boiling hot EA pulls, 15mg per ml citric acid and some good shaking throughout the first half an hour (on and off).
I think the hot EA is helping pulls but the refinement in the tek, as in higher moisture content and mixing consistency is where these big numbers are coming from (compared to the original experimental drier microwave version).

Note: This is spines, wax and green layer (no white pulp) so maybe hot EA is helping stop an interaction with the wax layer or something I don't know (unlikely).


I have the same Bridgesii variety ready to go green skin only. The next extraction on this will be interesting to compare to the previous older tek results with the same cacti.
I would conclude the older version of the tek wasn't getting the full potential out of the cacti as the newer refined tek. So good work everyone.
These newer percentage changes are a good thing it really shows the Tek has evolved and many minor issues have been ironed out with great results.

I will add, the paste consistency I have with the hot EA is not turning to 'snot', not as you are reporting Cheelin.

 

[Cheelin]

Well, lol, this should be interesting.

15g cactus powder that has consistently yielded 1.1%
3.75g lime
45 mL distilled water
8 min stir
10 min rest
Paste looked like my normal.

6 pulls, (1 min stir/ 2 min rest) per pull; 1st pull 35mL fresh EA at ~65C, pulls 2-6 same temp but 22mL each.
Dark green pulls, at pull 4 paste turned into sticky snot, 62% total solvent recovery.

Decided to do 3 more pulls in a separate jar, each st 65C and 22mL. Slightly lighter green pulls, still sticky snot, 91% solvent recovery.

Both sets of pulls were uncharacteristically cloudy after pulling, cleared well after overnight settling, were then decanted & filtered, first 6 pulls salted with 0.45g citric acid, pulls 7-9 salted with 36g citric acid, both clouded appropriately after stirring.
Passively crystallized for 48 hrs.

Jars filtered, dried, hot water washed, evap’d.

Good news, not so good news: the good, total yield above 1.1%; the not so good, not 70% higher. Pulls 1-6 0.162g, 1.1%; pulls 7-9 0.034g, 0.2%; combined 0.196g, 1.3%.

65C is too hot, turns paste into sticky snot, which reduces max surface area:solvent contact, reducing extraction potential. Perhaps a temp above ambient but lower than 65C would extract more. Someone else will have to work on this one.

Assuming you normally use 6 pulls to get 1.1% yield, could you try 6 pulls with room temperature EA and then pulls 7-9 at 65C? How would pulls 7-9 at 65C compare to pulls 7-9 with room temperature EA?

Earlier I did a std 6-pull run then collected pulls 7-9 in a separate jar (both sets at ambient solvent temp), got about 0.1% on pulls 7-9.

I’ll fit in a separate heated solvent 7-9 pulls, on a std ambient run, sometime.

 

[Cheelin]

Good work Loveall that's some beautiful looking crystals.

Cheelin interesting results not a bad increase almost 20%.

I again achieved another (almost) 70% increase with the same material; 2.75:1 ratios, blender, a couple quick 3-4 minute bursts, boiling hot EA pulls, 15mg per ml citric acid and some good shaking throughout the first half an hour (on and off).
I think the hot EA is helping pulls but the refinement in the tek, as in higher moisture content and mixing consistency is where these big numbers are coming from (compared to the original experimental drier microwave version).

Note: This is spines, wax and green layer (no white pulp) so maybe hot EA is helping stop an interaction with the wax layer or something I don't know (unlikely).


I have the same Bridgesii variety ready to go green skin only. The next extraction on this will be interesting to compare to the previous older tek results with the same cacti.
I would conclude the older version of the tek wasn't getting the full potential out of the cacti as the newer refined tek. So good work everyone.
These newer percentage changes are a good thing it really shows the Tek has evolved and many minor issues have been ironed out with great results.

I will add, the paste consistency I have with the hot EA is not turning to 'snot', not as you are reporting Cheelin.

I was in a rush yesterday when i posted my brief comment here. After some thought, I have expanded it, as follows.

I posted the way I did the run, feel free to repeat it, to see if you get different results. I did not test the way you did your runs, all i did was test 65C solvent pulls, using my standard method.

My results indicate that raising the temp to 65C may slightly increase yield. In my case, pulls 1-6 yielded the usual 1.1%; pulls 7-9 yielded 0.1 points more than the single time I have done 7-9 pulls with this cactus powder.

I am not saying that heating the solvent doesn’t increase yield, I am saying that running the experiment the way I did (1 time) did not increase yield enough to justify the extra work, for me. For others, the work and yield my be very valuable, and perhaps they would get different results.

Perhaps also: heating the solvent to a different temp, preparing the paste differently, changing the recipe, or doing something differently, would provide yield sufficient to change my mind. Perhaps I just fucked up, or random chance intervened.

This is why single-shot tests need further exploration, they are not necessarily statistically valid (in the normal distribution, simply designed experimental tests require a sample size of 30, to produce “valid” results at high confidence levels. Something that none of us can/are willing to do.)

I’m booked up with 4 other cielo projects projects atm, someone else will need to follow up on this approach.

 

[downwardsfromzero]

After two weeks crystals where collected. Turns out Malate did eventually precipitate, it just took a looong time.

Yields from same 65ml of solvent salted or each along with xtal morphology (see attached image)

- Mescaline Tartrate: 54mg, small plaque xtals
- Mescaline Malate: 41mg, large rod xtals
- Mescaline Citrate: 61mg, needle xtals
- Mescaline Fumerate: 49mg, flat needle xtals

Tartrate, Citrate, Fumerate yields are self consistency with the monomescaline salt form (all ~0.15mM). However, monomescaline malate is not (~0.12mM). On the other hand, the dimescaline malate is compatible (0.15mM moles of mescaline).

Perhaps monomescaline malate does not precipitate, and the dimescaline malate precipitates instead. Maybe that that is why it took a lot longer to form.

Wow! This little side experiment with the photos needs to be in the TEK, at least in the appendix.

Yes, this is super interesting. Looking at the other details of this investigation, it appears that one or both of the following applies in the case of benzoic acid:
-mescaline benzoate is soluble in EA
-benzoic acid is too weak an acid to form a sufficiently stable mescaline salt for precipitation from EA

The result for the malate really catches my eye, both for the stoichiometry and how clear and chunky the crystals look. Intriguing, too, that M malate is the form claimed to occur in the plant and its role in the CAM process. Does mescaline perhaps even optimize CAM in some way? It certainly seems to optimize human brains!

 

[Cheelin]

I’m not a biochemist, or any kind of chemist

For me, the amazing fact is that we keep coming back to the superiority of Loveall’s discovery of the Ethyl Acetate & Citrate combo for M extraction.

So elegant & robust.

 

[Loveall]

Here are the HCl equivalents (assuming no hydrates form):

Monomescaline Citrate: 61%
Monomescaline Fumarate: 76%
Monomescaline Tartrate: 69%
Dimescaline Malate: 89%

Organic acid alternatives have been added to the TEK shroombee.

Thanks for the washing and yield work Cheelin. As I understand it, more lime could be a practical way to push yield up, correct? This is ony list of things to try.

 

[Loveall]

DFZ, agreed, benzoic acid result was interesting. For the record, I subsequently added citric acid and that caused crystals to precipitate (presumably the usual monomescaline citrate).

 

[Cheelin]

Here are the HCl equivalents (assuming no hydrates form):

Monomescaline Citrate: 61%
Monomescaline Fumarate: 76%
Monomescaline Tartrate: 69%
Dimescaline Malate: 89%

Organic acid alternatives have been added to the TEK shroombee.

Thanks for the washing and yield work Cheelin. As I understand it, more lime could be a practical way to push yield up, correct? This is ony list of things to try.

So, if I used the correct numbers and multiplied them correctly, the HCL yield equivalents were: 37mg for citrate, tartrate, & fumerate; and 28mg for malate. May have to slightly downgrade my ethyl acetate + citrate “superiority” comment. Very nice consistency of M extraction, for Ethyl Acetate solvent, though!


Re lime: the one test I did, with a 5g sample, did show the possibility that increasing lime amount might increase yield. In my 1g tests I have doubled lime amount vs my scaling approach, and seems to have some positive effect, but the comparisons are confounded by other changes. Further work needs to be done on this.

 

[Cheelin]

[Posted pics of pH strips and washed solvent samples in the link below]

Will be using this post to test the used solvent washing treatments discussed in Ethyl acetate approach [CIELO] - Preparation - Welcome to the DMT-Nexus

Treatments
After washing with sodium carbonate-water solution, then settling, 4 samples of used solvent were treated follows:
A. Decant and dry with sodium carbonate.
B. Freeze, remove puck and ice shards
C. Decant and dry with sodium carbonate, freeze, remove ice shards
D. Freeze, remove puck and ice shards, dry with sodium carbonate

These 4 treatments, plus a fresh EA sample, were run using the standard approach, scaled down for 15g cactus powder runs, with six pulls, and passive crystallization. The only change to the recipe posted on the wiki, was scaling down the citric acid from 5g, instead of the posted 2.5g amount. Processing times were as stated in the wiki.

Specifically:
Cactus powder - 15g
Pickling Lime - 3.75g
Distilled Water - 45mL

Stir, fold, mash - 8 minutes
Rest in covered french press - 10 minutes
After resting, all pastes were “chopped up” with mixing spoon before adding solvent

Six 3-minute pulls (1 minute stir of 70-90 revolutions, 2 minute rest) per pull, strained through french press strainer into coffee filter on collection jar, combined pulls rested for 1 hour til clear and no water drops/layer
1st pull Ethyl Acetate volume 36mL; 22mL per pull for pulls 2 - 6

Citric Acid - 0.75g, stirred briefly
Passively crystallized for 48 hrs; jar and filtrate filtered and rinsed with two 10mL washes of fresh EA; after jar dried, jar washed into evap plate with two 5 mL hot distilled water washes, then evap’d and scraped.

Processing Observations:
All pastes were my normal consistency of cookie dough/playdough, and consistent color
All pastes became consistency of applesauce within one or two pulls
All runs had solvent pull recovery of 90+%
Combined pulls for all washed solvent treatments were a similar hue, slightly darker than the fresh solvent pulls (as might be expected)
None of the combined pulls had sediment or water droplets/layer after 1 hour settling.

Yields after filtering at 48hrs:
A 0.235g, B 0.234g, Fresh EA 0.201g, C 0.215g, D 0.221g
These resulls are not final, but my general interpretation is that weights greater than Fresh EA represent amount of citrical that precipitated from washed used solvent. Seems to make sense since this is consistent with C & D having slightly lower weights, after having additional treatment.

Incremental yields after final filtering at 72hrs:
A 0.001g, B 0.000g, Fresh EA 0.004g, C 0.004g, D 0.003g
Jars dried, then rinsed with 2 x 5mL hot distilled water, evap’d. Incremental wash residue yields: A 0.005g, B 0.006g, Fresh EA 0.006g, D 0.006g, D 0.006g.

Total yields: A 0.241g, B 0.240, Fresh EA 0.210g 1.4%, C 0.231g, D 0.230g

Earlier unwashed reused solvents precipitated significant amounts of dissolved solids during subsequent extraction runs (the precipitate is believed to be calcium citrate), the solvents “washed” in this trial represent a major improvement, that neutralizes pH and removes solids to levels near that of fresh solvent.

There appears to be no difference in the A & B treatments for removing the sodium carbonate and water, as well as additional dissolved solids, after the initial solvent wash (approx 14% non-M appears to subsequently precipitate), with a further slight improvement, but again similar effectiveness, when doing the C & D treatments (approx 10% non-M appears to subsequently precipitate).

Longer settling times at various stages before and/or after washing treatments may further reduce subsequent non-M precipitation.

Fractional distillation would, fully purify the used solvent, but would involve significantly more work, increase safety issues, and perhaps lead to additional recovery losses.

 

[orchidist]

It is possible that the cactus has no alkaloids, although I made two extractions (with NaOH, xylene, and HCl) from cacti that I got from the same place and I got a small yield. My calcium hydroxide is a few years old. Could that have something to do with it? My ethyl acetate is indeed ethyl acetate and it was brand new. My citric acid is several years old. Also, the plant material that I dehydrated was just the outer dark green flesh. I didn’t use the waxy skin, spines, or inner white flesh. But I don’t think that would be a problem, right? I’ve read that the dark green outer flesh is where most of the alkaloids are.

Hey, I'm very new to CIELO (my first attempt was yesterday evening, I've got clouds, waiting for crystals as we speak), so I can't claim any expertise whatsoever, but I wonder if old lime could be the issue here. If not stored airtight, it's possible that the hydroxide reacted with CO2 in the air to become carbonate. I think that's especially possible if you're living in a humid climate.

 

[Cheelin]

6 - 12 hrs after salting, crystals should start forming on your container walls, should be viewable by shining a flashlight through the solution.

 

[Loveall]

So, if I used the correct numbers and multiplied them correctly, the HCL yield equivalents were: 37mg for citrate, tartrate, & fumerate; and 28mg for malate. May have to slightly downgrade my ethyl acetate + citrate “superiority” comment. Very nice consistency of M extraction, for Ethyl Acetate solvent, though!

Malate also comes in at ~ 37mg of HCl (41*.89 ~ 36.5mg).

It's cool how the mass yields can confirm the salt forms.

Citric and fumaric xtalized faster. Citric is fluffier and easier to handle. It has more of a process window since it is more soluble than fumaric (more robust to oversalting). Citric is still my favorite.

 

[Loveall]

Good luck orchidist. Hope those clouds become Xtals for you.