Cheelin said:One approach that may help all who find a second liquid layer forming during salting is to heat up the solvent (no sparks or open flame) and stir to dissolve the goo back into solution, then let cool. The problem is that crystal nucleation was disrupted somehow, and further crystallization stalled; so try to restart the process, and add additional steps, as necessary.
starbob said:For what it's worth in my recent goo case I did try heating up my jar ~140F. (jar in container of water that was <150F at start) It was well after initially salting though after I added additional CA when the goo seemed to thicken up some more... so probably too late at that point. I probably should've mentioned I tried that at the time, as well as putting it on mag stirrer for awhile after the addtl. CA seemed to thicken it up.
Thinking about crystallization, the general idea of heating solvent and dissolving 2nd phase, the dissolving should be done as early as possible. Also, the research describes general case of heating solvent to supersaturation, then cooling to crystallize. In this case, we are using an acid to the job of the temperature change to aggregate the M for nucleation. So, perhaps the acid needs to be neutralized before trying to dissolve the second phase. This could perhaps be accomplished by decanting the primary phase (EA) and replacing with fresh EA before heating/dissolving, OR by chemically neutralizing the pH of the existing EA prior to heating/dissolving.starbob said:Cheelin said:One approach that may help all who find a second liquid layer forming during salting is to heat up the solvent (no sparks or open flame) and stir to dissolve the goo back into solution, then let cool. The problem is that crystal nucleation was disrupted somehow, and further crystallization stalled; so try to restart the process, and add additional steps, as necessary.
For what it's worth in my recent goo case I did try heating up my jar ~140F. (jar in container of water that was <150F at start) It was well after initially salting though after I added additional CA when the goo seemed to thicken up some more... so probably too late at that point. I probably should've mentioned I tried that at the time, as well as putting it on mag stirrer for awhile after the addtl. CA seemed to thicken it up.
Cheelin said:Thinking about crystallization, the general idea of heating solvent and dissolving 2nd phase, the dissolving should be done as early as possible. Also, the research describes general case of heating solvent to supersaturation, then cooling to crystallize. In this case, we are using an acid to the job of the temperature change to aggregate the M for nucleation. So, perhaps the acid needs to be neutralized before trying to dissolve the second phase. This could perhaps be accomplished by decanting the primary phase (EA) and replacing with fresh EA before heating/dissolving, OR by chemically neutralizing the pH of the existing EA prior to heating/dissolving.starbob said:Cheelin said:One approach that may help all who find a second liquid layer forming during salting is to heat up the solvent (no sparks or open flame) and stir to dissolve the goo back into solution, then let cool. The problem is that crystal nucleation was disrupted somehow, and further crystallization stalled; so try to restart the process, and add additional steps, as necessary.
For what it's worth in my recent goo case I did try heating up my jar ~140F. (jar in container of water that was <150F at start) It was well after initially salting though after I added additional CA when the goo seemed to thicken up some more... so probably too late at that point. I probably should've mentioned I tried that at the time, as well as putting it on mag stirrer for awhile after the addtl. CA seemed to thicken it up.
Again, the issue here is disrupted nucleation, understand the mechanics of crystallization, then develop possible fixes based on that knowledge.
Cheelin said:If after neutralizing it doesn't crystallize, the process may need to be backed up further, may have to actually re-basify after heating/dissolving, then slowly titrate the acid when re-salting while stirring.Cheelin said:Thinking about crystallization, the general idea of heating solvent and dissolving 2nd phase, the dissolving should be done as early as possible. Also, the research describes general case of heating solvent to supersaturation, then cooling to crystallize. In this case, we are using an acid to the job of the temperature change to aggregate the M for nucleation. So, perhaps the acid needs to be neutralized before trying to dissolve the second phase. This could perhaps be accomplished by decanting the primary phase (EA) and replacing with fresh EA before heating/dissolving, OR by chemically neutralizing the pH of the existing EA prior to heating/dissolving.starbob said:Cheelin said:One approach that may help all who find a second liquid layer forming during salting is to heat up the solvent (no sparks or open flame) and stir to dissolve the goo back into solution, then let cool. The problem is that crystal nucleation was disrupted somehow, and further crystallization stalled; so try to restart the process, and add additional steps, as necessary.
For what it's worth in my recent goo case I did try heating up my jar ~140F. (jar in container of water that was <150F at start) It was well after initially salting though after I added additional CA when the goo seemed to thicken up some more... so probably too late at that point. I probably should've mentioned I tried that at the time, as well as putting it on mag stirrer for awhile after the addtl. CA seemed to thicken it up.
Again, the issue here is disrupted nucleation, understand the mechanics of crystallization, then develop possible fixes based on that knowledge.
downwardsfromzero said:Meanwhile... I hope to be able to add some more information about the butyl acetate variation at some point, for those of us who find that solvent easier (and cheaper) to get hold of than EA. I've seen that BA can in principle work with harmalas but its utility with cactus is not entirely clear. This is because initial tests were only carried out with cactus of questionable quality. The small amount of resulting crystal looked wrong and its identity has not been confirmed.
What we do know from the harmala tests is that it's necessary to add water to the BA in order to get the citric acid to dissolve properly. A solution of citric in damp BA can then be added to the alkaloidal extract - whether this moisture will result in goo if using cactus remains to be seen.
Congrats on all your recent success! That succinate jar is beautiful!orchidist said:Woke up to find all three jars, fumarate, citrate and succinate had crystallized.
The succinate was especially pretty, a single mass of super fine needles at the bottom...I really like how that turned out
orchidist said:Woke up to find all three jars, fumarate, citrate and succinate had crystallized.
The succinate was especially pretty, a single mass of super fine needles at the bottom...I really like how that turned out!
Congrats on all your recent success! That succinate jar is beautiful!
Loveall said:Congrats. So what do you think helped you with the citrate goo you were getting originally? Do you still think fumaric or succinic is more robust in your case?
orchidist said:Citrate yields have been updated here