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.