Getting Rid of Sodium Carbonate

[Ovidroid]

Much appreciation to any who would respond with some helpful information.

I have gone through most of Jorkest's Tek, to the point where I had freebased the DMT-fumarate with sodium carbonate-loaded water.

The problem is, a lot of the sodium carbonate (at least that's what I think it is) got trapped inside the freebased DMT goop in the basified water, and I cant figure out how to get it cleaned easily.

I tried dissolving in acetone, and that liberated all the little particles that were trapped, but filtering that stuff out just didn't work like I had hoped. Pipetting through a cotton swab takes FOREVER, and coffee filters just make a freaking mess. I don't have lab equipment, I have pipettes, cotton swabs, and a plastic/rubberish funnel (yes I know plastic and acetone like to get down and dirty with each other).

I did manage to get rid of alot of the white powder, but I still have a large amount of it in the product after evapping my acetone.

Would it be useful to dissolve it in acetone AGAIN, then mix that with water, then mix in some xylene, shake the crap out of it, and hopefully get all the goodies out without some of them remaining in the acetone? I know that acetone is soluble in water and I don't think water or acetone is that miscible in xylene. The hope is that the acetone and water would mix hopelessly together and the DMT would give up trying to stay with the acetone and just follow the xylene out of the mess.

Will this work or does anyone have a better idea?

 

[Ovidroid]

Since no one had responded, I went ahead and just collected the stuff that evapped from acetone. This is what I've got.

 

[Ovidroid]

Including whatever particles of sodium carbonate were left behind when I scraped it all up, it ended up being pretty much exactly a 1% yield from 160g of powdered root bark.

 

[Eden]

Either powderize and wash with h2o, or dissolve in as little anhydrous acetone or IPA as possible, wait for non-solubles to settle, then decant or pipette the clear solution and evap.
Working with under 2 grams, this could be done in a shot glass or any small diameter container that is easy to pipette from, don't worry about filtering.

 

[amor_fati]

The easy way, use THP:
Cut the bottom off an HDPE bottle, put a bit of cotton in the neck (not too much, just enough to keep a seal, soak with a bit of fresh acetone to test/prep it), suspend upside down over a collection vessel (like a funnel), pour a solution of spice and thoroughly dried acetone through, pour a bit of fresh solvent through for good measure (to ensure whatever's left in the filter is reasonably diluted and negligible), then evap.

You may be concerned that your acetone drying procedures are inadequate, however; in which case, the following may suit you better.

The fun way, use water:
Adding a small amount of water can make a big difference with the tiny amount likely trapped in there. Try getting it a bit wet on a dish, then molding it into a single blob with lab spatula or something comparable, then add a bit more water so that there's a nice little puddle to roll around the dish, then sort of work it around in the water while repeatedly spreading it on the dish and scraping it back up. This will expose more and more of the sodium carb to the water until it's all (mostly) washed off; once it dissolves in the water, it stays in the water. At some point just pour the water off (collect and evaporate if you're curious). The spice could then either be worked around to help it set into a clay-like chunk or just left spread thin on the dish in a dry place.


Here's a reference for both methods, though use far less water if going that route: Amor fati's Approach to Freebase Spice Conversion - DMT-Nexus Wiki


In any case, do not mix with acetone and water and do not use xylene; using xyelene would not require acetone at all anyway, plus acetone is soluble in both water and xylene and it would just be a mess and who knows where you're spice will be by that time.

 

[Ovidroid]

Thanks for the suggestions, fellas.

Eden, I tried that after initially dissolving in acetone, but the particles were so fine that they shot up into the pipette whenever I would get close to the sediment. I didn't want to leave all that good DMT-laden acetone behind, so I tried several unsuccessful filtering methods to get the rest.

Amor, I had lots of fun with trying to wash the goop with water, but when it would dry I kept seeing white deposits everywhere. I used a LOT of sodium carbonate. Jorkest's Tek calls for twice the weight of sodium carbonate as DMT-fumarate one has after FASW, and I compensated for potentially up to 15% of my sodium carbonate being water by dividing the amount of sodium carbonate Jorkest called for by 0.85. That's about 7 grams of sodium carbonate (and the fumarate weight was likely between 2.5-3.4 g, if the big scale I was using rounded to the nearest gram).

I think I will try "THP." I don't know what that stands for, I'll have to look it up, but it sounds effective. I dried my acetone according to the information that you supplied the Nexus, i.e. with thoroughly cooked Epsom Salt added and shaken, not stirred.

I realized after I put my head on my pillow to fall asleep that mixing the xylene with acetone and water would just be unnecessary... the xylene would free up the particles (it's a solvent, too! ) AND not mix with the water. I can only say I must've breathed in too many solvent fumes yesterday - my puzzler wasn't puzzling very precisely.