help! missing yeild!

[radicaldecomposer]

this is swims first extraction. swim is extracting from 1 kilo mhrb. swim did an a/b using vinigar but instead of lye swim used sodium carbonate (washing soda arm&hammer) because lye is impossible to find in his area. swim's first naptha pull only got about a 1/10th of a gram. swim wants to know if you need to use more water to disolve enough of the sodium carbonate to get a ph of 13? (swim only used about a gallon of water) or is swim not using enough naptha? swim trying to conserve naptha used about 150ml...
also the basified solution sat in swims basement for the weekend and the bottom of the jug is filled with crystals. swim thinks those might be the sodium carbonate.
any comments or advice would be greatly appreciated!

 

[Spock's Brain]

Get the PH of your solution up to 12.5, use a PH pen. Re-check your PH's. then add some naptha. warm the solution and naptha up to 140F, to increase it's soluable power. Naptha is sorta wimpy solvent. All solvents increase in power at a higher temp. mix it allot and let it seperate in a 140F bath. But don't approach BP (boiling point) of substance once basefied! Use Heptane (bestine-rubber cement thinner) instead to pull some more out.

 

[RocketScientist]

SWIM agrees with Spock's Brain. STB teks generally use lye because a really high pH is required to fully break down the MHRB, and SWIM thinks that the solution is simply not alkaline enough. SWIM would recommend a pH of ~14 since it is generally accepted a higher pH can help to break down emulsions.
While it's too late now SWIM would recommend smaller batches or at least a pilot batch in future to check the tek works beforehand.

 

[radicaldecomposer]

swim knows this, but lye is not availiable to him. swim read that sodium carbonate is usable as a replacement. so two more questions, can swim add the base after a naptha pull? and is there some way to find out how much sodium carbonate water solution would be needed to raise the ph to 14?

 

[Spock's Brain]

That's right, a higher PH will generally dissolve immulsions. You could raise the PH of your solution even if you've allready added the naptha. Even if your PH is not high enough to give transference from water to naptha of alkoloids, raise your PH. Check your PH! Crystals or sediments that's settled into your solution is probably not what your looking to isolate, the isolate will disolve into the naptha if your PH is high enough to make it water insoluable.