Just a couple questions

[Truth Seeker]

1. I've read that using a fan on high, for a short period of time, is recommended after freeze-precipitation in order to evaporate the remaining Naphtha and shouldn't cause oxidation; however, I read about using fans for evaporating Naphtha, prior to placing it in the freezer, and people said to use the fan on low... Why is the fan recommended to be on high after freeze precipitaion, but low for the initial evaporation before freezing? Wouldn't high be the better option for both? oxidation?

2. In terms of water baths lets say Pan A takes 2 hours to go from the desired temperature to room temperate, and a bigger Pan B takes 4 hours to go from the same desired temperature and room temperature; which one would be better for heating the acid/base in a water bath?

3. What type of lab grade filter would you guys use for collecting the floating crystals when pouring the naphtha off from the freezer? I've seen a couple people recommend these over coffee filter, but couldn't find any information on what grade type.

4. I've read a lot of people doing the "upside down tek," (pouring Naphtha off, then putting the dish upside down back in the freezer) Is there really any real to that, as opposed to just putting the dish in front of the fan immediately after pouring the Naphtha off, or is it to potentially have a slightly purer product?

 

[Brennendes Wasser]

1. Actually that makes no sense, using a fan at the highest setting would just speed everything up. When you have Acetone and you want to evaporate it, then using a fan on high will draw a lot of water in your acetone, so that would not be too good. Still using a fan with lower settings will take much longer, so still much water from air moisture will be drawn into that Acetone. For Naphtha that will not happen, so it does not make any difference.
Also no worries for oxidation with your DMT. If you fan it super high for 15 mins nothing will happen and I may say even for hours it wont damage it. The oxidation occurs like this:

UV-light energizes Oxygen and forms Oxygen radicals. This can only happen in well lit areas, where a certain volume of the room air is touched by direct sun rays. Now if you would stand your DMT in a dark corner of your room and use a fan to blow air above the DMT, it may draw air from the well-lit areas onto your DMT and oxygen radicals may touch the DMT. But then if you have a totally dark room, then the amount of oxygen radicals in air is negligible. This way you could fan your DMT for ages and it wont be too bad. Still, why not just place your DMT in a dark shelf and just wait for 1 h ? It's the same, you just want the last residual Naphtha to evaporate and this also works without fanning, just wait a little longer. When you dont smell any Naphtha, you are done and you can scrape everything.

2. You talk about going from a desired temperature to room temperature - so you mean you want to cool something down. But at what step is it crucial to cool stuff from your acid/base stuff?
Besides I would not use a water bath and just place the container with your material on the stove. If you check out what settings you need for the correct temperature, then you will just use that setting for the rest of your life and make things easier. Naphtha would only ignite above 220 °C. Obviously you will never heat your stove to a temperature like this, so people telling to not directly put a Naphtha container on a stove are a little bit over-acting In any other case, the Molecules wont care how fast / slow you heaet something up or down. DMT is not heat sensitive, so you would not trigger any decomposition routes by conducting a step too fast / too slow.

3. Normally these crystals should mostly form at the surface of the Naphtha where you find the Meniscus or at the bottom. I cant see why regular coffe filter should be bad, if your product is rock solid then you can collect it easily without it sticking anywhere.

4. I cant see any benefits from that, as you already got rid of all your Naphtha you wont change anything with your final product. What may even happen is that there will be water condensation from the air moisture at your DMT crystals, which will then stick to them when scraping them off. This cant happen if they are covered with Naphtha, but may happen when being exposed to air with higher temperature. So I cant see any use for this :?

 

[Truth Seeker]

Thank you for the quick and very informative replies Brennendes

1. You asked why not just put it on the shelf and skip the fan; I've noticed a lot of people say to not use a fan too, to just let it evaporate by itself... Is there any benefit to going about it without a fan?

2. In regards to the significance of letting the water bath cool down, the Max Ion Tek says to heat the water bath to 40-45 C, place in the extraction vessel in until room temperature, then heat up again, he says the constant heating and cooling are desired; so i wasn't sure if the rate of the desired temperature reached room temperature between a bigger or smaller pan made any difference.

 

[Brennendes Wasser]

1. It just evaporates faster, but there is no real benefit if you can also just wait for 3 h. And like I said: Dont use a fan in a place where there is much DIRECT sun coming through the window as it may still pour oxygen radicals over your spice, making it sit like in direct sun. Also using a fan you may get some tiny dust particles attaching to your Spice, like loose tiny hairs, maybe you want to avoid that to pass it to friends without any pubic hair they may find when taking a look into their goodies

2. Thats just a weird information, no idea what the reason for this should be, but its pointless :? Also I read that when basifying the TEK tells to wait for some hours before applying the Naphtha. Again thats weird stuff. Basifying is an instant process, at pH 13 there is only 0,0...1 % DMT left as non-basified and will always be because of acid-base equilibrium. This equilibrium is fixed and reached just after fully dissolving your NaOH and mixing everything for 5 sek.