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Layers not separating! this is driving me crazy - advice needed

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xenophas

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Hey all,

I'm a little new to this whole extraction business and, naively, read over the Lazyman's STB tek once or twice before I kind of just went off and did my own thing. I had it down, in theory, but my results are a world away from perfection. I've been working with this same batch for going on two weeks now and the darned thing WILL NOT SEPARATE into distinct layers. Right now there's maybe a centimeter of naphtha floating on top of the dark soupy mix. I've spent hours scouring the Nexus for ideas and have come up empty. Everything I've tried (salt, more lye/water, heat bath, let it sit for nearly a week, correcting the pH) has worked to settle that annoying foamy emulsion but still the naphtha will not separate out. I've added so much salt it's actually starting to precipitate out and float on top of the mixture. Does anyone have any idea as to what else needs to be done?

I'd really like to not end up throwing this one out... I have about 250g of pre-powdered mimosa inner root bark at stake. Right now I'm thinking that maybe it needs a little more water. It's already licking at the edges of the pot so I may run down to my local hardware store tomorrow and try to secure something a little larger. Is this the right plan of action?

Thanks in advance guys,
-xen

EDIT: just noticed the "official extraction help thread" at the top of the page. Should I post this there or is it okay to leave it here?
 
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next time you can indeed post in the official help thread. If you do make a new thread, please write in the topic something that can give a clue to others what the content is, because others might have the same problem. If you just write 'help please' or something of the sort, whoever is browsing through the forum will only know the content if they click the link, so this makes it harder for others to find solutions to their problems. I edited the thread title for you.

As for your problem, I would say maybe indeed get a new extraction container and add plenty more water and specially a lot more lye. You cant do too much with lye, and it will help the separation. More water will also help if the whole thing is too thick. If you cant get a container big enough, divide the extraction in two containers.

Good luck

By the way, if you are shaking your container to mix the layers, dont do that next time. Stir in round motions, never shake.
 
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Hey again guys,
thanks for all the suggestions, as well as for adding some clarity to the thread title. I actually solved (using that term loosely) the issue the day after I first posted. Looking back, my guess is that, in the few days I had let it settle in a covered container, it had somehow evaporated and was not actually present in the mixture.

So here's what I did: I transferred it all to a large HDPE paint bucket then added several cups of water, some more lye and about half a liter of naphtha. After that I stirred it for a bit, gave it a couple of heat baths, and then separated/evaporated the naphtha.

Scraped up a goodly amount of crystals and right now I'm evaporated a solvent wash (which I'm glad I did; the naphtha pulled some nasty bits and bobs) along with doing another pull. Just this small success is so INCREDIBLY satisfying.

I'll get some pictures of my final product up ASAP.
-xen
 
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