magnesium sulfate anhydrous instead of calcium carbonate wash?

[Ananke]

I read somewhere (that I now can not find) that a sprinkle of magnesium sulfate anhydrous could be used to clean up naptha pulled from lye/MHRB tea. SWIM tried the calcium carbonate wash and reported getting all the water out is a bit of a pain. They were also concerned they might be losing yield.

Does anyone have any experience with this?

Peace and thanks

 

[West-en]

The purposes of the two different chemicals differ in the cleaningprocess. Sodium carbonate is used to clean the solution, to dissolve and remove some impurities from your naphtha. Anhydrous magnesium sulfate on the other hand is used to suck up any remaining water in the naphtha. It won't clean it, just remove the water.
I for one are not having problems (except an emulsion) cleaning with sodium carbonate, and are getting much cleaner yields from it. Simply add some solution of Na2CO3 & NaCl, shake the hell out of it, and put it on a hotplate to stir the emulsion away. Afterwards I pull up the water in a syringe from the bottom, and replace it with a watersolution of salt. After I've mixed it and stirred away the emulsion, I pull up the naphthalayer in the same way I do it from a barksolution (I use a syringe), pour it over in another container to get rid of the water, and simply freeze precipitate a really white and nice yield.

I highly recommend it!

 

[Ananke]

Thanks for your response West-en. My understanding (from the post that I now can't find) was that since remaining NaOH is held in microscopic water droplets, that by removing the water you would also be removing the NaOH.
I had not heard about adding NaCl to the Na2CO3 solution. Is it to reduce emulsion?
I also read someplace that if the ph of the water was less than around 9 that product would be lost. So, that rather than doing a straight water rinse after the Na2CO3 wash that Na2CO3 should be used both times. This contradicts Vovin's tek, and Vovin seems to know what he's talking about... but still it made me wonder. Do you have an opinion about this ?

 

[West-en]

Thanks for your response West-en. My understanding (from the post that I now can't find) was that since remaining NaOH is held in microscopic water droplets, that by removing the water you would also be removing the NaOH.
I had not heard about adding NaCl to the Na2CO3 solution. Is it to reduce emulsion?
I also read someplace that if the ph of the water was less than around 9 that product would be lost. So, that rather than doing a straight water rinse after the Na2CO3 wash that Na2CO3 should be used both times. This contradicts Vovin's tek, and Vovin seems to know what he's talking about... but still it made me wonder. Do you have an opinion about this ?

That seems reasonable, removing the water is always a good idea. Just remember that you won't get out all the impurities you can remove if you only use that technique (it may be a good idea to do a wash before). Yeah, I always use it because I get so bad emulsions from shaking the hell out of it (and I really want to keep doing that!). The salt seem to increase the speed of disintegration of the emulsion to the extreme.

The thing is that a pH below 9 will allow salt form of DMT, which is water-soluble. But the potential loss should really be minimal. First, most of the DMT will be in freebase form, and second, very little will migrate into the water. If one is worried though, one does not have to do a waterwash after the sodium carbonate-wash. I'm pretty sure there won't be any carbonate (or salt) left in the naphtha. But, I would like for someone to confirm this, cause it got me thinking too.