mescaline dlimonene extraction trouble

[tooseebbb]

Hello! Extracting mescaline hcl from powdered San Pedro using 69ron's tek:

69ron's D-Limonene Mescaline Extraction - DMT-Nexus Wiki

wiki.dmt-nexus.me

The trouble arose at the salting stage: I combined 180ml dlimonene (which had been soaking in calcium hydroxide + cactus) w/ a dilute mixture of HCl. It separated nicely into two layers. The top layer was clearly dlimonene, but the bottom layer looks weird: it is a thick white powdery layer, almost like sludge. I'm curious as to what people here think one should do with this? I've attached a picture of the mixture with the sludge at the bottom - notice that the thick white stuff at the bottom does not "level out" like a liquid should (its surface is not parallel to the surface of the top dlimonene layer).

Here are notes on everything that was done:

1. 100g powdered San Pedro was mixed with 300ml water. Approximately 25g calcium hydroxide was added, and everything was mixed thoroughly. One thing to note here is that the calcium hydroxide was not carefully weighed out: the mass of calcium hydroxide was measured in a small "scoop", and then there was added enough "scoops" so that there should be about 25g calcium hydroxide. But there was the possibility of overshooting or under shooting here.

2. 300ml dlimonene was added and the entire thing was put into a French coffee press. Everything was mixed very thoroughly.

3. After 4 hours the dlimonene was removed from the French coffee press by pressing down and pouring it out. Only 180ml liquid was obtained this way - but 300ml dlimonene had originally been added, so this means that there are still 120ml dlimonene buried in the cactus mixture?

4. 30ml water was combined with 10ml 5% hydrochloric acid (HCl). The pH was measured to be ~2.

5. The HCl/water mixture was combined with the dlimonene and mixed thoroughly. No obvious emulsion formed after mixing: it separated neatly into two layers.

6. The bottom layer (which is supposed to contain mescaline) doesn't look like how I thought it would - it is thick and white and sludgy - leading to this post Is it possible that this is calcium hydroxide somehow?

Many thanks

 

[downwardsfromzero]

Is it possible that this is calcium hydroxide somehow?

Your sludge might be a poorly soluble basic chloride of calcium. Was the limonene cloudy when you drew it off? It's possible for the limonene to pick up fine particulates from the calcium hydroxide, which then reacts with the HCl. It's worth trying to see if it dissolves when a bit more HCl is added.


And yes, that cactus/lime paste does eat up the solvent somewhat. This is OK because you can do several pulls and not really lose too much alkaloid product.

 

[tooseebbb]

Thanks for the response!

The limonene was not cloudy when it was removed from the cactus paste: it appeared slightly yellow with a tinge of green. I did mix the limonene pretty aggressively into the cactus paste however, to the point that it sort of looks like thumb-sized nuggets of cactus paste intermixed with solvent. Should I have instead let the solvent just sort of hang out on top of the cactus+base? Because this was all done inside of a French press, I thought that the amount of surface area in contact with the solvent might not be high enough unless I mixed it together thoroughly. Could this explain the calcium hydroxide being taken up with the solvent?

I will try adding more HCl to the solvent+HCl mix and see if the situation improves, then?

 

[downwardsfromzero]

Add only a dash of HCl and see what happens. It's also worth letting it stand overnight to see if anything settles out.

In the meantime, you could do another pull on the paste with some more limonene.

Thorough but gentle mixing is good. Poking lots of holes in the paste with a fork, then smoothing and squashing it down again, is quite good. For thicker layers, use a knife if you cant get a long enough fork. The idea is to get as much contact as possible between the solvent and the interior of the paste, as I'm sure you already appreciate.

"Pretty aggressively" sounds like a potential source of problems.

 

[tooseebbb]

Thanks for the clarification, downwardsfromzero. I'm doing another pull with slightly less aggressive mixing.

Letting it stand overnight caused the sludge to vanish! Not sure if this means that got sucked up into the limonene or the HCl... Either way, the mixture separated easily w/ separation funnel and the HCl is being evaporated. Subsequent saltings of the same limonene did not produce more white-powder-sludge, and I'm evaporating the first (sludge) salting separately from the later salting, just in case the mysterious sludge messed things up.

Extracting mescaline is a pretty great activity for native peoples's day

EDIT/update: did another pull and salted the limonene with HCl -- got more white powdery sludge. So it seems the first salting of each pull yields this mysterious white stuff.

 

[Loveall]

I don't think Limonene + HCl is recommended:

Limonene + HCl solution = Dihalide ? Dangerous? - Advanced/Enhanced chemistry - Welcome to the DMT-Nexus

Maybe it's ok, but I would not do it. Not saying it explains your sludge, but I would have used vinegar like the Tek you posted says. You could try mixing plain fresh Limonene and HCl as a control to see if you can replicate the sludge.

Also, similar recommendation for acetone and HCl: they can react.

 

[tooseebbb]

Yikes, so it's possible that toxic chems were produced by letting the dlimonene+HCl mixture sit overnight? That's scary, I'll stick to acetic acid then.

The first salting of the first pull gave 450mg brown, flakey (hopefully!) mescaline. Will wash with IPA and acetone to try and remove any bad byproducts, or maybe just avoid taking it altogether :/

 

[Loveall]

Sorry, I don't know. The HCl concentration was pretty low, not sure if it changed the Limonene. This was all at room temp, right?

As for the possible products of HCl and Limonene reaction (Cl halides I guess), maybe an organic chemist here can speak to their toxicity and/or the chances of them ending up in the final product.

Everything may be fine, but until/unless we know more I would just start over with the vinegar route.

 

[tooseebbb]

Thanks for the warnings, Loveall. I'm currently preparing another attempt with vinegar, and was wondering if it would be a good idea to soak the cactus+dlimo in the French press - it's pretty slender, so it would seem like there is not much surface area in contact between the cactus and the solvent. But the 69ron tek recommends a French press - but it's unclear whether that is just for filtering (so the cactus and solvent would be mixed in a wider container with more contact, and then transferred to the French press to skim off the solvent). Or I could poke lots of holes/troughs in the cactus mix -- keeping it in the French press -- as downwardsfromzero suggests.

(I did a simple experiment to see what the white sludge was: dissolving calcium hydroxide in water, and then mixing with d-limo, and then mixing with HCl gave the exact same white sludge. So probably this is a salt of calcium hydroxide - which means that calcium hydroxide particles were being pulled with the d-limo, if I'm understanding correctly, so I should filter the dlimo more carefully.)

 

[downwardsfromzero]

I don't think Limonene + HCl is recommended:

I sort of forgot about that, except adding a few drops of 5% HCl should be fine. It's really concentrated HCl, or the gas, that would start causing problems. Chloride is a pretty poor nucleophile, more likely in dilute solution is that water would add to the limonene double bonds to produce a selection of terpinoid alcohols.

tooseebbb, what colour is your limonene as it comes fresh out of the bottle?

PS - calcium hydroxide readily forms small particles of calcium carbonate which could get picked up by the limonene too. When mixed with plant material, the calcium hydroxide will react with any plant acids present and if any of the possible products are poorly soluble (calcium oxalate being but one example), particles of these insoluble salts could also be carried over in the limonene. There are numerous other things that could be carried over by the limonene to form a sludge in contact with acid but this speculation is getting a bit lengthy already.

 

[tooseebbb]

Thanks for the reply -- and the chemistry knowledge

The d-limonene is a clear greenish yellow, and I couldn't see any particles suspended in it.

I'm curious as to your feelings on what sort of container is best for soaking the cactus with the solvent? I'm considering going the French press route like last time (doing the soak entirely in the French press) or opting for a flatter, wider container where there could be more contact between the dlimo and the cactus mush.

 

[downwardsfromzero]

If your limonene is anything other than colourless when it comes out of the bottle it's supplied in, then you're probably dealing with expressed orange oil which, while being typically a good 90+% limonene, also contains various other compounds. These may also contribute to the goop. You could try cleaning it up before using it although that would take a while.

(A greenish-yellow appearance after contact with the cactus paste is to be expected, however.)


I think there's a lot to be said for using a wider dish for this kind of extraction. It's just a bit harder to pour off the solvent than when using a coffee press. Be prepared for the limonene to dribble along the bottom edge of a pie dish, for example.

 

[tooseebbb]

I don't think Limonene + HCl is recommended:

tooseebbb, what colour is your limonene as it comes fresh out of the bottle?

My apologies -- I misread this as "what colour is the limonene as it comes fresh out of the press". Fresh from the bottle it is clear, as expected. It's yellow-green coming from the cactus soak.

Alright, time for Attempt Two using vinegar and a large pan. Thanks for the guidance, downwardsfromzero and Loveall! I'm very grateful.

 

[downwardsfromzero]

Best of luck!

Ahhh, mescaline

 

[Loveall]

Good luck. I think it makes sense to use the French press at the end to get the last bit of limonene out, and before that, using a flatter container to get the Limonene in contact with the based cactus.