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Old Plant Material - Low Yield - n-Oxide Conversion?

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kagenical

Rising Star
So, SWIM had this pound of MHRB sitting in the fridge of my basement in a sealed jar... it was there for about 3 years.

SWIM recently performed a STB extraction on this material - and yielded a measly 2g of final product. This MHRB was at one point *very* active, with over a 1.2% yield. Swim was thinking that the majority of the DMT in the bark has since oxidized into it's n-oxide form - and is still in the MHRB aqueous sludge.

Now, this presents a problem. Swim has about 400g of MHRB "brine" (It's broken down into a thick viscous liquid, sitting in the NaOH for over 5 days now) at a pH of about 13.

Is it still possible to redox this MHRB liqueur with elemental zinc powder at such a high pH? Or would SWIM have to (dear god) reduce the pH to around 3 like all of the conversion teks state.

Swim fears that reducing this pH would be near impossible, and would like to avoid it at all costs... But 2g of n,n-DMT hangs in the balance...

TLDR: Can you redox DMT n-Oxide to n,n-DMT in an aqueous solution with a high pH, using Zinc powder.
 
jeez, sounds like a near atomic bomb you have there in your basement :D

what about extracting it with a solvent that dissolves n-oxides, and then you can mix the solvent with some fresh acidified water and be able to proceed easier with your zinc reduction
 
If SWIM could find Toluene - SWIM would use it to do a "jungle" extract - and reduce the entire thing with zinc, filter and extract the converted spice with Naptha.

But Toluene is harsh on HDPE - and it's not easy to find. Xylene is a definite no-no with HDPE, although it's quite easy to find just about anywhere.
 
I don't know - you tell me!

I've never used limonene in any way related to chemistry - just cleaning labels off stuff!

Your help is very much appreciated by the way!
 
it should dissolve the oxides and is just much nicer than using xylene/toluene, makes the place smells of oranges and not chemical hell haha

but I dont know if limonene and HDPE is a problem or not...

In any case I definitely think that the best way for trying the n-oxide conversion would be to first pick it up with a solvent and then finally discarding that cooking devil out of your basement hehe :D

I never tried the conversion myself yet, so cant comment on that part.. But from what I understand is simply mix the zinc in the acidic solution where the alks are in, and later separate/filter zinc and proceed with adding the base and extracting with a selective non-polar and into the freezer :)
 
Yes - Swim thinks they're going to separate the sludge into 4 1qt glass jars and use Xylol (Xylene) to do just what you're suggesting.

Swim will extract some jungle spice, dissolve it into 250ml of water with a pH of 3 - and then do the zinc redox. Shouldn't be too difficult :)
 
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