Petroleum Ehter Question

[the_Architect]

Hi, it´s been a while since I posted here, I apologize if this is the wrong forum group.
I wasn´t able to make new post in FAQ or extraction, etc.

The question:
Recently I moved to a new house, manage to have more space for my equipment. I was able to get some petroleum ehter lab grade ( is 40-60 EPR).
I am not a chemist... Im know 40-60 is the evaporation temperature.

I´d been using a hot plate stirrer, with an actual separate stirrer. I got good results with zippo lighter fluid at 50-60 Cº. I put a hard aluminum tray with holes for the stirrer and manage to avoid too much evaporation... I loose some anyway. I use a 5L beaker, flat bottom.
I use Cyb´s Hybryd ATB salt tek.

I was wondering, how much can I warm up the mix with the petroleum ether ?
40ªC?
50ªC?
60ªC?

Is it more dangerous than zippo lighter fluid?
will it evaporate much easily?
Any precautions I should take?

Thank you very much for your answers.

*Some photos of my new setup... I feel much safer than with my old system... a 5L glass bottle I would shake manually... now I just put it "on" and get the hell out of the basement for a couple of minutes

 

[Brennendes Wasser]

In general there is no rule to not heat it upwards to 60 °C if the vaporization range given is 40-60 °C. In theory obviously it would mean that the first isomers of that mixture start boiling at 40 °C (Pentane) and the last ones will boil at 60 °C (Hexane). But in reality I have never observed excessive bubbling of any Petrol Ether before reaching the UPPER maximum, this would be 60 °C in this case. If you have a mixture, the higher boiling substance will actually act like a "glue" and prevent the lower boiling to evaporate too fast. I remember somebody wrote that Hexane-Heptane-Naphtha will evaporate slower than n-Heptane.

So dont worry, you could heat it to 60 °C with no problem!

Actually I would even recommend doing so ... because your mixture has Pentane / Hexane instead of Hexane / Heptane which I would recommend. Pentane has only a really low solubility for DMT, even at 40 °C. So technically I guess only the Hexane in your mix will realistically do the job. The best Petrol Ether is 60 - 80 °C in my opinion, Hexane + Heptane isomers. I have used the 40-60 also and it gave really white crystals. Actually I think this is due to the even lower solubility of water inside of this mix, which will then drag over even less of the brown-whatever-gunk in the water phase. I guess this stuff is the reason for the off-colour impurities and not actually the petrol ether catching it up. Still it might not catch your goodies as well as the other one in theory.

About evaporation:

At least it should evaporate really fast. But I guess this mix will freeze-out even more DMT than the 60-80 mix, so maybe full evaporation not even necessary.

 

[the_Architect]

Ok, thanks.
I´ll put the hot plate in 58ºC then... boubbly petroleum ether is too much for my heart...

I have some n-heptane also lab grade. I´ll make separate extractions and study the differences.

How much can I heat up the mix using n-heptane?

 

[Brennendes Wasser]

Heptane will boil basically the same as water, so in theory you could just go full on 100 °C.

Still I would say more than 80 °C is not necessary. At this point solubility of DMT is already super high in your Alkanes. 60 °C would be still also pretty fine to get all your goodies with just 3-4 pulls. Still, only witrh the 40-60 petrol ether mix it might take a little longer at that Temp than with n-Heptane, but that is something which you might just try out and if your mix is still fine, just use that one! :thumb_up:

Aah and dont forget that putting your hotplace on 58 °C will most likely result in your soup still being only 50 °C. Heat will not make it 100 % through, so the real temperature you will only know if you measure with a thermometer inside of your vessel. Nice apparatus, that will save a lot of Hand-Work 8) 8)

 

[the_Architect]

Thanks for the info, It will help keeping things safe for me.
The hotplate actually works with a termomether inside the mix, so it´s quite accurate.

To take the solvent later... I use a conic-long glass lab bottle, I patiently take the top of the mix with a sausser gourmet spoon for pouring sauce...

No more bicep shaking for me.