dreamer042 said:
The big issue with chloroform re: this forum is that it is a
watched chemical. Also, distilling solvents isn't exactly kitchen chemistry. It's great if you have the knowledge, experience, and equipment to do this kind of work safely, but not everyone does and it's important to remember this forum is targeted toward the latter rather than the former. Still this is good information and useful for some people. Now for a real revolution let's figure out how to make it accessible to your average noob with absolutely no chemistry experience.
Permit me, dear dreamer042, to correct you, as your post is full of false assumptions. Please, do not be offended, I am giving you positive criticism. I have been active in this hobby (amateur chemistry) and I am well experienced with the chemical trade for the last 15 years, and I still see the same assumptions, misunderstandings and general paranoia towards buying glassware and chemicals, let alone the dreaded "watched chemical" list. Let me go through your post step-wise.
Now, you assume that a distillation is some kind of wizardry, but your mind thinks of the acid/base extractions we know so well as mere kitchen chemistry. My dear friend, a distillation is not harder than putting a kettle of water on the stove, only that now you catch the vapor by cooling and condensing it. There is really nothing more to it, a 12 year old can perform a simple distillation.
Mind you, we're not talking about a fractional distillation or vacuum distillation, just the simplest put-the-kettle-on-the-stove type standard destillation.
The same thought was uttered elsewhere on the forum concerning column chromatography. "This isn't exactly kitchen chemistry", the exact words, while had that person actually looked into that matter, he would have seen that it is a simple procedure actually very well fit to be performed in a kitchen.
And meanwhile the persons who utter these words are performing acid/base extractions using things like lye (which is exothermic on contact with water and so caustic it can easily blind you if precautions aren't taken) and extractions/washings with naphta, which is flammable. An A/B extraction is in fact harder and more elaborate than a simple distillation or running a column, but here it comes: you can use mason jars and wine bottles, so it's kitchen chemistry. As long as you don't have to use real chemistry glassware right? Do you see the flaw in your thinking?
It's great if you have the knowledge, experience, and equipment to do this kind of work safely, but not everyone does and it's important to remember this forum is targeted toward the latter rather than the former
There goes more knowledge and experience into mastering an acid/base extraction than a simple distillation, which a 12 year old can learn and perform in a single afternoon. Who else uses distillation? The small-scale home brewer who wants to make his own schnapps or gin, the hobby-perfumers, who distills a mixture of aromatic plants and water in order to obtain a hydrolate scent (eg. cherry laurel water). Ergo: a simple distillation setup can be bought for $50 and has plenty of legitimate uses, don't worry, nobody is watching them. (We don't want the big copper vessels for moonshining either, just a liter-sized glass setup)
The big issue with chloroform re: this forum is that it is a
watched chemical.
There we are: the dreaded watched chemicals. Nobody know what they are, and nobody knows who does the watching. The already paranoiac brain of the psychoactive aficionado goes in overdrive. Sure we have the listed chemicals, which clearly define what is allowed and what not, and (!) which treshold level. But the watched list, there comes the list Strike posted almost 15 years ago, which includes about everything and their grandmothers. Seriously, have you even taken a look at that list:
VITAMIN E, NIACIN, ACETAMINOPHEN, FOLIC ACID, SODIUM FREAKING CHLORIDE
The list is absolute bullcrap. You can order most of the chemicals on that list in kg quantities without anyone batting an eyelid. Many item can even just be bought off the shelves, like hydrochloric acid and acetone.
Do you know that these two, btw, HCl and acetone, are actually more dangerous to buy than chloroform, today? Especially if your name is Mohammed or Rachid. Only recently in september, there was issued an EU directive to put a thighter control on the sale of acetone, hydrogen peroxide and hydrochloric acid, because its use in the preparation of acetone peroxide, the stuff those fools blow themselves up with. Those three are far more watched than a bottle of chloroform, and next to that they are listed too.
There are two things you have to keep in mind when buying chemicals. First is: what are the legitimate uses for my chemical? In the case of chloroform, it's easy: plexiglass modding. There are people who like to make transparent cases for their computers or their electronics projects they tinkered together, and for that they use chloroform as a glue, as this is how plexiglass is commonly attached to each other. So that is exactly what you are going to do should anyone ask why you need a liter of chloroform.
Secondly is, what are the treshold levels for a certain chemical in order for an order to be reported. With the listed chemicals you know, for example for acetic anhydride it is 500ml. That means, every sale of Ac2O (a very naughty chemical) over 500ml has to be reported to the authorities. A bottle of 100ml does not. In case of the chloroform, a liter is safe, as like said before, acetone is much hotter nowadays and it is still available in the hardware store in 5 liter gallons.
That is why we small-scale experimenters are always on the safe side. The people going paranoid over watched purchases on drug chemistry boards, and who should do so, are the commercial producers, the ones making kilos of amphetamine or MDMA. They need liters of solvents and on a regular basis. We need 1 liter of chloroform, and we recycle our solvents so that bottle will last forever. If you really think that such an order would be red-flagged in order for the cops to harass some poor plexi modder than you severely overestimate their abilities and jurisdiction.
As my last point, you know, the funny thing is that the paranoia so omnipresent on "drug boards" gets pretty laughable if you take a step back and practice chemistry for chemistry's sake... the beauty of a Grignard reaction or a vacuum distillation of essential oils. You can find beautiful things at boards like sciencemadness.org, and there you can talk with people who build a complete and fancy lab in their garage or toolshed, people like 'garage chemist' (Stefan from versuchchemie.de) or Magpie (USA), and others. They have ordered things like thionyl chloride and other hot stuff that would give some people throbbing ulcers and many sleepless nights, and next to having to sign an end-user certificate, a very normal thing when ordering hazardous chemicals, have never had a raid or whatever. And they present themselves to the chemical supplier as "chemistry hobbyist". Of course they are well versed in chemistry and know their stuff, otherwise the seller would never give them things like bromine, acetic anhydride or carboxylic acid chlorides. But then you have on the other hand people who are afraid to order a bottle of chloroform. It's food for thought...
I remember reading one comment here on the forum: someone panicing that on the MSDS of dichloromethane it now said "used as a solvent for DMT". Oh my God they're on to us! No-one in that thread realized that the DMT they were referring to was actually DiMethyl Terephtalate, a polymer building block, which is indeed easily dissolved by a solvent like dichloromethane, along with many other polymers. That was quite a facepalm, people actually thinking that the manufacturer of a solvent would actually put in the MSDS that it is used for MHRB extraction. :? :? :roll: :lol:
) standards, the important information here is that the acetates of both DMT and DMT-N-oxide appear to be soluble in chloroform, while the acetates of 5-MeO-DMT and bufotenin are not.
