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Sodium carbonate wash question

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ginandmilk

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Hi everyone,

This is my first post (hopefully of many) and I'm looking for a bit of advice before my first extration. I've collected the nesesary tools and ingredients and researched which tek to go with.

I plan to do a wash with sodium carbonate before evaporating but I see the method calls for distilled water. I have here a bottle of de-ionised water. I understand distilled and de-ionised water are slightly different but my question is - will using de-ionised water work just as well or does the water have to be specifically distilled?

Apologies if it's a stupid question but I'd hate to get right to the end of the process and ruin it by using the wrong water!

Also, I've had trouble finding sodium carbonate. I've got a pack of sodium bicarbonate which I read will turn in to sodium carbonate after a short roast in a hot oven. Does anyone have any experience with this?

Thanks in advance.
 
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Thanks for the very speedy reply!

I'm biding my time until I've got a couple days off next week before I go ahead. I'm really tempted to crack on with it tonight but I'd sooner have a whole day to devote to it.
 
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Separating the naphtha from the bark mixture proved more difficult than I expected, I ended up pulling a fair amount of black over with the clear stuff... though I think that was largely down to my choice of tools - a turkey baster and a 10ml syringe.

I went for a second decant after that settled and then the sodium carbonate wash removed any visible impurity from the naphtha.

I left my solvent evaporating overnight and came back to my pyrex dish this morning to find some small but definitely visible crystals!

I tried to scrape a small area up with a credit card but all I succeeded in doing was smudging them around. They look too fine to effectively scrape up. Is it worth me dissolving them in a little more naphtha then evaporating again in a smaller dish?

Or would it be better to attempt my second pull tonight then put the new naphtha in the dish on top of the existing crystals to just add to them by letting fresh crystals form on top?
 
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What tool are you using to scrape the crystals? Best is a razor blade (one of those that come with a handle, to scrape glass, are ideal, you should find in any hardware store). Also make sure the pyrex has flat bottom.

Depending on how much you extracted in the first place, it will be very small amount of crystals, which is harder to deal with, so it might be better to put pulls together and evaporate it all. The worse that can happen is that your crystals will be very oily because you are also putting together all the impurities, but if that happens, you can always just recrystallize the whole thing (instructions also in FAQ).

btw, why didnt you go for freeze precip and chose evaporating instead? Both work fine, but to separate DMT from the oils, freezing is a good option at least in the first crystallization.
 
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I tried it with a credit card initially but I've acquired a metal razor blade today which I'll try again with tonight.

I went with evap simply because my small freezer jammed full! I've saved half my root bark for another extration, over the next few weeks I plan to clear a shelf in the freezer for next time.

If the razor doesn't work I'll just put the second lot of naphtha straight in with the first lot of crystals then.

Thanks again for the reply
 
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Yeah, credit card doesnt seem like a good idea. Razor should def work better.

Whether you add the other pull or not, if you start scrapping and at least some parts are too oily, spread it around again, let it dry further, keep doing this and a lot, if not all of the oil should crystallize or at least harden up and become more waxy. Then you can always perform recrystallization if wanted, as I mentioned before.

Good luck, let us know how it goes (and I hope you make an introduction essay too ;) )
 
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