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Sodium Carbonate Wash

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DMT Entity

DMT Entity

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SWIM was going to clean his DMT with a sodium carbonate wash. He was wondering if the water needed to be a certain pH. Vovin's Unabridged Extraction Guide says to just add a pinch of sodium carbonate but SWIM wants to be sure he doesn't make a mistake. What pH range should the sodium carbonate water solution be at? Thanks.
 
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Adding a lot is not going to affect anything much. It could be even safer, since one wants the pH to be fairly high, 2-3 teaspoons in a litre of water should be more than enough and no dangerous to use at all.

But SWIY wants to do the carbonate thing to wash what exactly out of the spice? NaOH?
 
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^^residual lye is a minor problem as its not soluble in naptha, however if there was residual water or emulsions then yes there may be some NaOH there. anyway doing a quick rinse to remove any other water soluble contaminants is a good idea but only when the spice is in the non polar solvent (there is barely any point in rinsing crystals). anyway the pH needs to be a bit above the pka of dmt. SWIMs friends normally use pH of 10 or 11.
 
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For every 50 parts of dmt N-oxide (the yellow stuff), only 1 will wash away with the na carb wash. You will need to wash few hundreds of times to get rid of the yellow.

In other words, no, the sodium carbonate wash is not the best way to wash it away.
RE-crystallisation will however.
 
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