resonanting_sloth
Rising Star
I decided, on a whim, to remove some impurities from my 2.4g collection of light canary yellow material extracted from mimosa.
Having only done any sort of re-x once in my life, many years ago, I figured I'd just "play" instead of following a tek. After all, I'm not risking losing anything. I measured 50ml naphtha and 2g spice and placed each in a water bath at 130F. The crystals melted and I added 15-20ml hot naphtha to dissolve everything.
A small dark yellow fraction developed at the bottom of the container and was removed via pipette and placed onto a flat surface to evaporate. The remaining portion was placed in the freezer. Crystals precipitated immediately. White crystals were removed from the sides of the container, and white crystals atop a very solid pale yellow deposit were removed from the bottom.
I kept .4g of the original canary yellow extracted material as a control. Its crystalline consistency was very similar to the dark yellow "impurity" fraction's yield.
The white spice collected from the container's sides ended up being almost glistening eggshell white.
The balance/bulk of the material removed, the bottom layer of white crystals and solid pale yellow material, showed a color close to the original canary yellow (more of a pale yellow, almost tan), but an obvious different consistency from the canary control. I'm curious to put samples on a slide and check them out under the microscope.
The "bulk" provided an experience practically identical to the "eggshell white" substance. Both differed in flavor and character from the less pure original extract. Ingestion of the purified material was smoother.
The moral of the story? It's fun to play with your food! I learned a bit from doing this, and although it was a very crude purification attempt, it was simple and effective.
EDIT: After playing with proper heptane re-x, I think I'm totally happy with a simple naphtha purification process.
1) It delivers a nice product with only a small amount of plant oils present.
2) It's cheap and doesn't involve spending a couple bucks on gas, as well as time, driving to a craft store for an expensive recrystallization solvent.
3) If I desire to make a beautiful crystalline product, this operation could be ran once or twice to provide good starting material.
4) This product seems to have an even, predictable consistency, allowing the possibility of using a small (1/4 dram) vial to eyeball doses when necessary.
I don't mean to say that I won't ever re-x with heptane, by the way, especially if I refine extraction techniques to the point of extracting a couple/few grams of spice in a day or two. In that case, with one large amount of material, I could run the naphtha process a couple times, then purify with heptane, and finally grow big crystals. Sounds too fun to miss out on
Having only done any sort of re-x once in my life, many years ago, I figured I'd just "play" instead of following a tek. After all, I'm not risking losing anything. I measured 50ml naphtha and 2g spice and placed each in a water bath at 130F. The crystals melted and I added 15-20ml hot naphtha to dissolve everything.
A small dark yellow fraction developed at the bottom of the container and was removed via pipette and placed onto a flat surface to evaporate. The remaining portion was placed in the freezer. Crystals precipitated immediately. White crystals were removed from the sides of the container, and white crystals atop a very solid pale yellow deposit were removed from the bottom.
I kept .4g of the original canary yellow extracted material as a control. Its crystalline consistency was very similar to the dark yellow "impurity" fraction's yield.
The white spice collected from the container's sides ended up being almost glistening eggshell white.
The balance/bulk of the material removed, the bottom layer of white crystals and solid pale yellow material, showed a color close to the original canary yellow (more of a pale yellow, almost tan), but an obvious different consistency from the canary control. I'm curious to put samples on a slide and check them out under the microscope.
The "bulk" provided an experience practically identical to the "eggshell white" substance. Both differed in flavor and character from the less pure original extract. Ingestion of the purified material was smoother.
The moral of the story? It's fun to play with your food! I learned a bit from doing this, and although it was a very crude purification attempt, it was simple and effective.
EDIT: After playing with proper heptane re-x, I think I'm totally happy with a simple naphtha purification process.
1) It delivers a nice product with only a small amount of plant oils present.
2) It's cheap and doesn't involve spending a couple bucks on gas, as well as time, driving to a craft store for an expensive recrystallization solvent.
3) If I desire to make a beautiful crystalline product, this operation could be ran once or twice to provide good starting material.
4) This product seems to have an even, predictable consistency, allowing the possibility of using a small (1/4 dram) vial to eyeball doses when necessary.
I don't mean to say that I won't ever re-x with heptane, by the way, especially if I refine extraction techniques to the point of extracting a couple/few grams of spice in a day or two. In that case, with one large amount of material, I could run the naphtha process a couple times, then purify with heptane, and finally grow big crystals. Sounds too fun to miss out on