Spice Recycling Tek [workthread]

[amor_fati]

No matter how hard you try, spice residues in whatever form will accumulate over time, whether in containers, dishes, or smoking implements. These residues are almost guaranteed to contain a fair amount of oxidized product in most cases. Perhaps a quick, surefire method of retrieving usable product from such residues is needed.

What SWIM propose is:
-Prepare THP by cutting the bottom off an HDPE bottle, stuffing the neck about half full of cotton balls, pouring a somewhat thick layer of zinc over-top of the cotton balls, and filling the rest of the neck with more cotton balls to keep the zinc in place.
-Dissolve collected residues in a vinegar solution and pour through THP.
-Repeat the wash to satisfaction, collect the solution on an evap dish, pour fresh water through THP, repeat and collect as needed until the flushes run clear.
-Evaporate the collected flushes.
-Mix into sodium carbonate paste on the dish, spread thin, perform a single wash with a minimal amount of water using just enough to dissolve all visible sodium carbonate grains, and decant the wash.
-Crystallize the oil in whatever manner desired.

 

[amor_fati]

Strangely, the wash water in the spice conversion seemed to hold a good deal of particles in suspension, and while they seem to settle out, it's difficult to determine how much of it is product. This problem is possibly partly due to the overuse of sodium carbonate (not having a weight for the original acetate), which demands that a bit of an excess of water be used, but it also seems in-line with others' experiences of freebasing from acetate. The oily freebase substance that remained precipitated and free from suspension was reminiscent of nutella and had a nice aroma to it, but it refuses to harden.

For storage purposes, SWIM will react the brown sticky product with fumaric acid. From there, he will decide whether to bioassay orally or attempt to purify.

SWIM will also attempt to retrieve any product potentially lost to suspension by dissolving in IPA after allowing to settle out and decanting the wash water.

 

[endlessness]

In general SWIM just doesnt care about resin lost, because his dmt stash usually lasts a long time, so he doesnt have to worry about recycling.. Also, SWIM vaporizes mostly in the form of changa so it wouldnt be just dmt condensing but loads of other vaporized oils..

In any case im sure there will be other people interested and anyways effort in all sorts of unexplored areas of practical psychedelic research are welcome, so do share whatever results you get

 

[amor_fati]

Well some of the aspects of these methods don't only apply to recycling but possibly to converting N-Oxides for foliage extractions, as well. The use of an improvised "zinc column" and being able to quickly convert from an acetate to freebase are fairly universally applicable procedures, but SWIM happens to be using it for recycling at the moment. The rest of this experimentation will have to be postponed for a time, as SWIM decided to allocate this produc for another experiment:


SWIM let his gooey brown freebase sit for a time, and it did take on a more slightly more solid form. SWIM weighed it out to be about 430mg (SWIM's been doing a lot of trial and error experimentation). But rather than proceed with the experiment as planned, SWIM decided that this product and the amount combined with his little bit of leftover freebase would be perfect for making a tincture. He dropped all the freebase material into a 7.4mL dropper bottle, filled it with vinegar, capped it, put it in a hot water bath for a bit, and periodically shook it vigorously.

I figure there's about 30 drops per mL and about 75mg/mL in the tincture, so a drop would be aprx. 2.5mg of actives. So 10-20 drops should be fairly active under the tongue with a sublingual harmaloid to potentiate it, and probably about 30-40 drops orally.

 

[T]

Swim was experimenting with zinc these days both with bufotenine and harmalas, and he thinks that you need a strong mineral acid to make it work (he only tried Hcl so far). The acid needs to remove the outer layer of zinc carbonate and oxide, which forms when zink is exposed to air and forms a protective layer (like with aluminium), to reveal the elemental zinc. Even with ph 1 Hcl solutions he noticed that the ph went down to about 5 very quickly. He had success with 2N Hcl so far.
Also if you plan to use it in a THP the zinc powder will be exposed to air between flushes, so maybe this protective layer has time to reform.

 

[mumbles]

The conversion from n-oxide using zinc requires good stirring to work so a column or layer of zinc may not yield too well but its all worth a shot. Interesting stuff.

 

[amor_fati]

What does the stirring do except to bring zinc particles in contact with N-Oxide molecules? Because if that's all it does, a column can force contact between them. I would imagine it would work in much the same manner as using a THP or a column for drying solvents.

 

[mumbles]

What does the stirring do except to bring zinc particles in contact with N-Oxide molecules? Because if that's all it does, a column can force contact between them. I would imagine it would work in much the same manner as using a THP or a column for drying solvents.

Thats exactly what it does, if the molecules don't make contact the reaction will not proceed to completion. A column might work if the flow rate of the solution containing the n-oxide is moving slowly enough (to give it time to react) and heated.