waitwhatwhere
Rising Star
After a bit of searching, I failed to encounter a solid disaster spill thread. If there is one out there, please direct me to it and treat this as my personal extraction melt-down. I figured others could learn from my mishap. I am reasonably experienced with DMT, as most of my experiences have derived from DMT for which I performed the extraction. Yet bad luck can strike even the careful and reverent amateur kitchen-chemist.
We all have read about and likely had experience with the potent staining capabilities of Mimosa and Acacia at various stages of extraction. If you are doing an A/B extraction, you have dark red acidic liquid that will readily color tile, stove-tops, linoleum, and oh yeah, clothes and carpet. At the basic stage, one ends up with viscous, black-purple liquid of very high pH. It's soapy to the touch, like bleach.
A few weeks ago I was using a 2L Ball mason jar as my extraction vessel, containing ~1.75 L of basified tea and 120 ml hot naptha. The jar had been in a hot water bath in between mixing the basified and naptha layers to reduce emulsions. I had just finished pipetting off the naptha from my first pull into another glass container from the basified layer when I noticed a hairline crack going across the lower half of the extraction vessel. Uh-oh! It was a good thing I was prepared, and had another brand new 2L Ball jar handy. I grasped the neck of the extraction vessel to transfer it's contents into the new jar when it separated cleanly from the bottom half of the now bisected jar.
Disaster :shock: . Blackish-red liquid vomited microwave, chair, pants, fridge and kitchen floor. I had brutally murdered my extraction, all over my kitchen. Because the gods are kind and wise, I had completed my first pull and it was miraculously, perfectly intact and unspilt, despite my aghast reaction to my blunder. I took stock. Respirator? Check. But I had failed to exercise basic lab procedure and I was not wearing shoes. Standing in a the messy puddle, surveying the carnage, my feet where covered and starting to tingle. Some of the basic solution had actually landed in another beaker and bowl. These, and my naptha, I set aside. There were plenty of paper towels, so I began sopping up the mess with them and tossing them into a bucket. But, wow, had this stuff done a number on my linoleum. And me feet still tingled.
I grabbed a jug of vinegar I had on hand. In the tub, I rinsed my feet with white vinegar and put on shoes and fresh gloves. Then I went back and sloshed some vinegar on the floor. This did what you would expect, and turned the soapy dark red basified liquid into something more watery and easier to mop up with paper towels. Into the bucket. I did surfaces, getting tough spots with 100% vinegar. The chair I sprayed-down with a hose. I went through a whole fresh roll of paper towels and almost saw daylight in the cleanup effort.
But I wasn't finished. See, although I had done a first pool, there was still gold up in them hills...the bucket!! While there was about 300 ml of unadulterated basified tea recovered from the beaker and bowl, by squeezing out my paper towels, I collected about a liter of dark red liquid. It tested at pH 9.3. This I strained, re-basified, and did my final pulls.
The things that really made a bad situation not spiral into catastrophe were actually pretty simple. First, I remained calm and prioritized. Second, I had a number of back-up and materials on hand and in abundance. Third, I didn't put it off, I acted quickly and and was able to mitigate potential staining by neutralizing the pH and absorbing the spill. Finally, by keeping my eye on the prize, I used a cleanup method that allowed for further extraction.
While it's probably not the most fun topic on the Nexus, if you have similar stories to share, post'em here :thumb_up: !
We all have read about and likely had experience with the potent staining capabilities of Mimosa and Acacia at various stages of extraction. If you are doing an A/B extraction, you have dark red acidic liquid that will readily color tile, stove-tops, linoleum, and oh yeah, clothes and carpet. At the basic stage, one ends up with viscous, black-purple liquid of very high pH. It's soapy to the touch, like bleach.
A few weeks ago I was using a 2L Ball mason jar as my extraction vessel, containing ~1.75 L of basified tea and 120 ml hot naptha. The jar had been in a hot water bath in between mixing the basified and naptha layers to reduce emulsions. I had just finished pipetting off the naptha from my first pull into another glass container from the basified layer when I noticed a hairline crack going across the lower half of the extraction vessel. Uh-oh! It was a good thing I was prepared, and had another brand new 2L Ball jar handy. I grasped the neck of the extraction vessel to transfer it's contents into the new jar when it separated cleanly from the bottom half of the now bisected jar.
Disaster :shock: . Blackish-red liquid vomited microwave, chair, pants, fridge and kitchen floor. I had brutally murdered my extraction, all over my kitchen. Because the gods are kind and wise, I had completed my first pull and it was miraculously, perfectly intact and unspilt, despite my aghast reaction to my blunder. I took stock. Respirator? Check. But I had failed to exercise basic lab procedure and I was not wearing shoes. Standing in a the messy puddle, surveying the carnage, my feet where covered and starting to tingle. Some of the basic solution had actually landed in another beaker and bowl. These, and my naptha, I set aside. There were plenty of paper towels, so I began sopping up the mess with them and tossing them into a bucket. But, wow, had this stuff done a number on my linoleum. And me feet still tingled.
I grabbed a jug of vinegar I had on hand. In the tub, I rinsed my feet with white vinegar and put on shoes and fresh gloves. Then I went back and sloshed some vinegar on the floor. This did what you would expect, and turned the soapy dark red basified liquid into something more watery and easier to mop up with paper towels. Into the bucket. I did surfaces, getting tough spots with 100% vinegar. The chair I sprayed-down with a hose. I went through a whole fresh roll of paper towels and almost saw daylight in the cleanup effort.
But I wasn't finished. See, although I had done a first pool, there was still gold up in them hills...the bucket!! While there was about 300 ml of unadulterated basified tea recovered from the beaker and bowl, by squeezing out my paper towels, I collected about a liter of dark red liquid. It tested at pH 9.3. This I strained, re-basified, and did my final pulls.
The things that really made a bad situation not spiral into catastrophe were actually pretty simple. First, I remained calm and prioritized. Second, I had a number of back-up and materials on hand and in abundance. Third, I didn't put it off, I acted quickly and and was able to mitigate potential staining by neutralizing the pH and absorbing the spill. Finally, by keeping my eye on the prize, I used a cleanup method that allowed for further extraction.
While it's probably not the most fun topic on the Nexus, if you have similar stories to share, post'em here :thumb_up: !
I did add the lye directly into the glass. I had suspected that was the culprit and now I have confirmation. I'll be making a lye solution in a separate container from now on. First time it's happened after many extractions...must have just been using thicker glass in previous extractions.
