STB with sodium carbonate

[PsiLulu]

Hello beautiful people of the Nexus!

My friend messed up bad, yes. Did he use sodium carbonate instead of sodium hydroxide to basify his water? Yes, absolutely...

Did he have the tools to measure the pH? Nope! But He used 750ml of water for 50mg of sodium carbonate.

Did the root bark dissolve in it? Yes, he got a nice soup.

Did extraction work? Yes, it is ongoing but my friend has a good yield of really nice white crystals, still growing. Unfortunately, he does not have a scale precise enough to know how much does he currently have.

The question my friend has now is: does it make sense to basify further by adding actual sodium hydroxide?

Thank you!

 

[Sakkadelic]

Hello PsyLulu and welcome to the nexus!

Having a scale will help determine whether there's still considerable amount of alkaloids in the soup, and yes he can add some sodium hydroxide anyway, it makes sense. If it doesn't help it should not cause any harm. just tell him to be careful and handle it safely as sodium hydroxide is dangerous.

It's very interesting that he got a successful result with sodium carbonate, as my friend is considering to use that himself since he doesn't have access to sodium hydroxide. could he please follow up on this and confirm the results?

was there a color change and what was the color of the soup after adding the sodium carbonate? and does he mean 50g instead of 50 mg?

 

[PsiLulu]

Hey Sakkadelic,

Thank you very much .

Yes, it was 50g and not 50mg. And he handled it like he would handle sodium hydroxide and he felt very silly when found out that he was there, dressed like a biohazard scientist, actually handling a pretty harmless compound :lol:...

Since it was his first extraction, there was many many mistakes, therefore I don't really know if his report will have any value, but yes he has done several pulls on sub-quantities of the initial soup (about 2/3 of it) and I attached a picture of the result. He had to re-crystalize several times and had trouble with the yellow goo. He used a local solvent (naphta not available in our country, he used something called Essence C and Acetone for recrystalization). Does it seem like a good yield to you?

The soup is dark brown-reddish (picture attached). He did not notice a color change, but, after several days, the soup had three layers: one light one, one very dark one and some sediment of organic waste (which he assumed was normal).

If you want, he can give me a full recount of his experience, but I doubt it will have any more value.

I can though keep you posted on what happens when he will add the sodium hydroxide.

 

[Sakkadelic]

That looks really nice, good work :thumb_up: and thanks for sharing the results.

It does look like a clean yield but without knowing the initial source material and amounts and final mass I can't tell if it's a good yield (quantity wise).

The soup color does look right, and yes, the sediment layer is normal, I am not sure about the lighter color layer, maybe undissolved sodium carbonate or more alkaloids? are you 100% sure you mixed up the sodium carbonate and sodium hydroxide?

The yellow goo is also fine but yeah the xtals look nicer and are more reassuring.

Please keep us posted with your progress and good luck.

 

[PsiLulu]

The source material was 50g of good quality MRHB. When my friend weights the yield on a 111x0.01g scale, it says roughly 80mg at the current stage of the process.

The cleaner layer was entirely processed with at least 8 pulls and yielded less spice than the current layer (mid-layer) after 5 pulls.

I am 100% my friend mixed sodium carbonate and sodium hydroxide (picture of the sodium carbonate box ingredients attached).

Since my friend does not smoke, he is quite unsure what to do with the yellow goo but I am sure that he will find all the answers in the relevant topic . I also attached a picture of the current yield of yellow goo, as a reference.

Thanks for your answers! You are very helpful !

 

[Sakkadelic]

80 mg is quite low but a good sign.. It seems the way to go is by adding sodium hydroxide and doing more pulls.

you mean by cleaner layer the lighter color layer?

 

[PsiLulu]

Yes, lighter color but also lighter as it was on the top of the soup.

Dark but lighter brown-red .

 

[downwardsfromzero]

Unfortunate mix-up but interesting to know that a small yield can result from using sod carb in STB, as indeed it should considering acid-base equilibria and the like. Maybe adding a bit more carbonate before each pull would produce an additional tiny yield each time, especially if the same naphtha get recycled after each freeze precip.

An alternative to adding sodium hydroxide here would be calcium hydroxide instead. This reacts with sodium carbonate to produce sodium hydroxide in situ. This method produced a 1.6% yield in a 25g extraction, if anyone was wondering.

 

[PsiLulu]

After a pull, my friend actually pre-evaps quite a bit of solvant.

The rest of it, once he precipitates and filters out the DMT, is yellowish and contains quite a bit of goo/oil.

Do you think it's a good idea to reuse it? In any case, he loses quite a bit of solvant at every pull because of the pre-evap .

For his soup, he added a copious amount of lye in there and get back to extraction, it seems that the yield has improved (even though it is only his feeling since his first extractions were full of mistakes and the yield wasn't that good in the end in any case).

Safe travels!

 

[downwardsfromzero]

You might also want to check this out:
Extracting DMT with ethanol, vinegar and sodium carbonate

 

[PsiLulu]

Thanks downwardsfromzero.

Interesting read from endlessness!

My friend'll stick with lye though. He may attempt an A/B at some point to experiment the difference between both methods.