Temperature that will degrade a substance / LSA Sublimation

[frobot]

I am trying to understand what temperatures are unsafe for a given substance. Particularly DMT and LSA. Is it as simple as its melting point, or is it more complex? I assume time would be a factor too. For example, keeping a substance right at its "safe temperature" for weeks might be different than just a few minutes.

I am mostly wondering about sublimation of LSA. Its melting point is around 240 degrees C, the same as caffeine. Caffeine seems to be easily sublimated for refinement, what about LSA?
My idea involves using the lowest pressure you can get, then increasing temperature until LSA sublimes and seeing if anything else comes with it. Just not sure how to know how much is too much temperature.
Anyone have any triple point data on LSA or an idea on if it would work?

 

[1ce]

I recently posted a thread inquiring DMT sublimation. I'd try it and see. DMT doesn't particularly have a specific melting temperature; from experience I can tell you that it condenses with a bit of haste.

I was thinking vaporizing it out of a 250ml boiling flask with a 150mm hempel column leading up to a cold finger may work just fine. IIRC correctly DMT vapes at 60-80C at 1atm(760mm) while heptane boils at 97-98ish.

But I also believe DMT may also vape at higher temps near 120C. I have An endless supply of liquid nitrogen, I was toying with the idea of perhaps using that to chill some ethanol to -60C for the finger.

Although winters here can easilly reach -40 so I could simply run water through a condenser bucket out of my window to achieve the same results.

I vape some DMT as part if my purification process and I can absolutely be sure your alkaloid will survive the sublimation.

DMT travelling 4 inches down my pipe seems to condense quickly if the vapor is thick. Also, IIRC dmt is much like thc when it comes to water soluability in a freebase.

I wonder.. if we took like a perportionately small RBF and carefully oil bathed the DMT out of a higher boiling solvent for a high vapor pressure inside the flask, ran that immediately through a 3way adapter into another rbf of something DMT is not soluable in, --if-it would force a precip.

Maybe dry ice bath the precip flask to ruin soluability further. Dimethyl sulfoxide has a high BP I wonder how well DMT will dissolve in that?

I'm not too sure about LSA, I've never worked with it.

 

[1ce]

Come to think about it. What if we used a salt of DMT dissolved in dimethyl sulfoxide and gasses the vapor into a cold trap of frigid heptane. We ought to be able force a purified precip if this. We could fractionally distill impurities out of the solvent. Since DMT has 2 boiling points we just cut the heads and tales off each.

 

[frobot]

Very interesting. I had thought DMT wouldn't work which is why I was wanting to see about LSA, but with a little more research it seems like it's been done before. Still can't find anything remotely related to sublimation of LSA though

 

[1ce]

I was reading up on some dmt analogue properties. I wonder if one could absorb some crude extract with dimethyl sulfoxide, and used a more favorable solvent like acetone to eluate more volitile impurities out.

Assuming dmt isn't destroyed in the process, do you think we could distill off most other alks, sublime the 5-methoxy out of DMSO, then target the N,N-DMT?

 

[1ce]

I conducted a few tests. At least with DMT.

DMT will not sublime. You would need a very cold cold finger to get DMT as a resin that stay somewhat in place, and you'll need a hot solvent to remove it. Therefor this is completely ineffective.

I distilled naptha with trace ammounts of DMT inside. While it appears that some DMT survived, I had no idea how much DMT was in the solvent to begin with. I will try again with more controlled conditions.

 

[frobot]

I don't think it's impossible. Just not a worthwhile way of purifying DMT. And I'm sure you'd need really low pressure which most people probably don't have access to.
I'm still wanting to try LSA though. Seems like better potential.

 

[1ce]

I don't think it's impossible. Just not a worthwhile way of purifying DMT. And I'm sure you'd need really low pressure which most people probably don't have access to.
I'm still wanting to try LSA though. Seems like better potential.

I can pull a very strong vacuum, even still. Sublimation isn't worthwhile with this substance.