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What are the dangers of impure lye?

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StatuesCryBleeding

StatuesCryBleeding

SWIM :)
I'm curious as to the dangers of using a lye mixture that contains sodium hypoclorite. What's it's solubility in naphtha? Would smoking spice with sodium hypoclorite simply be unhealthy (like smoking a tobacco cigarette) or deadly?

The reason I ask is because I've been unable to find a source of pure lye in my area. I also refuse to have it shipped.
 
I'll say don't use that except maybe to clean your swimming pool. Sodium hypochlorite is houshold bleach (NaOCl). I wouldn't be worried about the solubility of sodium hypochlorite in naptha but rather the chlorine reacting with plant tissue to produce (say) chlorinated organic compounds that could (would) be soluble in naptha. In that case, you'll be smoking compounds like polychlorinatedbiphenyls (ie PCB's) which are not good for your continued existance.

You can obtain pure lye somehow and why would you want to fool around with adding bleach to your extraction? If you can't find 100% lye, make some sodium carbonate from baking soda.

I can also add, there are some types of non-100% lye that contain metal granules (aluminum or magnesium) that bubble when added to water to eliminate drain pipe clogs a little easier. You can see the granules in this type of drain cleaner as little gray specks within the lye powder. Don't use this type of lye either. If you need lye, get 100% lye, otherwise, make some Na2CO3 from NaHCO3.
 
Alright thanks for the answers. I heard calcium carbonate is a bad choice with stb teks because of it's low solubility in water. Anyone have first hand experiences to share? If not, ill just go with lime I guess.
 
cker said:
If you need lye, get 100% lye, otherwise, make some Na2CO3 from NaHCO3.
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Have you successfully used Na2CO3 in an A/B or STB ? In my experience it doesn't work in an A/B while I (theoretically) presume that the base is too weak to work in a STB.

Solubility:
Calcium hydroxide - lime - 0.173 g/100 mL (20°C)
Calcium carbonate - 0.00015 mol/L - 0,0015 g/100 mL (25°C)
 
Just a recommendation: Check out q21q21's white DMT tek, no need for lye and the results are awesome, very easy to do.
 
SWIM has just scraped a massive yield after doing a STB with Crystal Heat Drain cleaner. It looks amazing but the yield was so massive that SWIM got skeptical. Upon further review, there may be some other things in the powder which I don't need.

The reagent used contains:
SODIUM HYDROXIDE; caustic soda; soda lye SODIUM NITRATE; chile saltpeter; soda niter ALUMINUM; METALLIC GRANULES SODIUM CARBONATE; soda ash; carbonic acid, disodium salt

Yield total was over half a gram from 100g MHRB, pulled with naphtha and freeze precipitated.

SWIM understands that not using 100% lye is a no-no, but at this point SWIM wants to know what to do with all this glorious powder. Can SWIM safely use it at all? If not, can it be refined into something usable? SWIM has heptane as an alternative solvent.
 
sunnyshine777 said:
SWIM has just scraped a massive yield after doing a STB with Crystal Heat Drain cleaner. It looks amazing but the yield was so massive that SWIM got skeptical. Upon further review, there may be some other things in the powder which I don't need.

The reagent used contains:
SODIUM HYDROXIDE; caustic soda; soda lye SODIUM NITRATE; chile saltpeter; soda niter ALUMINUM; METALLIC GRANULES SODIUM CARBONATE; soda ash; carbonic acid, disodium salt

Yield total was over half a gram from 100g MHRB, pulled with naphtha and freeze precipitated.

SWIM understands that not using 100% lye is a no-no, but at this point SWIM wants to know what to do with all this glorious powder. Can SWIM safely use it at all? If not, can it be refined into something usable? SWIM has heptane as an alternative solvent.
Click to expand...
5% seems too good to be true. Have you checked the accuracy of your scales?

Recrystallise using that heptane. Then consider speaking to Endlessness about whether this would qualify for an analysis. Have a look at checking it via TLC, at the very least.

Because the drain cleaner you used contains reactive substances, there is a distinct chance that your yield has been boosted by unknown substances resulting from the reaction of aluminium powder, sodium nitrate and your extraction substrate. It's not impossible that some kind of amine extractable by naphtha has been formed. It's not safe to assume that this unknown substance can be safely consumed.

All that said - if this miraculously turned out to be all DMT it would be worth repeating the extraction using pure sodium hydroxide with more source material from the same batch in order to see if it's capable of reproducing the same yield this way.

Then try again with NaOH + sodium nitrate.

Then try again with NaOH + aluminium powder.

Then try again with NaOH + sodium nitrate + aluminium powder.

This may then show whether the drain cleaner produced anything extra, DMT or otherwise.


It may be possible that the sodium nitrate acts in the same way as table salt in Cyb's salt tek.
 
Jagube said:
downwardsfromzero said:
5% seems too good to be true.
Click to expand...
But 0.5g from 100g is 0.5%, not 5%. That's not a high yield.
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You've got me there - the cognitive flatulence was strong at that time! The claim of massive yield was quite banboozling (and once I scraped up 5 grams but from rather more bark).

Yeah, that's a fairly disappointing yield. No scientific breakthrough here, just stick to the pure lye and move along...
 
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