burnt said:
SWIM was able to get tan powdery crystals from ott method. unfortuntately it causes too many side effects.
SWIM wouldn't do ott method ever again though the whole ethanol and tartaric acid part seems like a waste of time. SWIM would recommend just doing acid extraction with water initially.
anyway what is this xylene boil? is it to purify the final tan product to get it cleaner?
How Ott got clean bufotenine using his tech is amazing. SWIM had a very hard time getting the bufotenine to crystallize using that tech. Maybe Ott’s seeds were far more pure. SWIM only was successful once, and all other times crystallization failed using that tech. Ott’s tech is actually not his own invention, its copied from someone else (I forget his name) with a few very minor modifications by Ott.
The xylene boil works very well on the results from Ott’s extraction. It’s a purification step only. The extract needs to be a very pure alkaloid extract to begin with or it doesn’t work well. Ott’s tech produces a very pure alkaloid extract, the problem seems to be that bufotenine N-oxide (SWIM is assuming this) is a sticky amber mess and contaminates most bufotenine extracts. This is why you usually get a tan or amber powder, and it’s often sticky, sometimes so sticky that its gooey.
Both bufotenine and bufotenine N-oxide are insoluble in xylene at room temperature. However, when xylene is boiled, it’s temperature is roughly the same as the boiling point of bufotenine. At that temperature bufotenine becomes soluble in xylene, but bufotenine N-oxide does NOT (again, SWIM is assuming the amber alkaloid is bufotenine N-Oxide).
This is how you do the xylene boil. You boil the purified mixed alkaloids in a beaker with xylene for 5 minutes. Two distinct layers form, a dark amber layer at the bottom, and a light yellow layer at the top. You then immediately decant the light yellow xylene into another beaker being careful not to decant any of the amber crap at the bottom. After 24 hours, many tiny white crystals form in the xylene. They look like snow or sand to the naked eye. The xylene can then be decanted off leaving bufotenine crystals stuck to the beaker. This step can then be repeated with the bufotenine to produce extremely pure crystals. Any 5-MeO-DMT or DMT present will be left behind in the decanted xylene.
This is a great trick because it allows easy separation of bufotenine N-oxide, bufotenine, and DMT (plus 5-MeO-DMT). Before boiling the xylene 5-MeO-DMT and DMT are extremely soluble in it. After boiling, bufotenine becomes soluble in it too, but bufotenine N-oxide does not (again this is assume it’s the amber alkaloid) and sinks to the bottom as amber crap. When the xylene is decanted, leaving behind the amber crap, the decanted boiling hot xylene contains a mix of DMT, DMT N-Oxide, and bufotenine. When it cools down overnight, the bufotenine precipitates out of the xylene while the DMT and 5-MeO-DMT stay in the xylene. It's perfect for this.
The only problem is that xylene is present in the bufotenine. You can then recrystallize the bufotenine in a small amount of acetone to get rid of the xylene. You cannot crystallize bufotenine in acetone unless its extremely pure, so don’t bother unless your bufotenine is nearly white. It will usually have a slight amber or tan tint to it unless recrystallized many times.
