Harm Reduction Cold Water Extraction (CWE) Mega Thread & FAQ v2.0

[dais]

lol

 

[Ksa]

Yes, codeine is highly soluble in water, however when it is absorbed INTO water, and then absorbed into a thick construction of kleenex, simply adding a bit more water doesn't necessarily mean the codeine will transfer into the "new water" and then be squeezed out. By having a thicker layer of filter regardless of codeine water solubility, you still increase loss.

So you ARE saying that codeine phosphate is adsorbing onto cellulose and requires a special de-sorbing agent to come off. Can you please provide literature where this phenomenon was observed? My tests clearly indicate that there's no codeine left in the tissue so I am curious

Here's where you get to feel like a real dumb-ass.

Ever heard of a curve chart? Well generally drugs become less soluble in water as the temperature of the water decreases, this law applies to caffeine as well.

"At 0 C 100g of water will dissolve 0.6g caffeine, and at 15 C 100g water will dissolve 1.0g.

According to the book Solubilities of inorganic and organic compounds, 2nd edition, (1919)."

Yes, this does in fact mean if I use as little water as possible, I end up with less caffeine in my solution.

Science, go figure huh.

As little as possible is not a figure, you probably never done it before. 0.6g/100mL = 600mg/100mL = 6mg/mL. If you use 1mL/ pill, for 20 pills(300-15-8) you get 120mg caffeine. Assuming you use the incredible and unheard of 0.5mL/pill, you get 60mg caffeine but you lose codeine because the cellulose cannot dissolve completely.

120mg is almost a cup of coffee man. You didn't achieve anything. To remove caffeine you need to use acetone first, and re-extract. It says on bluelight, it says on erowid, it says everywhere. I can re-extract with acetone until I get the codeine extract down to 0.1mg of caffeine...I just don't want to. And what does caffeine removal have to do with using Kleenex instead of coffee filters? Does caffeine adsorb onto the filters? Lol. You just don't know your facts.

I'll explain it to you, since apparently you lack the knowledge of caffeine solubility in water.

If I use 100ml of water for my 30 pills (325mgAPAP-15mgCaffeine-8mgCodeine), and my water is 0 degrees Celsius, I will end up with all 450mg's of caffeine.

However, here's the real kicker, if I use 30ml of water for my 30 pills, I will only end up with 180mgs of caffeine.

180mg is a cup of coffee. You fail at life, use acetone if you are allergic to coffee. My method does not use cool-down because I am not allergic to coffee and I don't get high on 50 pills at a time. My method is an easy, 5 min long extraction in case you got a migraine like normal people. If you want to extract 10,000,000 pills, you would need an acetone bath to remove caffeine. Get it? ACETONE. Google it.

If you were against the fact that I don't cool down to speed up the extraction, fine, I would agree with you to have that point of view, it's legitimate. But talking about Kleenex adsorption makes you look bad, that's all.

Good day.

 

[pbuilder]

So you ARE saying that codeine phosphate is adsorbing onto cellulose and requires a special de-sorbing agent to come off. Can you please provide literature where this phenomenon was observed? My tests clearly indicate that there's no codeine left in the tissue so I am curious

I'm sorry, I had no idea that you seem to have a procedure that miraculously extracts every last droplet of H2O within your Kleenex cellulose filter. Incredible, your Kleenex is then dry when you are finished with the procedure? They aren't damp or anything, indicating their is still codeine saturated H2O within them, right?

As little as possible is not a figure, you probably never done it before. 0.6g/100mL = 600mg/100mL = 6mg/mL. If you use 1mL/ pill, for 20 pills(300-15-8) you get 120mg caffeine. Assuming you use the incredible and unheard of 0.5mL/pill, you get 60mg caffeine but you lose codeine because the cellulose cannot dissolve completely.

120mg is almost a cup of coffee man. You didn't achieve anything. To remove caffeine you need to use acetone first, and re-extract. It says on bluelight, it says on erowid, it says everywhere. I can re-extract with acetone until I get the codeine extract down to 0.1mg of caffeine...I just don't want to. And what does caffeine removal have to do with using Kleenex instead of coffee filters? Does caffeine adsorb onto the filters? Lol. You just don't know your facts.

Did you not see the example I provided at the bottom of my previous post, I believe those are in fact figures.

Yes, 120mg's is almost a cup of coffee. If I were to have used 3ml per pill, than instead I would end up with 300mg's of caffeine. What does 300mg's compare to? What is that, like 4 red bulls? This is a massive difference in comparison to a mediocre 120mg's, which would have little effect on the codeine buzz. 300mg's would destroy the high, so I don't understand what you are trying to imply when you mention 120mg's is a single cup of coffee, hardly comparable to the amount of caffeine in 4 cans of red-bull.

I wasn't saying that caffeine itself is better absorbed by coffee filters then by Kleenex.

I was simply pointing out than when you use a thick layer of Kleenex like you did, their is a larger surface area and thus more potential for liquid to be absorbed into the Kleenex itself, and by having to do rewashes of the Kleenex, you are using unnecessarily large amounts of water, allowing for more caffeine into the final solution.

Don't tell me your re-washes get all the codeine because I guarantee the Kleenex is still dampened at the end of your procedure. Unless you are some how applying metric tons of pressure to squeeze out every single drop of codeine saturated H2O out of the Kleenex , you are increasing your potential for loss, because those slightly dampened Kleenex's only need to contain .7ml of water to hold 1 GRAM OF CODEINE. By using a thin filter such as a coffee filter, you minimize loss potential. That's all I'm trying to point out, but if you are stubborn to your ways, I'm not going to stop you.

180mg is a cup of coffee. You fail at life, use acetone if you are allergic to coffee. My method does not use cool-down because I am not allergic to coffee and I don't get high on 50 pills at a time. My method is an easy, 5 min long extraction in case you got a migraine like normal people. If you want to extract 10,000,000 pills, you would need an acetone bath to remove caffeine. Get it? ACETONE. Google it.

If you were against the fact that I don't cool down to speed up the extraction, fine, I would agree with you to have that point of view, it's legitimate. But talking about Kleenex adsorption makes you look bad, that's all.

Good day.

I don't understand why you find the need to use unnecessary insults, I simply used your own words against you in my previous retort.

Yes you are right, 180mg's is a cup of coffee again. Now compared to 450mg's of caffeine, 180mg's is in theoretical comparison, like drinking a coca-cola, compared to drinking a monster energy drink. Their is a massive difference in the overall effects, 180mg's of caffeine would again, have only small effects on a 240mg codeine buzz, 450mg's of caffeine would RUIN it. Their is no debating this, nearly half a gram of caffeine is not even in the same ballpark as 180mg's of caffeine. The anxiety and jitters with such a dose would make the codeine dose irrelevant, and the whole high wouldn't even be worth it.
Why would I not aim for as little caffeine as possible?

I actually do suffer from chronic migraines, the aura and nearly total blindness when it first starts, the the nauseated bedridden drill in my head excruciating pain 2 hours in. I was actually hospitalized because I lost my vision for 18 hours after a terrible migraine, so I don't see the point in adding in your pity case of, oh I get migraines I need my codeine quick. If you wanted your codeine quick you could simply prepare larger quantities at once, and keep refrigerated or even evaporate the substance and capsule it in order to have reasonably pure, quality codeine doses at hand.

You do have a point though, since you only do 10 pills or such at a time, this really isn't necessary because you end up with a maximum of 150mg's of caffeine.

But realistically, most people who have any other opiate tolerance won't even catch a mild buzz from 80mg's of codeine, and because of such tolerance, it is crucial to extract as little caffeine as possible when preforming large extractions because otherwise the caffeine will have adverse side effects and over-all ruin the whole experience.

To remove caffeine you need to use acetone first, and re-extract. It says on bluelight, it says on erowid, it says everywhere. I can re-extract with acetone until I get the codeine extract down to 0.1mg of caffeine...I just don't want to. And what does caffeine removal have to do with using Kleenex instead of coffee filters? Does caffeine adsorb onto the filters? Lol. You just don't know your facts.

Here is where you are wrong man. In fact, my whole argument above actually is pretty pointless when I mention this procedure, but this is the ideal way to truly preform a codeine extraction.

You actually can, quite easily extract the caffeine directly out of your solution. No need for acetone. Codeine is incredibly soluble in only small volumes of cold water. Caffeine however, not so much so.

By extracting lets say, 100 AC&C pills at once, I can use 100ml's of water, and let's say their was no margin of error, and my water is 15 degrees during the extraction. The codeine is completely soluble in this amount of water (by quite a large margin actually, 1 gram can dissolve in .7ml's of water) and I am then left with 800mg's of codeine, and the caffeine is soluble at 1gram/100ml of water so I am left with 1000mg's of caffeine.

I could simply just divide this into 4 separate 200mg codeine doses, which will have roughly 250mg's of caffeine in each dose. This isn't to bad, but even 250mg's of caffeine will have moderate effects on the over all codeine high.

Now, here's the rocket science. I can actually lightly boil down my 100ml's of codeine/caffeine solution to only 15ml's. Codeine, against popular believe, is actually quite stable in boiling water. I then take the final 15ml solution, and refrigerate it for about an hour to allow it to cool down to close to 0 degrees (my refrigerator is 2 degrees). During this time, caffeine begins to precipitate because you see, 1 gram of caffeine cannot stay dissolved in 15ml's of cold water because it's solubility isn't high enough. Actually, only 150mg's of caffeine can stay dissolved, and you actually begins to see pretty cool looking caffeine crystals form in the solution, it's quite beautiful really. To ensure all the caffeine precipitates , it is recommended that you leave the solution in the refrigerator, covered for 4 hours. This trade of time is well worth it because we are actually making many many doses at once, since we're working with 800mg's of codeine.

Then, by simply re-filtering this 15ml of codeine/caffeine solution, I am then left with 800mg's of codeine, and only approximately 150mg's of caffeine.

This means 100mg's doses of codeine are now only contaminated with a tiny amount of 15mg's of caffeine. Under thresh-hold effect, you are left with a nice clean sedating euphoric codeine high. I personally would use closer to 200-250mg's a dose, and let me tell you, this dose with only 30-37.5mg's of caffeine is wonderful. I'd compare it to my experiences with oxycodone, eliminating the caffeine to such a small amount makes a world of difference.

Good Day.

 

[Ksa]

"I was simply pointing out than when you use a thick layer of Kleenex like you did, their is a larger surface area and thus more potential for liquid to be absorbed into the Kleenex itself, and by having to do rewashes of the Kleenex, you are using unnecessarily large amounts of water, allowing for more caffeine into the final solution.

Don't tell me your re-washes get all the codeine because I guarantee the Kleenex is still dampened at the end of your procedure."

Can someone explain to this guy how it works? I give up...

 

[MrPorter]

Alright so I went ahead with dissolving the Codeine Phosphate tabs anyway, looked them up on the web and found out the ingredients - nothing harmful. I was left with a thick foam on top of a yellow piss coloured solution. I then filtered it to remove the foam and i got nearly exact same volume of solution as before filtering so very little loss, again piss yellow.

Should it be yellow?
Can I then spread the filtered solution out across say a CD case, let the water evaporate, collect residual powder, dry more, weigh and that will be the amount of CP I have (plus whatever else got dissolved) right?
And then I can dissolve that into a known quantity solution (like 10mg/ml)?

 

[dais]

Can someone explain to this guy how it works? I give up...

you're beating a dead horse and i don't think anyone else could convince them otherwise...

Should it be yellow?

was there a yellow dye colouring the tablets? if so that's fine.

 

[Ksa]

Can I then spread the filtered solution out across say a CD case, let the water evaporate, collect residual powder, dry more, weigh and that will be the amount of CP I have (plus whatever else got dissolved) right?
And then I can dissolve that into a known quantity solution (like 10mg/ml)?

If you boiled down the solution to a small volume like that dude said, yes it's not uncommon to get a brown-yellowish solution. Not a CD case though, it will be hard to scrape it off. Nothing resembling to a solid surface. Use plastic shrink wrap to pour it on, so that when it crystallizes, you can detach the powder by bending the plastic sheet. This works with codeine but failed with Tramadol, as the Tramadol would not come off anything even if a plastic foil was used. The best would be a Teflon foil but I got no idea where to buy that.

I warn you though, the drying is very slow, takes about 24 hours and only occurs in a cool, dry place. If the humidity of your apartment is above 60% it will never dry and will likely get contaminated. This is a difficult step that requires a rotatory evaporator, that's why I don't even bother. It's a waste of time without one.

Also, if it has caffeine make sure you separate it first. This can get misleading due to supersaturation preventing the caffeine to come out when cooling down, so your solution will look yellow clear but the caffeine is still in there. Shaking the solution thoroughly after it is close to freezing point should break it out but usually it takes an hour of sitting in the fridge for it to come out. At this step you should get like a frozen cappuccino looking slurry so the caffeine can be filtered in amounts of 90% or more depending on how much you boiled down the solution.

 

[pbuilder]

If you boiled down the solution to a small volume like that dude said, yes it's not uncommon to get a brown-yellowish solution. Not a CD case though, it will be hard to scrape it off. Nothing resembling to a solid surface. Use plastic shrink wrap to pour it on, so that when it crystallizes, you can detach the powder by bending the plastic sheet. This works with codeine but failed with Tramadol, as the Tramadol would not come off anything even if a plastic foil was used. The best would be a Teflon foil but I got no idea where to buy that.

I warn you though, the drying is very slow, takes about 24 hours and only occurs in a cool, dry place. If the humidity of your apartment is above 60% it will never dry and will likely get contaminated. This is a difficult step that requires a rotatory evaporator, that's why I don't even bother. It's a waste of time without one.

Also, if it has caffeine make sure you separate it first. This can get misleading due to supersaturation preventing the caffeine to come out when cooling down, so your solution will look yellow clear but the caffeine is still in there. Shaking the solution thoroughly after it is close to freezing point should break it out but usually it takes an hour of sitting in the fridge for it to come out. At this step you should get like a frozen cappuccino looking slurry so the caffeine can be filtered in amounts of 90% or more depending on how much you boiled down the solution.

It's true, agitating the concentrated codeine/caffeine mixture is required in order to prevent super saturation. Yesterday I let mine sit for about 4 hours in the fridge, stirring it every so often lightly. The first few times I performed this procedure I just allowed the concentrated CWE to just get cold and immediately then filtered it, and always wondered why I never saw any caffeine precipitate. Patience is key in the elimination of caffeine with this technique, the longer it's in the fridge the more caffeine will continue to crystalize into a solid.

Here are a couple of picture of the caffeine crystals that precipitated. I decanted the liquid above them rather then pouring the whole codeine/caffeine mixture directly in the filter, as small amounts of water have the tendency to warm rather quickly, so i didn't want to risk putting the mass of the caffeine in the filter, and having more re-dissolve into the water as it warmed in the filter. I recommend decanting the layer of liquid above and caffeine crystals, and then using a sort of "reverse suction" filter with an oral syringe, by securing a piece of a coffee filter or any other filter device on the tip of the outside of the oral syringe, so you can then suck the last bit of liquid out of the crystals to minimize loss.

Precipitate in the glass:

Precipitate spread out onto a CD case so I could get a closer look, these are nearly pure caffeine crystals I believe, with small traces of codeine and possibly very small traces of aspirin.

The boil downed CWE solution does tend to get a slightly yellow/brown tint to it, I'm attributing this to the decomposition of aspirin. The same may occur with acetaminophen based tablets.

 

[rowedini]

extracting hydrocodone from hydrocodone containing pills

I didn't see a megathread on this so I decided to start one. Sorry in advance if this has already been covered.

I was wondering if there was a way to extract hydrocodone from a pain pill. Like get rid of all the acetaminophen and just have the pure hydrocodone or oxycodone.

Is this even possible or do we just have to keep destroying our liver with the acetaminophen cut ?

 

[KAYLA2010]

It's called a cold water extraction you can use bluelight search and will find lots of info on this.

 

[Ksa]

Looks good. The browning of the solution may be due to oxidation of alcohol groups, mostly cyclic, and is quite similar to the browning of vitamin C solutions when they are refluxed or left to sit on a shelf for months. For example, vitamin C is a powerful anti-oxidant so it is oxidized into dehydroascorbic acid causing the solution to go brown.

People complain that their cold water extract "went bad" because it browned, thinking it's due to bacteria. Well, at boiling point bacteria can't grow, and yet the solution browns...which may lead to think that cold water extracts may brown due to oxidation (when being exposed to air) even when the right preserving agents are used. Of course, since the reaction rate is much lower at room temperature, the extract may take a few days to brown instead of a few minutes.

 

[Ksa]

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2621.1950.tb16452.x/abstract

 

[tricomb]

merging you with the megathread.

 

[Laughing Man]

If you know how, I would try drying the solution in a partial vacuum. A cheap linear compressor sold for aquarium use has an ideal inlet for attaching tubing to the intake to create a partial vacuum in the drying container. Lower the pressure the faster water can evaporate. The nice thing about this method is it speeds up things at low temperatures.

 

[pbuilder]

If you know how, I would try drying the solution in a partial vacuum. A cheap linear compressor sold for aquarium use has an ideal inlet for attaching tubing to the intake to create a partial vacuum in the drying container. Lower the pressure the faster water can evaporate. The nice thing about this method is it speeds up things at low temperatures.

I personally do not strive for a powder, I like to boil it from 100-200ml down to around 10-20ml, and then after I've filtered out the caffeine crystals I even dilute it with a bit more water so I'm not working which such a tiny amount of water. IE 800mg of codeine in 40ml water, 10ml per 200mg codeine. It's usually gonna within a day regardless anyways, but if not it generally appears to stay just as potent overnight.

 

[MrPorter]

I warn you though, the drying is very slow, takes about 24 hours and only occurs in a cool, dry place.

I thought evaporation was more likely to happen at higher temperatures?
Currently in Alevel and very willing to learn so please teach!

 

[Ksa]

I thought evaporation was more likely to happen at higher temperatures?
Currently in Alevel and very willing to learn so please teach!

You are quite right there, to speed up drying you need, from more important to less important:

1) Heating (temperature above 100C)
2) Low pressure
3) Dry Air

The first 2 are thermodynamical because they both have something to do with the boiling point. The third is more chemical, as 100% humid air can no longer accept water molecules and so you're wasting your time unless you're above boiling point.

So if you are drying wood-chip or cotton, it's the way to go. However, drying psychoactive pharmaceuticals require less rough drying methods to be on the safe side, so we can't heat up unless we're 120% sure nothing will react with nothing and nothing will decompose. The codeine might not degrade but I guarantee you one thing: something is going to react and since no one made a study on cooking over the counter Tylenol, you don't know what it's going to give.

Back to drying, we actually have charts, drying charts:

 

[Ksa]

In the industry they almost never have to dry because they dry it chemically. They dry the organic phase with magnesium sulfate. This compound is so hygroscopic that it boils when you add it in water and is not a health hazard. This means that you can add a solvent more volatile than water which disolved codeine phosphate and then dry the solution by adding magnesium sulfate. The magnesium you add will likely solidify into a rock on the bottom, and the solution you pour is completely dry. You can then let it evaporate and it will do so much faster. I never felt the need to do this so I don't know what to use but to dry pharmaceuticals there's only 2 options and heating isn't among them:

1) Rotatory Evaporator
2) Magnesium Sulfate

P.S. you guys are into serious shit lol. The chemistry you do is complicated enough to fill a 3rd year's lab. I can demonstrate how to dry a solution with MgSO4 some other time in a video. Read this:

http://www.bluelight.ru/vb/threads/409908-anhydrous-acetone-via-anhydrous-magnesium-sulphate

 

[Laughing Man]

Ah OK. APAP's solubility won't drop too much past a certain point so I'm not sure if ice and salt are necessary, maybe if you don't have access to cold water. Where I live the water comes out of the tap very damn cold already!

If I understood correctly, no salt was used in the solvent water.
Salt plus ice will lower the temps below freezing. You use this as a coolant bath in the refrigerator but the product and salt are never in direct contact.

 

[pbuilder]

I'd like to apologize for my aggressive attack at your tissue cold water extraction method earlier. I can imagine tissues work just fine, and I myself have substituted paper towels when I've ran out of coffee filters. It was me just being stubborn.