Fentanyl Storage in Ethanol

[dalpat077]

One last question for the day and one that I keep forgetting to ask.

And apologies to one or two that have addressed a similar query of mine (just not in the habit of making an nuisance of myself).

Pure pharmaceutical Fentanyl can be stored for a relatively extended period of time in Methanol without degradation.

But would the same hold true if stored in ethanol (and to be more precise: in something like 43% ABV / 86% proof Vodka)?

 

[sekio]

probably, fentanyl salt (i.e. citrate) does not hydrolize or react with water/alcohols

 

[dalpat077]

Thanks for this.

It'd be Fentanyl extracted from patches via my Methanol extraction route and the result of such extraction is either citrate or freebase or both (never actually got to the bottom of this during my research last year but it's of little consequence really).

Point is: if access to it is ever desirous then having to wait for anywhere between 5 and 7 days for the Methanol to evaporate (that's how long it took to evaporate about 200ml of Methanol the last time I did this experiment) is of use to nobody. I suppose one could heat the Methanol to speed up the process but didn't seem to me to be a good idea (for fear of mucking up the Fentanyl).

 

[sekio]

Real chemists would use a rotavap, aka rotary evaporator, hooked to a simple vacuum source (water tap aspirator which you hook to a water tap and produces vacuum dependent on the water flow rate and temperature - high pressure, very cold water is best; or even a cheap, water-filled electrically powered vacuum pump (basically the same as a tap aspirator, but with a pump to recirculate the water so as to not be wasteful - something like this model served me well for years)

This way you can:
1. evaporate volatile solvents much faster
2. recover the solvents from the bulb below the collector
3. solvent fume exposure is reduced (may still be an issue if your solvent is not 100% condensed by your rotovap condenser, which can usually be fixed by raising pressure or lowering temperature)
3b. if your recirculating water pump is using a fixed volume of water (and not continuously being refreshed with cold tap water) the maximum vacuum will decrease, the pump water will warm up, and possibly you will have to deal with solvent vapors accumulating in the water, possibly producing a smell

Methanol burns with a colorless flame so it's really dumb to attempt to evaporate it over a flame or red-hot element. Maybe you could get away with it if you were using a double boiler setup, had a strong draft going by, and going very slow...
You could even use a bath of warm sand or something... warm the sand to e.g. 70C and immerse the flask in it, slowly....
Or even, go the whole classical distillation route...
People did evaporate methanol in "ye olden times" after all!

 

[dalpat077]

Real chemists

Let's not forget I don't fall into that category. Yet anyway (I have a rather amusing story to tell you on this and one which, as amusing as it may be, may make your heart happy for me) (but not here).

 

[sekio]

Anyone can be a "real chemist", you just need a desire to learn and ask questions.
You can be a chemistry student, as long as you are learning at a good rate.
Maybe you are a 'paper chemist' who comes up with cool chemistry but never enters a lab themselves
Or maybe you *shudders* are a "computational chemist", in which case, uh, enjoy modelling your cluster of 6 neutral hydrogen atoms in a vacuum or whatever
Possibly you are even a bench chemist, who equates to a line chef at a restaurant, and you are told to follow some recipe and make the product in question
Maybe you are even a research chemist who decides on their own what reactions they want to investigate. Possibly you even have minions who can do work for you, as well!

 

[MsDiz]

Anyone can be a "real chemist", you just need a desire to learn and ask questions.
You can be a chemistry student, as long as you are learning at a good rate.
Maybe you are a 'paper chemist' who comes up with cool chemistry but never enters a lab themselves
Or maybe you *shudders* are a "computational chemist", in which case, uh, enjoy modelling your cluster of 6 neutral hydrogen atoms in a vacuum or whatever
Possibly you are even a bench chemist, who equates to a line chef at a restaurant, and you are told to follow some recipe and make the product in question
Maybe you are even a research chemist who decides on their own what reactions they want to investigate. Possibly you even have minions who can do work for you, as well!

Always best to have the minions do the work! Muahahaha!

Got a good laugh at the computational chemist!