Very unexpected results from morphine a/b extraction

[Fail Fighter]

Jus about to do a quick morphine extraction on some poppy tea I've had sittin around for ages...

Don't bother, it's not going to work.

Fail Fighter, it sounds like you've come up with a pretty neat method that skips a bunch of steps and goes straight for the goodies, I cant figure out why no one appreciates it!

I didn't come up with it though. This is the primary method used in Afghanistan, where they produce 90% of the world's supply of heroin.

perhaps it is because you're calling your tek "acid/base" an it's nothin like an acid base extraction in the traditional sense.

Well you can use common sense and determine where to do the different solvent extractions, if you want. I was simply lazy and opted to toy with the pH instead, because I wanted the final product to be in a water solution and not a Xylene/Acetone solution.

anyway I don't have any ph indicators and from what I can tell that won't matter, I can just err on the side of excess.

I dunno, I couldn't have done it without a very precise pH meter. I made sure to hit 9.1 on the dot. Sure, the the acid/base pair are good buffers, but that's assuming you're starting with 20lbs of opium and you're not going for maximum yield. In other words, it's great for Afghani farmers... not so great for the guy with poppy seeds. I don't know what the pH +/- will be if you go to excess, but I do know that when you add excessive CaOH, you'll have to let the flask sit for a day or so for all the excess to settle out.

Ya think there'll be any risk of burning my morphine?

No

I'd like to have a li'l stash as I don't have healthcare...

It's not going to work. You need to have a very morphine-dense solution, otherwise you'll never get the precipitation to start, even at pH 9.1. From 50g of PODS, I got maybe 50mg of morphine. In other words, I got a nearly invisible amount. It was just enough to leave a light film around the sides of the flask. Not even enough to scrape up. Certainly not a "stash." Just please, learn from my mistakes and don't waste your time. I wasted $250-300 on this endeavor, only to end up with a small amount of questionable powder that, at best, would still be weaker than a single 60mg pill of morphine sulphate.

If you're jonesin' bad enough to even consider such a time+money-wasting endeavor, you're better off just buying pills online. Yes, you can still do that. No, it's not through legitimate online pharmacies. No, I can't tell you where to go. But spend enough time scouring the internet and you'll find the right places. I used to buy OxyContin online before I found a local source. It costs an arm and a leg though. Plus sometimes the DEA will confiscate your package and replace it with a friendly warning letter... and you will NOT get your money back. Here's a hint: it has nothing at all to do with Bluelight, and nobody here will help you find it.

 

[reDEEMed]

Not getting something

Fail Fighter; kudos for having enough curiosity and gumption to try this to begin with. But, I'm confused. One minute you say you had no intention of consuming the extracted morphine, the next you are calling the whole thing a waste of time. Either you did this to obtain drugs to consume or sell, or you did it for a love of chemistry and curiosity, which was it? If you have lab glass now collecting dust I can only assume you bought said glass and poppies together expecting some easy score of dope you could do or sell.

You're talking out of both sides of your mouth here. I saw you in one light as I began to read this thread, then in another by the time I got to this point. When I read that your glass is now collecting dust and is not being used because you didn't pull a ton of morphine from some dried pods, I could no longer look at you like a fellow explorer and curious experimenter. You should just buy your drugs and stop thinking that manufacture/extraction=cheap drugs. If you don't get into this shit because of a fundamental love of science and a deep seated need to explore, you won't get very far, as I'm sure you see. I don't mean to be disrespectful, but damn dude, really? You coulda done all that with mayonaise jars n shit. Surely you can find a reason to use the glass you now own to learn something new or figure out a way that this can be done.

I'm with the one guy (can't remember who) that said why not just make tea, then work on the tea. You were quick to tell him he's missing a lot, but I think he's got something there. If drinking the tea fucks you up, then the goodies are in the tea. Chromatography at home isn't completely out of reach either. I'll will be playing with this soon and I'll update this thread with my results.

I'm tired, peace.

And go dig out that glass, quit being a fucking quitter.

 

[poppyluv]

thank you for posting this thread. did you ever get it to work? I ordered my calcium hydroxide and ammonium. waiting for them to arrive so I can try ur method. how much calc should I add to 60g of poppy seeds and 1 large cup of water? where did u get the equipment to test the ph level? what is it called? do u know if the thebaine is removed after the extraction? my main purpose is to remove the thebaine and leaving the morphine. can't stand the stimulants . makes me so nervous

 

[poppyluv]

fail fighter : can u msg me? I'm new to Bluelight. I have a question to ask

 

[poppyluv]

I tried baking my pst for 10 min in 370 degrees . seems to work alittle in killing the thebaine

 

[Solipsis]

Pro-tip: check info from his profile next time when you see that a thread's last activity is 5 years old, that would have told you that his last personal activity is over 2 years ago as well... Also since you passed 50 posts, you now have bluelighter status and can send PMs..

Also, it doesn't seem like this fail fighter is particularly the right person to ask about this when you have the whole of BL / NSP at your disposal. But its your call. As it happens at some point I have alkaline morph extraction planned myself - I have a background in chemistry and some needed materials at my disposal.. Now is not convenient for me to say the least, but I wouldn't mind discussing this.

So you are not trying to extract, but eliminate thebaine / converting it? OK.. is there really a point to that and how stable is the morphine?

 

[Hammilton]

I'm confused, he says that he takes the pH up to 11 something, at which point everything drops out of solution, except, inexplicably, the morphine and codeine. Filters that stuff out, then takes the pH back down to 8.4 or something like that. Apparently that causes the morphine to fall out of solution. Why wouldn't it have already fallen out when 8.4 was passed on the way to 11 something? Is there something that makes morphine soluble below 7, soluble at 11, but insoluble at 8.4? Unless I'm missing something, morphine should have dropped out of solution when it hit 8.4ish and stayed there until the pH is taken back down. No?

 

[Solipsis]

I think the calcium enables the morphine to be soluble as calcium morphenate at higher pH, then when treated with a weak acid the base is neutralized so that freebase morphine precipitates. So the difference is that the calcium salt is water soluble even at higher pH, until it is dissociated.

Also, acidifying does not do 'nothing' as was claimed before... if acidic enough, it will convert your morphine to pseudomorphine and ruin it.

 

[poppyluv]

I followed all directions but after I added ammonium and brought ph to 9.1, I'm not getting any solids or crystals. is there something I'm missing ?

 

[poppyluv]

I do see a bunch of dust on the bottom of the solution but it's still in liquid. and grows thru filter. it's not solid

 

[serotonin2A]

I think the calcium enables the morphine to be soluble as calcium morphenate at higher pH, then when treated with a weak acid the base is neutralized so that freebase morphine precipitates. So the difference is that the calcium salt is water soluble even at higher pH, until it is dissociated.

Also, acidifying does not do 'nothing' as was claimed before... if acidic enough, it will convert your morphine to pseudomorphine and ruin it.

Wouldn't the morphine be converted to apomorphine?

 

[poppyluv]

I pretty much given up. wanted to make morphine crystals with pst by using calcium hydroxide and ammonium. but after 5-6 tries , all unsuccessful. and the drinks end up looking filled with strong chemical odor. looks like toxic. can't even drink it. after I add hydroxide to ph11.4 I do see solid particles but you're suppose to filter those out as those are the non morphine alkaloids you don't want. then I add ammonium go ph9.1 it just stays in liquid form and just a toxic looking water. so def a failure. if anyone had success of making morphine crystals pls let me know what I'm doing wrong . the ammonium smells so toxic like strong hair dye. I don't even think we can drink or sniff it

 

[adder]

The smell may be due to the formation of gaseous ammonia and HCl which you can get rid of later. But I guess you should wait until the mixture cools down to r.t. anyway before you bring pH down, however, ammonia and hydrochloric acid will always form in the solution, as you probably know, because of the salt hydrolysis.

NH4(+) + Cl(-) + H2O -> NH3 + H3O(+) + Cl(-)

 

[poppyluv]

adder: you know your chem really well. thx for the tip. imma try again then. ill wait for both times to cool down before adding the calc and ammonium. but are u sure they're not toxic? i want to form crystals

 

[poppyluv]

adder: morphing crystals for sniffs. it's annoying carrying bottles of pst around.

 

[Solipsis]

Calcium hydroxide is used to form a hydroxycalcium salt with morphine. Calcium hydroxide itself has two hydroxides ( Ca(OH)₂ ), the morphenate salt formed is not any garden variety calcium salt but a complex salt with one hydroxide on the calcium which is bound to the phenolic deprotonated oxygen.

The ammonium chloride is an alkaline buffer in an equilibrium, though the charged ammonium serves as a weak acid in this case attracting the strong base which is the hydroxide ions. In any case, this evidently shifts the equilibrium so that the complex morphenate salt is not favored.

Have you kept a close eye on your volume of solvent / solution? I found mention of 3 x the weight of opium in water - see if you can calculate how much poppy material and equivalent to opium you are dealing with here.

Here solubility of the morphine is lowest at pH 9 where neither the soluble complex salt / phenolate anion nor the charged and soluble N-protonated cation are favored in equilibria. For precipitation you still need to fall under saturation point, which is also a function of solution volume.

Realize that morphine is a zwitterion.. It is most easily precipitated or extracted at its iso-electric point which is about 8.9

Also very importantly even though it may be a pain in the ass, filter properly during the process so that you can see when there is precipitation and preferably start out with an extraction or wash to pull out plant fats / oils.

Beyond that, how about crashing out the calcium with carefully titrated citric acid, which is nearly insoluble in cold water... then when you got rid of the calcium adjust the pH to 9 again and extract with a non-polar solvent to yield the freebase?

@Pseudomorphine:

info on morphine oxidation = http://www.jbc.org/content/71/2/543.full.pdf