MeAndMissEmma
Greenlighter
- Joined
- Jun 13, 2017
- Messages
- 21
Hi,
This is going to be a long and detailed post, but I will try to be as clear as possible.
Hopefully this will help others, as there isn't a great deal of useful information out there regarding the process of extracting morphine from dried poppy pods.
I have done a lot of research on this topic, looked at various threads on this forum and others, and referred to the Merck index, before coming to what seemed like a good extraction procedure.
I have reasonable chemistry knowledge, but not a lot about organic chemistry.
I got 1KG of dried poppy (papaver somniferum giganteum) pods. Once the seeds were removed, the pods weighed 379G (A lot of seeds!).
To put this in perspective, the seeds removed from the pods filled a 2L jar.
Most of the pods were brown and dry, although some were green and not fully dried.
Some of the pods had black patches (I believe this shows high opium content, it isn't mold)
First, however, I made poppy tea:
I ground up a single pod (and I hadn't yet got a coffee grinder, so I ground it manually, and I didn't do it very well; It was still quite coarse)
I added the powdered pod to about 500mL of water and heated it to ~60C for half an hour, stirring frequently.
Thereafter, I filtered the solution, allowed it to cool, and then drank 2/3 of it.
Aside from the unpleasant "dry poppy" taste, the solution was distinctly bitter (I love bitter tastes)
After about half an hour, I began to feel the familiar effects of morphine, and within an hour I felt quite high (although it felt like a small dose, I have a very low tolerance), my pupils were small, etc, the usual effects.
Note: I woke up with a headache for three days after, and I felt like shit.
I've never felt this before, even after coming down from numerous days of morphine use, I theorise this could be due to the presence of other undesirable alkaloids, and this is what lead me to attempt to extract the pure morphine from the pods, a process which proved very frustrating.
So, considering that the level of "intoxication" (can't think of a better word) seemed roughly similar to a 10mg dose of morphine (yes, very low tolerance) and considering that I only drank 2/3 of the solution, also taking into account the rushed and imperfect extraction procedure, it would be safe to make a conservative estimate of 20 - 25mg of morphine per pod.
There were around 100 pods in 1KG that I got, so that works out to 2 - 2.5G of morphine, so probably about 5G of alkaloids in total. Quite a lot!
So here is the extraction procedure I carried out:
1)
Ground up all the pods in a coffee grinder, until I had a quite fine light-brown powder, a little coarser than flour.
2)
Mixed the powdered pods up with about 3L of water, acidified with hydrochloric acid, adjusted to a pH of 2. (I used pure 36% hydrochloric/muriatic acid, not diluted/impure stuff).
I did not use any heat during the extraction, as morphine (and the other opium alkaloids) are highly soluble in acid, in this case by the formation of alkaloid hydrochloride salts, so I thought that using heat would be unnecessary to extract most of the alkaloids.
I left the solution at room temperature for around 18h, stirring regularly for a good portion of that time.
Note: Perhaps another extraction method, such as using alcohol or heat, could have extracted a little more morphine, but I figured I would get >90% this way.
3)
Strained the solution through a cloth
4)
Filtered the strained solution through lab filter papers to remove any fine particles.
I was left with a light brown - amber solution, about 3L of it!
5)
Adjusted the pH to 8, because morphine hyrochloride is much less inert to heat that morphine base, so I have read, so heating it in acidic solution may damage the molecule.
I used pure sodium hydroxide to increase the pH.
6)
Concentrated the solution to a more manageable volume
To concentrate it, I heated the solution in a double-boiler set-up, to about 70C, and concentrated it down to around 500mL, stirring regularly. This took around 20 hours.
I have read that, although it is ideal to keep the temperature at 70 - 80C, higher temperatures will not result in a great loss in potency.
Now I was left with a much darker, black-coffee-colored solution.
7)
Reduced the pH back to 2, as this more concentrated solution would no longer be able to hold all of the impurities already extracted, however all of the alkaloid salts would stay in solution.
8 )
Left the re-acidified solution overnight in the fridge to allow any impurities to precipitate.
9)
The next day, I filtered out the precipitate, it was a brown waxy sludge, which I dried out and kept (As this was my first extraction attempt, I kept all of the waste products from each stage, in case I needed to carry out another extraction on it)
This dried material seemed exactly like opium, it deliquesced quickly upon cooling and being exposed to air, and adopted a waxy tar-like consistency, however it would contain little or no alkaloids as they would still be in solution.
10)
Increased the pH to 12, again with sodium hydroxide.
This should have reacted with the morphine to form soluble sodium morphenate, while leaving the other alkaloids unreacted and causing them to precipitate out.
11)
Left the solution in the refridgerator overnight again to allow the precipitate to form.
12)
The next day, I filtered out this precipitate. This time is was not waxy, but rather a light-brown powder when dried, with some sparkling crystals visible. This I assumed was a mixture of the other opium alkaloids, and it weighed around 5G, which seemed about right.
13)
Reduced the pH of the filtered solution to 9.1
14)
Left the solution overnight in the refridgerator to, in theory, precipitate the morphine base.
But nothing formed! The solution was still clear the next day, no sign of any precipitate. I checked the pH, and it was still 9.1, and I left it a bit longer, but still nothing formed.
So, just as an experiment, I reduced the pH further to 7.0, still nothing.
So now we get to the puzzling part, I went back and checked the light-brown precipitate obtained in step 12, thinking that maybe the morphine had been precipitated with those. I rinsed the powder with water, and then dried it again, to remove any salt or sodium hydroxide that might be present.
This did not result in much loss in weight, as the powder seems to be insoluble in water.
However, this powder seemed to contain no alkaloids, as it did not taste bitter atall, just an odd acidic taste.
Just to make sure, though, I then dissolved this powder in dilute hydrochloric acid, stirring frequently, the idea behind this was to react any alkaloids present to form alkaloid hydrochlorides.
After a few hours of stirring, I filtered out the insoluble matter (maybe meconic acid) and dried the solution.
I was left with about 3.6G of brown powder, again with some crystals visible.
This, I thought, must be a mixture of alkaloid salts, perhaps including morphine due to some mistake I may have made.
But it was not! It had absolutely no bitter taste whatsoever, just that very odd acidic taste (I think this powder may be meconic acid). Just to make sure, I ate about 100mg of it (maybe a bad idea to eat unknown compounds, but I knew that it could not contain anything dangerous, even if it were pure morphine, 100mg would be safe), and no narcotic effects were felt. Not even any nausea that might have been associated with thebaine, for example. No ill effects resulted either, thankfully.
So where was the morphine hiding?
I then went back to the waxy precipitate I had obtained earlier, and confirmed (guess how), that this neither had any bitter taste, nor narcotic properties.
Therefore, the morphine must still be in solution!
Again, wrong it seems, as the solution had no bitter taste (although it was very unpleasant due to the presence of a lot of sodium chloride), and besides, how could the alkaloids still be dissolved at a pH of 7 - 9? No alkaloids are soluble at this pH.
So the only other place the morphine could be is still in the poppy straw, right?
So I tested this theory, I made some poppy tea with some of the straw. The solution obtained was very light colored (as, it seems, everything had already been extracted from it), and it had no bitter taste, and guess what, no narcotic nature!
I am really puzzled by this, as I have not lost anything in the procedure, yet morphine, and indeed none of the alkaloids, are anywhere to be seen, the morphine fairy has taken them...
The materials I used:
Pure sodium hydroxide (powder)
36% hydrochloric acid
Calibrated digital pH meter
Lab filter papers
The only other theory I had was that, maybe, the alkaloids had been destroyed by the heat, but this seems almost impossible, considering that I kept it at a safe temperature.
Does anyone have any suggestions/experience with this?
I really don't understand it, this should have been a simple process yet it has gone very wrong somehow.
I've spent hours researching it, and checking my process, and I see no mistakes.
(Also there is no possibility that there were no alkaloids in the pods as, as I said, I got high with a single pod!)
Sources:
I mainly followed this process by mongler
http://www.rollitup.org/t/morphine-extraction.117185/page-2
I also referred to:
https://erowid.org/plants/poppy/poppy_article2.shtml
https://opiophilia.blogspot.com/2012/12/how-heroin-is-made.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calcium_morphenate
Theoretical Organic Chemistry by Julius Cohen
I would really appreciate any help you guys could offer, and hopefully this will help enlighten others as well.
Thank you!
Peace
This is going to be a long and detailed post, but I will try to be as clear as possible.
Hopefully this will help others, as there isn't a great deal of useful information out there regarding the process of extracting morphine from dried poppy pods.
I have done a lot of research on this topic, looked at various threads on this forum and others, and referred to the Merck index, before coming to what seemed like a good extraction procedure.
I have reasonable chemistry knowledge, but not a lot about organic chemistry.
I got 1KG of dried poppy (papaver somniferum giganteum) pods. Once the seeds were removed, the pods weighed 379G (A lot of seeds!).
To put this in perspective, the seeds removed from the pods filled a 2L jar.
Most of the pods were brown and dry, although some were green and not fully dried.
Some of the pods had black patches (I believe this shows high opium content, it isn't mold)
First, however, I made poppy tea:
I ground up a single pod (and I hadn't yet got a coffee grinder, so I ground it manually, and I didn't do it very well; It was still quite coarse)
I added the powdered pod to about 500mL of water and heated it to ~60C for half an hour, stirring frequently.
Thereafter, I filtered the solution, allowed it to cool, and then drank 2/3 of it.
Aside from the unpleasant "dry poppy" taste, the solution was distinctly bitter (I love bitter tastes)
After about half an hour, I began to feel the familiar effects of morphine, and within an hour I felt quite high (although it felt like a small dose, I have a very low tolerance), my pupils were small, etc, the usual effects.
Note: I woke up with a headache for three days after, and I felt like shit.
I've never felt this before, even after coming down from numerous days of morphine use, I theorise this could be due to the presence of other undesirable alkaloids, and this is what lead me to attempt to extract the pure morphine from the pods, a process which proved very frustrating.
So, considering that the level of "intoxication" (can't think of a better word) seemed roughly similar to a 10mg dose of morphine (yes, very low tolerance) and considering that I only drank 2/3 of the solution, also taking into account the rushed and imperfect extraction procedure, it would be safe to make a conservative estimate of 20 - 25mg of morphine per pod.
There were around 100 pods in 1KG that I got, so that works out to 2 - 2.5G of morphine, so probably about 5G of alkaloids in total. Quite a lot!
So here is the extraction procedure I carried out:
1)
Ground up all the pods in a coffee grinder, until I had a quite fine light-brown powder, a little coarser than flour.
2)
Mixed the powdered pods up with about 3L of water, acidified with hydrochloric acid, adjusted to a pH of 2. (I used pure 36% hydrochloric/muriatic acid, not diluted/impure stuff).
I did not use any heat during the extraction, as morphine (and the other opium alkaloids) are highly soluble in acid, in this case by the formation of alkaloid hydrochloride salts, so I thought that using heat would be unnecessary to extract most of the alkaloids.
I left the solution at room temperature for around 18h, stirring regularly for a good portion of that time.
Note: Perhaps another extraction method, such as using alcohol or heat, could have extracted a little more morphine, but I figured I would get >90% this way.
3)
Strained the solution through a cloth
4)
Filtered the strained solution through lab filter papers to remove any fine particles.
I was left with a light brown - amber solution, about 3L of it!
5)
Adjusted the pH to 8, because morphine hyrochloride is much less inert to heat that morphine base, so I have read, so heating it in acidic solution may damage the molecule.
I used pure sodium hydroxide to increase the pH.
6)
Concentrated the solution to a more manageable volume
To concentrate it, I heated the solution in a double-boiler set-up, to about 70C, and concentrated it down to around 500mL, stirring regularly. This took around 20 hours.
I have read that, although it is ideal to keep the temperature at 70 - 80C, higher temperatures will not result in a great loss in potency.
Now I was left with a much darker, black-coffee-colored solution.
7)
Reduced the pH back to 2, as this more concentrated solution would no longer be able to hold all of the impurities already extracted, however all of the alkaloid salts would stay in solution.
8 )
Left the re-acidified solution overnight in the fridge to allow any impurities to precipitate.
9)
The next day, I filtered out the precipitate, it was a brown waxy sludge, which I dried out and kept (As this was my first extraction attempt, I kept all of the waste products from each stage, in case I needed to carry out another extraction on it)
This dried material seemed exactly like opium, it deliquesced quickly upon cooling and being exposed to air, and adopted a waxy tar-like consistency, however it would contain little or no alkaloids as they would still be in solution.
10)
Increased the pH to 12, again with sodium hydroxide.
This should have reacted with the morphine to form soluble sodium morphenate, while leaving the other alkaloids unreacted and causing them to precipitate out.
11)
Left the solution in the refridgerator overnight again to allow the precipitate to form.
12)
The next day, I filtered out this precipitate. This time is was not waxy, but rather a light-brown powder when dried, with some sparkling crystals visible. This I assumed was a mixture of the other opium alkaloids, and it weighed around 5G, which seemed about right.
13)
Reduced the pH of the filtered solution to 9.1
14)
Left the solution overnight in the refridgerator to, in theory, precipitate the morphine base.
But nothing formed! The solution was still clear the next day, no sign of any precipitate. I checked the pH, and it was still 9.1, and I left it a bit longer, but still nothing formed.
So, just as an experiment, I reduced the pH further to 7.0, still nothing.
So now we get to the puzzling part, I went back and checked the light-brown precipitate obtained in step 12, thinking that maybe the morphine had been precipitated with those. I rinsed the powder with water, and then dried it again, to remove any salt or sodium hydroxide that might be present.
This did not result in much loss in weight, as the powder seems to be insoluble in water.
However, this powder seemed to contain no alkaloids, as it did not taste bitter atall, just an odd acidic taste.
Just to make sure, though, I then dissolved this powder in dilute hydrochloric acid, stirring frequently, the idea behind this was to react any alkaloids present to form alkaloid hydrochlorides.
After a few hours of stirring, I filtered out the insoluble matter (maybe meconic acid) and dried the solution.
I was left with about 3.6G of brown powder, again with some crystals visible.
This, I thought, must be a mixture of alkaloid salts, perhaps including morphine due to some mistake I may have made.
But it was not! It had absolutely no bitter taste whatsoever, just that very odd acidic taste (I think this powder may be meconic acid). Just to make sure, I ate about 100mg of it (maybe a bad idea to eat unknown compounds, but I knew that it could not contain anything dangerous, even if it were pure morphine, 100mg would be safe), and no narcotic effects were felt. Not even any nausea that might have been associated with thebaine, for example. No ill effects resulted either, thankfully.
So where was the morphine hiding?
I then went back to the waxy precipitate I had obtained earlier, and confirmed (guess how), that this neither had any bitter taste, nor narcotic properties.
Therefore, the morphine must still be in solution!
Again, wrong it seems, as the solution had no bitter taste (although it was very unpleasant due to the presence of a lot of sodium chloride), and besides, how could the alkaloids still be dissolved at a pH of 7 - 9? No alkaloids are soluble at this pH.
So the only other place the morphine could be is still in the poppy straw, right?
So I tested this theory, I made some poppy tea with some of the straw. The solution obtained was very light colored (as, it seems, everything had already been extracted from it), and it had no bitter taste, and guess what, no narcotic nature!
I am really puzzled by this, as I have not lost anything in the procedure, yet morphine, and indeed none of the alkaloids, are anywhere to be seen, the morphine fairy has taken them...
The materials I used:
Pure sodium hydroxide (powder)
36% hydrochloric acid
Calibrated digital pH meter
Lab filter papers
The only other theory I had was that, maybe, the alkaloids had been destroyed by the heat, but this seems almost impossible, considering that I kept it at a safe temperature.
Does anyone have any suggestions/experience with this?
I really don't understand it, this should have been a simple process yet it has gone very wrong somehow.
I've spent hours researching it, and checking my process, and I see no mistakes.
(Also there is no possibility that there were no alkaloids in the pods as, as I said, I got high with a single pod!)
Sources:
I mainly followed this process by mongler
http://www.rollitup.org/t/morphine-extraction.117185/page-2
I also referred to:
https://erowid.org/plants/poppy/poppy_article2.shtml
https://opiophilia.blogspot.com/2012/12/how-heroin-is-made.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calcium_morphenate
Theoretical Organic Chemistry by Julius Cohen
I would really appreciate any help you guys could offer, and hopefully this will help enlighten others as well.
Thank you!
Peace
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