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Experimenting with a/b extraction

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fifo_thekid

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Joined
Oct 9, 2015
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First, I hope that you would be a little bit open-minded and be a little flexible in discussing my ideas instead of just dismissing them
So I live in a country (I don't know whether I can say where I live) where cocaine is very cheap, I mean it's much cheaper ephedrine and amphetamine, so cutting cocaine with one of these agents is not a possibility at all. I have purchased from multiple dealers before but in the last two years I've been always buying in batches of 80g every 6 months from a whole-sale dealer. It comes as a big rock, yellowish with hard texture. I have cleaned this coke before with chloroform, and I'd always end with 30% powdery, orange cut that doesn't numb the mouth at all and doesn't give any high, something like gypsum. The other 70% is a little yellowish, clumps up easily and has all the properties of cocaine from taste to numbing and euphoria.
Now I got really tired and scared of chloroform because I live in an apartment, so I though that I'd try to do A/B extraction just like I did with coke from another dealer from 3 years ago.
I took 5g, tried to dissolve it in 50ml of water but it almost didn't dissolve! the coke itself was very fine and it didn't clump up, but even after stirring it almost nothing dissolved. So I just filtered it and tried basifying the cocaine that is presumably in the now clear water.
I remember that last time when I did that each drop of ammonia would create a "coke storm" inside the water, and cocaine base would start precipitating immediately. When all the coke base is precipitated the water would start smelling like ammonia. What happened this time was very different: the water immediately started smelling like ammonia with no visible precipitation!
I tried adding more but I couldn't see any change. So I just put the clear water in the microwave and waited to see what would I end with. After the water was fully evaporated I ended with very little cocaine base, about 100mg!
I do have more coke and chemicals to experiment, by my stupid theory is that there was something in the mix that prevented coke from dissolving. I was thinking that this time I'd clean it with chloroform first, which has always gave me very good results, and then I'd dissolve in water and do the A/B extraction.
What do you think?
 
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Quick update: I cleaned it with anhydrous acetone made by drying 99% acetone with Calcium Chloride. After filtering, nothing was lost. I don't think that it has any adulterant that is soluble in acetone, which is good news :D
Next step: chloroform...
 
You could also add it to hot water first, stir or shake vigorously to dissolve, and then allow it to cool before extraction.

EDIT: don't do this, see Sekio's post. The methyl ester hydrolyses more readily than I expected.
 
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cocaine + water = hydrolysis, it's best to keep cocaine away from h2o as much as possible....
 
S.J.P. said:
You could also add it to hot water first, stir or shake vigorously to dissolve, and then allow it to cool before extraction.
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Next time I'll clean it first with chloroform, then add hot water and shake it shake it hehe
 
So this time I did it only with Chloroform, with a twist!
I started by grounding a 5g rock, and then passing it through a sieve until it became very fine. I put it in a beaker and added about 100ml of Chloroform. Stirred it well then waited for 5 minutes. After that, I removed all the precipitate with a spoon. This made a big difference as the precipitate would clog the filtering paper later and start leaking into the filtered liquid slowly! After I could completely remove the precipitate, I poured the orangish Chloroform on a fine paper filter with a funnel. I waited for 5 minutes for all the now lightly yellowish liquid to pass through the filter, and then put it on an electric heater in front of the Window with a fan strongly blowing on it. In 30 minutes, the Chloroform was completely evaporated leaving a very slightly yellowish cake. Put the cake in a folder paper filter and heated it for a couple of minutes with a hair drier then again passed it through a sieve. Left it for a couple of hours and I ended with some delicious, very lightly yellowish fine sticky powder. It would COMPLETELY dissolve in the nose. I mean when you clean your nose you wouldn't find even a grain of powder. The 5g was turned into 3.5g. Pretty satisfied with the result :D
Next I'll do the same Chloroform routine followed by A/B extraction. I'm planning to dilute the Ammonia before using it. I forgot to do that last time. Unfortunately, the only option I have for crystallization is dripping Hydrochloric Acid over finely ground cocaine base. After full Crystallization I'd wash it with Acetone completely dried with Calcium Chloride.
Wish me luck!
 
sekio said:
cocaine + water = hydrolysis, it's best to keep cocaine away from h2o as much as possible....
Click to expand...

So dissolving it in a small amount of water would render it 100% ineffective? What if it is dissolved in vodka and ingested?
 
Fractality said:
So dissolving it in a small amount of water would render it 100% ineffective? What if it is dissolved in vodka and ingested?
Click to expand...

It would be fine if prepared right before use, but would decompose over time if stored.
 
S.J.P. said:
It would be fine if prepared right before use, but would decompose over time if stored.
Click to expand...

Thanks, I was wondering why those test kits dissolve cocaine in water...I was like, "how would you then use the tested amount?"
 
Best way to purify cocaine is by basing it, dissolving in heptane and extracting the crap out of it by shaking with water (up to 5x). The DEA wrote a paper about it, where they tried to find suitable methods for getting rid of the levamisole as a means of tracking the pure cocaine to it's origin by isotope ratio mass spectrometric analysis. In your case I would try to wash with acetone, as cocaine*hcl is soluble in chloroform. Either way, I urge you to properly dry your solvents, because cocaine*hcl is very soluble in water, so if your acetone contains water, you'll have some unnecessary loss.

Here's the paper btw: https://www.dea.gov/sites/default/files/pr/microgram-journals/2013/mj10-1_12-16.pdf

(Yeah, I see the irony of the DEA helping drug users purifying their coke :D)
 
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Neopunk said:
Best way to purify cocaine is by basing it, dissolving in heptane and extracting the crap out of it by shaking with water (up to 5x). The DEA wrote a paper about it, where they tried to find suitable methods for getting rid of the levamisole as a means of tracking the pure cocaine to it's origin by isotope ratio mass spectrometric analysis. In your case I would try to wash with acetone, as cocaine*hcl is soluble in chloroform. Either way, I urge you to properly dry your solvents, because cocaine*hcl is very soluble in water, so if your acetone contains water, you'll have some unnecessary loss.

Here's the paper btw: https://www.dea.gov/sites/default/files/pr/microgram-journals/2013/mj10-1_12-16.pdf

(Yeah, I see the irony of the DEA helping drug users purifying their coke :D)
Click to expand...

Which method eliminates more adulterants? The heptane/hexane wash or the acetone one? Does the hexane wash only remove levamisole/tetramisole?
 
In my case Chloroform was a nice trade-off between ease of the procedure and results. Of course recrystallization would provide better results.
Acetone wash did not make any difference for me. At the end, it all depends on the types of adulterants and these vary by country.
 
fifo_thekid said:
In my case Chloroform was a nice trade-off between ease of the procedure and results. Of course recrystallization would provide better results.
Acetone wash did not make any difference for me. At the end, it all depends on the types of adulterants and these vary by country.
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Do you know which adulterants are most common by country?
 
I sent a sample to Energy Control and they should give me a detailed report within the next days
I'd say that local coke has coca plant impurities, ephedrine pills (complete with binders and fillers) and lidocaine
 
common adulterants are caffeine, phenacetin, levamisole, benzaocaine
 
oh yea caffeine is very common in here
amphetamines are not coz they are more expensive than coke lol
 
I believe that these links will be of utility to people practicing workups:

http://www.wako-chem.co.jp/english/labchem/product/analytical/chromato_v8/a51/pdf/print.pdf

http://www.sfsu.edu/~safety/Web_documents/files_lab/Incompatible Chemical Groups.pdf

https://www.rsc.org/merck-index


I always recommend that people buy a paper version of the Merck Index. The 13th (?40) & 14th (?80) editions still cover >99% of the stuff in the latest, 15th (?100 from Amazon). I also recommend 'Vogel's Textbook of Practical Organic Chemistry' where the 5th edition can sometimes be as little as ?100 while the 4th edition costs about ?40. I also have a BNF.

The 2 'keep it legal' tomes are:

'Misuse of drugs and drug trafficking offences' by Rudi Fortson'
'Pharmaceutical Compounding and Dispensing' by by John F. Marriott

Of these last 2, the first book is obviously a lot of case law covering the MoDA & PSA (and the author is UKs best defence barrister) because their ARE holes; in fact it's somewhere between a culander & a >220mm fishing net. That's why almost all PSA prosecutions were not pursued by the CPS on the grounds that they would be likely to fail in court (and British law is case law) and/or since a prosecution can be witnessed, open court would make it clear to all chemists present that a novel agent with a huge profit margin i.e. the CPS is enabling new agents. Bud do always check. Ignorantia juris non excusat or ignorantia legis neminem excusat.

Back to a previous OT, I watched some more footage of 'Russian Magic' AKA desomorphine AKA Crocodile being produced. RP scraped of match boxes and they are all mad. The chemist had no physical damage from UV use but her P levels were through the roof, She complained of viceral pain and mental deficits which could well be WP. She was 'cooking' HI in a sand bath and 2 blue-top pins were stuck through the bung to release pressure. I strongly suspect that WP is responsible for the vast majority of damage.
 
clubcard said:
'Misuse of drugs and drug trafficking offences' by Rudi Fortson'
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Thank you for this suggestion. I will see if I can find this at a library around here, as I am always interested in learning more about drug laws and their application in common-law jurisdictions. For those interested, the Canadian analogue of this text is Drug Offences in Canada by Bruce A. MacFarlane, Robert J. Frater, and Croft Michaelson. I found it quite readable despite having no formal training in law.

On a related note, Clubcard, you might find this proposed change to Canada's Controlled Drugs and Substances Act to be of interest.
 
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