• Neuroscience & Pharmacology Discussion Welcome Guest
    Posting Rules Bluelight Rules
    Recent Journal Articles Chemistry Mega-Thread
    FREE Chemistry Databases! Self-Education Guide

  • N&PD Moderators: Skorpio

Extracting Methylphenidate from lactose-containing preparations (Such as Concerta)

There was just a thread posted on this in OD, perhaps some people in this thread could comment & vice versa.
Seeing as it's a new thread, perhaps some in this forum might be able to add some source based information to it.

Anyways, thread is this -> Concerta extraction, the definitive guide, with pictures!

Not really of a subject of interest in my case but I noticed it
and was hoping that some more solid fact based information could be added to help with hr aspects.

Thanks to anyone who is able to help out.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
kken said:
adding heat dissolves more unwanted filler crap into the solution so this is not advised !
Click to expand...

Generally, if you've isolated a solid mixture of 2 compounds that have different solubilities in a certain solvent, you'd want to do a proper recrystallization, which includes heating.
 
@onmyway: That's what I do, but during a long day it's annoying to have to take 3 pills of lactose enzyme for 3 pills of ritalin. Plus, doing the extraction might be fun/educational.

@seep: I guess the question is that do you do a recrystallization in alcohol or in water? Someone here mentioned using alcohol as a solvent might yield ethylphenidate while a friend (who is probably wrong) said it might yield proplyphenidate which I see not information on.
 
apastsoliloquy said:
I guess the question is that do you do a recrystallization in alcohol or in water? Someone here mentioned using alcohol as a solvent might yield ethylphenidate while a friend (who is probably wrong) said it might yield proplyphenidate which I see not information on.
Click to expand...

Alcohol.

The trans-ester in ethanol can't be propylphenidate. Where would the 3rd carbon come from?

I don't know that this should be done by anyone who would mind a major loss of product due to poor technique. I'm guessing Concerta has several ingredients, so getting to the point that you've isolated a pure lactose + methylphenidate mixture without losing methylphenidate may be tricky.

If you were able to get to that point, and you had a dry mixture, you'd know how much of the mass was methylphenidate. The rest of the mass then would be lactose.

Unless everything goes into solution at some point, you will lose product. Play around with pure lactose and ethanol to see how much hot ethanol it takes to dissolve a certain mass of lactose. Once you can say to yourself "1 gram of lactose dissolves in X mL of ethanol at Y degrees celsius" you'll know how much ethanol to use.
 
Interesting.

I actually don't have Concert, OP has concerta, I have IR tablets that contain lactose, methylphenidate and probably god knows what else. I don't care if I lose some product. It'd be largely for the fun of it, but your suggestion of experimenting with straight lactose/ethanol is a good one. If I do this, i'll start there!
 
IndustrialStrength said:
There was just a thread posted on this in OD, perhaps some people in this thread could comment & vice versa.
Seeing as it's a new thread, perhaps some in this forum might be able to add some source based information to it.

Anyways, thread is this -> Concerta extraction, the definitive guide, with pictures!

Not really of a subject of interest in my case but I noticed it
and was hoping that some more solid fact based information could be added to help with hr aspects.

Thanks to anyone who is able to help out.
Click to expand...

Thanks IS.

Yeah check my thread. It's the answer to your question.

-lenses
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I wanted to obtain the freebase form out of pure methylphenidate hydrochloride in order to be able to smoke it, but then I read on various posts on bluelight that the HCl salt is smokeable.
Can someone by personal experience confirm this?

Thank you.
 
I use 91% iso alcohol to dissolve the crushed up coating and the white side of the pill( with the plastic removed and all crushed as fine as possible). I agitate the mixture for as long as I can stand to shake it, then dump it through a coffee filter into a pyrex dish and blow dry the liquid. It turns to a film. I scrape it all up and dissolve it in water with heat.
 
One point iv noticed throughout all comments is dont throw away the very outer shell covering the clear cap over the med. because it containes nearly 20% of the active med. just had to make the note iv hear to many people waste so much.
 
organicchemistry said:
If you dissolve methylphenidate in any alcohol it will react with the solvent.

For instance if you dissolve it in ethanol:
Methylphenidate + Ethanol -> Ethylphenidate + Methanol

To retain methylphenidate, you should use methanol as the solvent. Make sure to evaporate all of the solvent though because methanol is toxic. Also the technique described will most likely result in an impure sticky goo or oil which cannot be snorted. Your best bet is to take the Concerta orally as prescribed.
Click to expand...

Ethanol will not react with MPH as is if there is no h2o to first cause a hydrolysis it wouldn't cause esterification of the carboxylic acid compound "ritalinic acid" and even then you would want it under reflux and with an acid as a catalyst for a good reaction to occur. Using EtOH is not favorable anyways as methylphenidate hcl is like 25mg/ml in ethanol where as it is freely soluble in both h2o and MeOH. Lactose is soluble in EtOH, I believe lactose is practically insoluble in MeOH and it's much harder to get 99% ethanol then 99% methanol.

Here is quote from a pdf on Ritalin produced by novartis: "Methylphenidate hydrochloride USP is a white, odorless, fine crystalline powder. Its solutions are acid to litmus. It is freely soluble in water and in methanol, soluble in alcohol, and slightly soluble in chloroform and in acetone. Its molecular weight is 269.77."

Link: https://www.pharma.us.novartis.com/product/pi/pdf/ritalin_ritalin-sr.pdf
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top