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Tryptamines DMT For The Masses - Extraction Tek Questions

Drug Geek

Drug Geek

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I recently received a very simple and straightforward DMT extraction tek. I have some questions and wonder if someone versed in organic chemistry might help. I'm not looking for comments like "It probably doesn't work" or the like, because I have good reason to believe that it does work. :) ;)

The tek goes roughly like this:

1. Add ground plant material to a solution of water and NaOH. Agitate vigorously for an hour.

2. Add naptha, gently roll solution without shaking.

3. Separate off Naptha and put in freezer, a precipitate will form.

4. Remove precipitate, and purify through crystalization.

The tek claims it can be completed in a day or two.

Questions:

1. All other teks seem to use an acid solution in the primary steps? If this tek works, why is it not necessary? It seems the DMT is being removed by the NaOH, then dissolved out of solution with the non-polar solvent. Upon freezing the DMT drops out of solution correct?

2. For the purpose of re-crystalization/purification, heptane is suggested to be a better solvent than naptha. Why is this the case?

Thanks for any help! =D
 
I don't have a chemistry background, but, I had read that the DMT was stored in the plant cells in its polar form. Add NaOH and that polar DMT gets converted into its non-polar freebase form, which is then miscible in the non-polar solvent. It could work, dunno.
 
my guess would be that it would work. BUT you will lose a lot of potential product. So in short its not worth it.

The whole idea of acidifying dmt is to make it soluble in water. Some teks require defatting which is basically removing crap. As the acidic salt is soluble in water it will not be removed by solvent in the defatting process (which is just for purifying, its not essential).
Like trogdor said, dmt is polar in nature, hence the acid step in the process (to make it soluble in water).

Basifying the acidic salt solution makes the dmt insoluble in water (non-polar) which can then be extracted using a non-polar solvent (like dissolves like).

IT IS a good idea to extract the dmt from the source by submerging it in an acidinc solution. Otherwise your wasting preciouse product. I wouldnt risk it.

cmon its no trouble to get hold of acid. Especially HCl. Dont waste your time with that tek
 
Well the answer to question 1 is yes you need an acid. If you want a better and thorough technique visit Thenook.org (home of mesc and dmt extractions). And the answer to question 2 can also be found in those forums, but after researching virtually every technique on those forums i decided not to follow through with the one suggesting heptane. After titration you can freeze precipitate, it's a beautiful thing to watch.
 
An experiment with the above tek was fruitful. 100 g of ground mimosa hostilis root bark yielded 1 gram of precipitate from the naptha solution. Refinement through crystalization yielded 0.6 g of material.

This yield seems about in line with where it should be ... now I am really curious ... if this works as it does, why the initial acid extraction in the first step of most teks?
 
dtasrt_lk said:
Like trogdor said, dmt is polar in nature, hence the acid step in the process (to make it soluble in water).

Basifying the acidic salt solution makes the dmt insoluble in water (non-polar) which can then be extracted using a non-polar solvent (like dissolves like).
Click to expand...

So you are saying DMT is not soluble in water, you make it soluble and then make it insoluble again?

It seems more of a step for nothing...

What is the most important is to basify enough, reach a ph of 13.5. if you leave it like that for a day or 2 the whole plant matter will be destroyed. Then just take out the dmt with naphta or alike
 
Polar solvents (e.g. water, acids, alcohols, etc) dissolve polar compounds. Non-polar solvents (e.g. petroleum distillates such as naptha) dissolve non-polar compounds. Salts of compounds are polar. Freebases of compounds are non-polar.

Since DMT is stored in the plant in its polar form, the acid extraction step merely separates the DMT from the plant tissues and puts the DMT into solution. Starting with NaOH on the plant matter not only converts the DMT to its freebase so that it becomes miscible in naptha, it also destroys the plant tissues. So now that I think about it, not only would a polar extraction step be extra work, it would probably be less efficient.


Good job on that 0.6g from that 100g, that's a far better yield than I would have expected.
 
I think I may give this a shot, been curious to try DMT for awhile, but even the most basic extractions (before this one) seemed to be a bit more involved than I could figure out. I barely passed highschool chemistry :P
 
This is great! I am very excited about this, because I too was pretty intimidated after spending so much time researching different teks. This tek came in the last issue of the The Enth*ogen R*view, so I assumed it must be a good tek, otherwise they wouldn't print it. It is a reputable publication. On the other hand, it looked like all the other teks but without the acid step, so admitedly I was dubious.

The process is amazingly simple. The material was soaked in NaOH for only one hour.
 
There is absolutely no point in rebasifying. However you could always use the naptha left over from step 4 to do step 2-4 again to maximize yield. How much lye with how much water was used for the 100g trial?
 
As you suggested Trogdor, the steps were repeated 4 times, each naptha extraction going into a separate container in the freezer. Container No. 1 had 97% of the precipitate. Container No. 2, 3%, and the others were negligible. Amazing.
 
that is a better yield than i would of thought. Im keen to give this a shot too.

Could you put up a more detailed description? like trogdor asked, id appreciate it too.

I wonder if there will be much difference when using acacia sources.
 
Similar tek but not the same.

Trogdor, sorry for missing your question before, re. lye concentration. I've purposely avoided details because I feel it is copyrighted as it was published in the Entheogen Review. These are aquaintances of mine, so I am reluctant to give details here. PM me if you want some more detail.

Or, you could try the tek posted above, but there are aspects to that one I can already tell are not as simple. Or, order a copy of The ER. It is awesome publication and well worth the $6 an issue!
 
As to solvents, like I said, Shellie gives a purer product (light yellow) and nice crystals if evaporated slowly. But toluene, which gives a darker product, is far superior in effect.

I would use Acacia obtusifolia bark cos it gives a high yield of 3-4g per kilo of bark.

SUMMARY

1: Acquire and remove bark from stumps in strips.
2: Acid extraction of bark.
3: Remove bark and boil down.
4: Basify acid extract
5: Solvent extraction.
6. Evaporate.
No defatting, no re-crystallization!


METHOD

- 1) In a 10L steel pot mix 5L of water and 750ml of “Apple Cider Vinegar.
- Apple cider vinegar because it doesn’t concentrate when you reduce the fluid volume.

2) Then add as much bark as the water will cover, and boil for 2hrs with the lid on.
2hrs seems to be long enough to get all the alkaloids out of the bark.

3) Remove the bark and with lid off simmer the acid extraction down to 1L.

4) Let cool and pour into a 2L juice bottle.

5) Measure out 500ml of water and add 4 flat teaspoons of sodium hydroxide.
Swirl to dissolve the NaOH, this will produce a bit of heat.

6) Add sodium solution in small portions slowly over5-10min, stirring vigorously after each addition.
The acid solution will change from light brown to grey for a moment, then get darker till nearly black. Don’t stress if you don’t see the grey, with these measurements it will all be OK.

7) Then add 100ml of either Shellie or toluene.
Now to avoid a huge emulsion layer in between the solvent and water, don’t shake the bottle very hard, instead just keep tipping it upside-down again and again for about 2min.
Repeat this 5 times for shellite and 3 times for toluene


8) Let settle for 30min to form 3 layers. Black alkaline water on the bottom, a bubbly emulsion in the middle and the light yellow solvent on top.

9) A pipet is best to siphon off the solvent layer. Put this into a baking dish to evaporate away from light or heat, with or without a fan.
Choose a dish to evaporate with as large a surface area as possible. The solvent will evaporate to an oil like substance, just leave it for as long as it takes to form a crystalline “crust” over the base of the pan that is touch dry.

9) Scrape up crystal with a razor blade, weigh and put into a small zip-lock bag until use.
Enjoy

I guarantee you won’t get better spice.
 
I have a friend who swears that the 'earwax' he had was way better than the pure white crystals we had. Is it toluene that produces the 'earwax'? I've never managed to find a tek for it even though it seems to be fairly common.
 
sorry to bring this thread back after 3 months

but...I am having trouble with my extraction and I am using this technique so maybe yall can help

I have crystal drain cleaner as my NaOH source, 100% lye crystals
I have coleman premium blend fuel as my naptha source which contains:
Light hydrotreated distillate
cyclohexane
n-hexane
Xylene
Ethylbenzene
Click to expand...

now I followed the directions exactly with 20 grams(because this is first time trying to extract) of mimosa hostilis bark placed into a solution of 500 mL of water mixed with 75 grams of lye...I allowed this to cool before putting the root bark into it

agitated for an hour then rolled with the naptha in it for about 5 minutes, separated the naptha layer out and allowed to evaporate on a glass dish since I don't currently have access to a freezer that I can use for this

once it is all evaporated I am not left with anything....so that musta been all naptha and no dmt right?


I saved the root bark/NaOH solution however and that is still in a jar

could I possibly just need to allow the basified solution to sit longer?
or am I just missing something...

thanks for any help

edit: and I know this stuff is fairly potent because I have had 2 successful ayahuasca trips with this exact batch using fairly small amounts
edit2: I managed to scrape up a small amount of gooey stuff from the bottom...i mean a very very small amount and smoked it all and got a slight body high for a few minutes that felt like a dmt body high, so something went into the naptha just not much...perhaps i need to allow the NaOH to completely dissolve all of the material in the jar
 
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