I have been a semi-regular user of cocaine now for the past couple of years. My dealer consistently has good quality product, but I still perform some purification processes at home. These purification processes are usually an acid base extraction or a recrystallization, or both. These processes always increase the quality, but lately, being a connoisseur, I've been trying to crystallize my final product into "mother of pearl" flakes. The high quality product I get from my dealer is always fish scale, so I've been wondering why my purification processes don't yield these pearly crystals when the purity is going up?
Let me give an example. For an acid base extraction, I will convert the cocaine HCl to cocaine base using ammonia. Once it's dry, I dissolve the cocaine base in acetone (usually 1 gram of base to 15-20 mL of acetone). Then in a separate beaker, I will dilute concentrated HCl with methanol and acetone (1 gram of base to 0.25 mL HCl, 0.5 mL methanol, 10 mL of acetone). Then while swirling the base/acetone solution, I will quickly add the acid-methanol-acetone solution. Crystallization begins almost immediately, but all I get is a grainy powder. Why is this?
By the way, this process was taken from David Lee's cocaine handbook. I've also tried doing the same process but without methanol, and I've also done it without diluting the acid at all. Still, I get a grainy powder and not the flakey crystals I desire. I know solvent choice probably plays a part in how the crystallization turns out, but it seems that no matter what I do, I always get a grainy powder. What can I do differently? And by the way, generating HCl gas is not an option for me - it's not worth the trouble or risk.
Would an acid base extraction followed by a methanol recrystallization produce the flakes I want?
EDIT: In the source country the final step is converting the cocaine base to cocaine HCl, and they always seem to be able to produce shiny flakes when doing so...so what are they doing that I'm not?
Let me give an example. For an acid base extraction, I will convert the cocaine HCl to cocaine base using ammonia. Once it's dry, I dissolve the cocaine base in acetone (usually 1 gram of base to 15-20 mL of acetone). Then in a separate beaker, I will dilute concentrated HCl with methanol and acetone (1 gram of base to 0.25 mL HCl, 0.5 mL methanol, 10 mL of acetone). Then while swirling the base/acetone solution, I will quickly add the acid-methanol-acetone solution. Crystallization begins almost immediately, but all I get is a grainy powder. Why is this?
By the way, this process was taken from David Lee's cocaine handbook. I've also tried doing the same process but without methanol, and I've also done it without diluting the acid at all. Still, I get a grainy powder and not the flakey crystals I desire. I know solvent choice probably plays a part in how the crystallization turns out, but it seems that no matter what I do, I always get a grainy powder. What can I do differently? And by the way, generating HCl gas is not an option for me - it's not worth the trouble or risk.
Would an acid base extraction followed by a methanol recrystallization produce the flakes I want?
EDIT: In the source country the final step is converting the cocaine base to cocaine HCl, and they always seem to be able to produce shiny flakes when doing so...so what are they doing that I'm not?
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