Cream of tartar

[Lightning-Nl]

I was doing some research on what chemicals could be used to turn freebase drugs into one of their salts.

As far as I'm aware, there's no limitations on what can be used. But being the curious person I am, I had a stupid idea that I'm just curious if it would work or not. Potassium Bitartrate is one of the main chemical constitutes of the spice "Cream of Tartar" with 90% of cream of tartar being potassium bitartrate. In medicine, they use tartaric acid as a reactor for making a salt of a drug. A good example I know of is Zolpidem Tartrate. While Potassium Bitartrate isn't the same as tartaric acid - could it still be used as a reagent for forming a salt?

Methamphetamine is what I want to use as an example. So, theoretically speaking, could you 1. Use tartaric acid to make Methamphetamine Tartrate? 2. If you can, would purified Potassium Bitartrate work as a substitute for tartaric acid?

My instinct says that Potassium Bitartrate isn't reactive. But I'm a curious person. If you can't use cream of tartar as a substitute for using tartaric acid, would it just be easier to obtain a different reagent? How dangerous is opening up car batteries exactly?

 

[sekio]

Potassium bitartrate has an acidic proton, so at least on paper it would form "methamphetamine potassium tartrate". But the acidity of that second proton is low comapred to plain tartaric acid. It would certainly not work anywhere near as well as the fully protonated stuff.

If you are looking for some acids to use, please don't open a car battery. Car batteries are sealed, nowadays, and moreover they contain lead, some of which dissolved into the acid as lead sulphate. Considering that in most locales you should be able to purchase citric acid from a pharmacy, white vinegar up to 20% acetic acid if you look around (I saw it as "cleaning vinegar", there is also "pickling vinegar" of 10-15%, and even plain old table vinegar is 5%), soda water is buffered carbonic acid. You should even be able to buy hydrochloric acid for pool usage.

Tartaric acid and methamphetamine are both chiral. It just so happens that in the right solvents only one enantiomer of methamphetamine will crystallise with one enantiomer of tartaric acid, and as natural tartaric acid is often pretty much one enantiomer, it is a valid way to seperate D- and L-amphetamines. In aqueous solution this won't work as well as it does in alcohols.

 

[ebola?]

This is not how chemistry works.

In general, an acidic compound may be added to a freebase drug, forming a salt where the prior freebase molecule serves as one ion, the prior acidic compound serving as its counterion (remember that acid + base = salt + h20 + (potentially other stuff). You will need a basic understanding of ionic reactions to truly comprehend why this is at any level (and make use of such understanding in future extrapolations). May I suggest pursuing introductory chemistry? Khan academy is free and widely well regarded.

ebola

 

[MagickalKat777]

ebola, thanks for the info about Khan Academy. I had never heard of it before and I've been wanting to get into chem and organic chem for quite awhile but don't have the financial resources. Kick ass dude!

 

[Lightning-Nl]

Potassium bitartrate has an acidic proton, so at least on paper it would form "methamphetamine potassium tartrate". But the acidity of that second proton is low comapred to plain tartaric acid. It would certainly not work anywhere near as well as the fully protonated stuff.

If you are looking for some acids to use, please don't open a car battery. Car batteries are sealed, nowadays, and moreover they contain lead, some of which dissolved into the acid as lead sulphate. Considering that in most locales you should be able to purchase citric acid from a pharmacy, white vinegar up to 20% acetic acid if you look around (I saw it as "cleaning vinegar", there is also "pickling vinegar" of 10-15%, and even plain old table vinegar is 5%), soda water is buffered carbonic acid. You should even be able to buy hydrochloric acid for pool usage.

Tartaric acid and methamphetamine are both chiral. It just so happens that in the right solvents only one enantiomer of methamphetamine will crystallise with one enantiomer of tartaric acid, and as natural tartaric acid is often pretty much one enantiomer, it is a valid way to seperate D- and L-amphetamines. In aqueous solution this won't work as well as it does in alcohols.

Thanks a lot for the info Sekio! Good harm reduction info and it was the stuff I needed to know

[...]

Thanks a lot for info about Khan academy! I'm definitely going to look into it!