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Extracting caffeine from a pill

TDogUSA

TDogUSA

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Joined
Oct 14, 2007
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I was wondering if it is possible to extract caffeine from a pill (say fioricet) without using 190 proof alcohol. would 151 work ok. Any other suggestions/methods? The easier the better, but Ill try anything.
 
TDogUSA said:
I was wondering if it is possible to extract caffeine from a pill (say fioricet) without using 190 proof alcohol. would 151 work ok. Any other suggestions/methods? The easier the better, but Ill try anything.
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seriously, why bother? caffeine powder is pretty easy to get hold of.
 
vecktor said:
seriously, why bother? caffeine powder is pretty easy to get hold of.
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no i dont want to extract it for the caffeine, i want to get rid of the caffeine from the fioricet so i cant take fioricet without the caffeine
 
TDogUSA said:
no i dont want to extract it for the caffeine, i want to get rid of the caffeine from the fioricet so i cant take fioricet without the caffeine
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lol when i was opening this thread I was praying to God that someone was not planning on IVing caffeine ... so thank you, God ...

now please tell me you are not planning on IVing butalbital haha

caffeine, APAP & butalbital are all pretty soluble in cold & warm water and also alcohol IIRC so this extraction would take a bit of finesse ...

so yeah, not helpful, sorry
 
lol no i dont want to iv butalbital, i would just like to get rid of the caffeine, and i dont care if the apap is still there. its just too much caffeine
 
Dichloromethane is an excellent solvent for caffeine, much better than water or EtOH, but also for the other substances. Soxhletting caffeine pills with CH2Cl2 works great if its isolation is required.
 
i will probably try the alcohol method first, and see how it goes from there. somebody mentioned that method to me earlier. thanks for the info
 
if you need a pure alcohol to extract with, instead of using Ethanol. Use methanol, which is used as a gasoline fuel additive in its pure form. Works just the same for extracting as EThanol
 
Chromatography?
Caffeine dissolves in the same solvents most others drugs do as well unfortunately, so if you're looking to get caffeine out of MDMA pills or something this could be more than a little tricky.
 
Activated charcoal is used to decaffeinate coffee whether it would remove caffeine HCl, I don't know...but worth investigating.

IF taken into cold water and a base is added a NP added and the solution left for 24 hours the cafeeine should come out as fine silky threads of Freebase - they'll be everywhere dependant upon concentration. Try on caffeine pills first so as not to waste good feedstock. If only a small number of pills is to be used, then maybe omitting the NP would give better results with the freebasebeing forced out but having nowhere to go it will be obvious even with small numbers.
 
im actually trying to extract the caffeine out of butalbital/apap/caffeine (fioricet) pills.
 
Yeah, I know.

If the pills were added to water and then activated carbon added and then filtered, the caffeine should be removed and as long as your actives are water soluble then they should come through with the water and can be reclaimed after evaporation.

OR

One could try basing the caffeine out as mentioned above and reclaiming the actives (dependant on whether a/b would work on them, case by case, or try a small sample). THe caffeine can be removed as it appears as silky threads, the actives would be in the solvent and can be reclaimed through titration of the solvent for the HCl salt. ALL dependant on what the goodies are, though.
 
Chemethist said:
if you need a pure alcohol to extract with, instead of using Ethanol. Use methanol, which is used as a gasoline fuel additive in its pure form. Works just the same for extracting as EThanol
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Isn't methanol petty toxic to be using as a solvent? Would the methanol be completely gone if completely dried?
 
1. No, less than most others.
2. Methanol is a liquid, so if it's completely dried, then yes, it's completely gone.

But way to raise the dead, lazarus.
 
Lol. Thanks for the reply. Sorry for raising the dead, I really gave my best shot with the search engine and MSDS's. (maybe I'm not using the proper key words)

I tried extracting with methanol before. The finished product was crispy dry, but burned like a bitch when consumed. The original did not....

First things first, I need to read up on basic chemistry. I'm only at high school level at the moment.

For now I am using the SE and google to find some applied chem literature for a novice. I've been searching for things like "chemistry safety", "organic chemistry"., "basic chemistry". Feel free to let me know if there are any "must have" books, or anything that has been helpful.

Cheers.
 
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