Cocaine Few Questions Reguarding Ammonia and Heat

[elyix]

Hi guys! Been using the site for a while, finally decided to sign up!

Now, down to business. From my understanding the role of the ammonia in the process of creating freebase is to neutralize the hydrochloric acid attached to the cocaine effectively separating the two, allowing it to become smoke-able? Does the ammonium chloride just precipitate wherever it can or does it become gaseous and evaporate from the solution? Or does it remain dissolved in the water and only the cocaine precipitates allowing you to just filter out the solution and leave the freebase behind.

Also, what is the purpose of the heat? Is it just to boil out all of the water or does it act as some sort of catalyst? Or maybe dissolve any undesirables to be filtered out?

I've never cooked but from my understanding when it comes to using baking soda the sodium bicarbonate's purpose is to pull the hcl off to make sodium chloride which dissolves in the solution and and allows the freebase to separate and be filtered out. But I still don't understand the use of heat other than possibly acting as the catalyst the first time and to boil out the water the second time.

I'm by far no chemist. Any knowledge I possess on chemical reactions is self-taught so bare with me.

 

[sekio]

Or does it remain dissolved in the water and only the cocaine precipitates allowing you to just filter out the solution and leave the freebase behind.

This.

Also, what is the purpose of the heat?

Encourages the cocaine HCl to react rapidly, at low temperatures it may not convert to freebase as rapidly.

Bicarbonate and ammonia do the exact same thing, both act as bases (accept protons) to convert the HCl salt of cocaine to its freebase (which is insoluble in water) plus water soluble chloride salts. There's no reason to use ammonia in comparison to bicarbonate; it stinks.

 

[Limpet_Chicken]

Depends, sekio. Some people cook up crack by making a paste of bicarb and cocaine HCl don't they? If someone is making it via extraction into ether or other suitably volatile nonpolar and evaporation then I'd consider it superior, as if just making a paste then there is going to be a lot of salt left behind, possibly excess bicarb diluting the product.

At least excess NH3 can be evaporated off more easily and cleanly. Plus less tendency towards ester hydrolysis, given that cocaine is fairly sensitive to base, although not sure if bicarb or carbonate would be strong enough to hydrolyze either of the two ester linkages in cocaine, heating with the weakest base that will do the job does seem desirable.

 

[Scrofula]

I'd rather my Bluelighting neighbor cooked up his crack with baking soda AOT ammonia. The cat lady on the other side would be bad enough (volatile and flammable, just like ammonia).

 

[RedRum OG]

Haven't smoked crack in over 5 years and hopefully never will again, but in the name of science, is ammonia better than the traditional "trap" method of coke+ baking soda + heat? The few people I knew who cooked themselves preferred the ammonia method.

Part of the reason, as explained to me, was that you never even know a ballpark purity % of coke, and with baking soda you will get more leftover garbage if using improper ratios, which doesn't matter as much with ammonia. True?

 

[notSWIM]

Haven't smoked crack in over 5 years and hopefully never will again, but in the name of science, is ammonia better than the traditional "trap" method of coke+ baking soda + heat? The few people I knew who cooked themselves preferred the ammonia method.

Part of the reason, as explained to me, was that you never even know a ballpark purity % of coke, and with baking soda you will get more leftover garbage if using improper ratios, which doesn't matter as much with ammonia. True?

It’s not accurate but ammonia can be used to give a ballpark purity by loss of product. Harder with bicarb for reasons listed.

 

[Slimypoopballs]

How do es one go about the ammonia method?

 

[simplefilter]

If you’re using heat, stick to baking soda without the use of solvents and just rock it. Much safer, less stinky. If you make sure to be clean, not use old stuff, not use high flame, and repeat your process (to gain experience) you probably won’t hurt yourself.

Heck, with some good research and a willingness to learn - you might be able realize that a spoon isn’t magical or required, figure out why heat is used, figure out how you can limit excess soda, and come up with something better and safer than people who don’t look into these things and just sorta throw ammonia into the mix.

Ammonia allows for no heat, but the no heat process requires a lot more in terms of skill. It isn’t easy to free base using baking soda, but it’s harder to use ammonia. You’ve got to correctly change the pH at the right speed (milky suspension vs. granular vs. somewhat rocked), be able to filter, and be able to wash to make sure you’re not smoking ammonia.

It’s possible, you just need to be open to losing stuff as you figure it out. Or have pH papers and proper filter technique and a solid plan so that you can follow the more advanced instructions. It needs to be a good bit more controlled.

Some people try to get around this by using volatile solvents but that’s even more dangerous. It’s like admitting you don’t have the skill to be safe by introducing a much more dangerous process, but now you could actually maim or kill yourself.

Stick to baking soda, is the best advice here for 90% of people. Ammonia can lead to a slightly cleaner product, but for some samples it wouldn’t make a difference.

For the target chemical there isn’t a difference between anything used to get to a free base, in the sense that it is always just a free base. The only difference is the risk profile, process skill demand, and variability of what you might extract (there’s really a debate whether the difference is really enough to practically matter in most cases).

Talking about the chemistry is great, and yes in theory some approaches other than baking soda are better. But we aren’t talking theory here and chemistry requires very real steps that can hurt people.

Yes, it’s easy to pull over excess baking soda. Can this be avoided? Absolutely. It’s just as easy to get impatient and have ammonia in your lungs. Get my drift?

 

[simplefilter]

If someone is making it via extraction into ether or other suitably volatile nonpolar and evaporation then I'd consider it superior, as if just making a paste then there is going to be a lot of salt left behind, possibly excess bicarb diluting the product.

If someone is doing this they’re venturing into really scary territory. If they’re ALSO asking about ammonia vs. baking soda then they’re doing a really dangerous thing without understanding the risk and stuff like this makes me very very scared for their safety.

Like casually understanding the process without understanding safety risks, or disregarding them because they aren’t sober leads to Richard Prior or worse. Explosions abound.