Misc How do you extract the caffeine out of fioricet?

[Krat1712]

Hey guys. I was recently prescribed the tension headache medicine called fioricet. It contains 50 mg of butalbital (a barbiturates) caffeine, and apap.

I get severe tension not only in my head but my whole body. I would like to be able to take these before bed but the caffeine kinda screws that up.

I know that caffeine is highly soluble in water while butalbital and apap aren't. So I tried crushing up the pills l..shaking them up in a water bottle.. Then doing a cwe which SHOULD filter out the caffeine but it doesn't work. I end up with only a little bit of the white powder left on top of the filter which again should be just the butalbital and apap. So most of it is obviously going through the filter. When I taste the water I can taste all the medicine (if it was only caffeine it would just taste bitter) and I have to drink it all just to get the normal effects but with the dreaded caffeine


Does anyone know how to get the caffeine out of these damn things? Ha Thanks

 

[burn out]

I don't think there is an easy way to remove the caffeine.

 

[rave23]

All I could think of is doing a small volume extraction with ether. Caffeine is poorly soluble in ether (1.8 mg/ml) and butalbital is readily soluble in ether.

Also, butalbital is somewhat soluble in water, 1.7g/L, that's why your CWE doesn't work. Try using a minimal amount of ice cold water, enough to wet the ground powder, then wash the filter cake with very small amounts of ice cold water a few times. For 200 mg of butalbital I would shoot for a total volume of perhaps 125 ml. You will still get caffeine, but the amount should be reduced.

Back in my Codeine CWE days I grew such a massive tolerance to caffeine that 300 mg twice a day didn't even elevate my heart rate anymore :D

 

[kleinerkiffer]

I'm not a chemist so take what I say with a grain of salt.
Here are the solubilities I came up with:
Caffeine: 20 mg/ml and the solubility increases up to 660 mg/ml in boiling water
APAP: 15 mg/ml
Butalbital: 1,7 mg/ml

So what if you grind the pill into a really fine powder and add like 1-2 ml of (hot) water? This should be enough to get 40 mg caffeine into solution, while you should only loose around 4 mg of butalbital. This will leave you with a sludge of butalbital, apap and fillers and saturated caffeine solution.

 

[Crowsonator2008]

I just pop 4 of em and feel great..160mg of caffeine isnt even 2 cups of cofee wortg.But its over a gram of apap is the downfall.

 

[Kaninchen]

kleinerkiffer has the right angle: Look up the solubility product constants for each compound (ksp) and use the appropriate amount of solvent and you can precipitate/recrystallize either what you want or don't want. Most of all - educate yourself if you want to do things...

 

[leojay]

I boil water rapidly, add to powder, & mix for ~90s. I then strain through coffee filter. The only side effect is, being ~666mg/ml in water... there are... side effects.
Then i cram the filter in my mouth and chomp on it and snarl like a pit-bull and bark! Me mum usually comes in so I scream the morning ritual "I TOLD YOU NOT TO COME IN WHEN I'M TAKING ME MEDICINE!!!" Then i shake the little bits of undigestible paper around the kitchen spitting them out me mouth on all fours nippin at her heels screaming "I TOLD YOU THEY'RE NOT STRONG ENOUGH! GHEARWRHAWRUAWHR!!!!!!"

I'm sorry mods... It's only been a couple months... Just tryina get a smile out of a stranger...
I'm aware I added nothing to this. It's my first day...
Edit: TLDR what kleinerkiffer said.