I've been doing a little bit of reading on concentrating PST and I thought I'd come to you more knowledgeable folk for guidance.
The first method I'm interested in involves partially freezing normal PST (shaken up water with seeds, strain) the idea being the bigger molecules and plant fats will be trapped in the ice and the alkaloids will be pushed to the water.
The next method involves using calcium (oxide or hydroxide? would carbonate work?) to bring the pH to 9 or 11? which causes alkaloids to convert to salts. My question is, wouldn't the salts still dissolve in the water at cool temperatures? I have read about adding ammonium to a pH of 9.1 to convert morphine but not other alkaloids, but I'm not sure I can ask about that as it's getting freebase-y and borderline-y
The last method I've come across is simply using ISO alcohol in place of water in a normal PST wash and evaporating it (or makeshift laudanum) and they're not really on my mind.
I'm mainly interested in whether the chemistry of the freezing technique holds up to retain alkaloids and trap plant shit in the ice?
I've added a quote as I've tried to be brief.
The first method I'm interested in involves partially freezing normal PST (shaken up water with seeds, strain) the idea being the bigger molecules and plant fats will be trapped in the ice and the alkaloids will be pushed to the water.
The next method involves using calcium (oxide or hydroxide? would carbonate work?) to bring the pH to 9 or 11? which causes alkaloids to convert to salts. My question is, wouldn't the salts still dissolve in the water at cool temperatures? I have read about adding ammonium to a pH of 9.1 to convert morphine but not other alkaloids, but I'm not sure I can ask about that as it's getting freebase-y and borderline-y
The last method I've come across is simply using ISO alcohol in place of water in a normal PST wash and evaporating it (or makeshift laudanum) and they're not really on my mind.
I'm mainly interested in whether the chemistry of the freezing technique holds up to retain alkaloids and trap plant shit in the ice?
I've added a quote as I've tried to be brief.
The filter residue was extracted again with water, fractions were combined.
The closed bottle was kept still, in a freezer at -5 centigrade until 2/3 of the solution was frozen.
The freezing solution was filtrated, after which the ice was discarded.
The filtrate was put back in the bottle, and the freezing procedure was repeated.
The resulting brown solution was allowed to evaporate on a hot water bath,
yielding a brittle brown substance which was potent and tasteful enough to smoke pleasurably.
Hypothesis of the success of the procedure:
The active ingredient, morphine maleate, is highly soluble, even in cold water.
Acid or base addition is unnecessary and unwanted because of possible decomposition of the maleate salt,
into possibly less soluble constituents.
Heating is unnecessary and unwanted because of possible degradation of saccharides and peptides (inflicted effect explained below),
and additional dissolving other unwanted materials, like lipids.
The crystallization of water in the solution forces other molecules than water out of the matrix.
Small molecules, like morphine maleate move easily to stay in the liquid phase.
Large molecules, like (poly)saccharides and (poly)peptides can not move easily enough, and are included in the ice.
An additional effect may be that plant saccharides have a high affinity to water.
So, may be, small saccharides are included in the ice as well.
The freezing therefore accomplishes a separation between alkaloids and "nutritional" materials.
This statement is confirmed by direct evaporation of cold water extract.
It is important not to break the ice crystals during formation, because cavities will form, enclosing active ingredients.
This is experimentally confirmed.
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