Q's for chemists - trying to purify xanax, and make crystls outta powders

[ntgn]

Hi there _ I know alprazolam(xanax) isn't water soluble but I want to take like 50, 1mg pills and remove all binders, such that I'm left with pure powder alprazolam - how should I do this?
Also, if one has a pure powder chemical, how can the make it into big chunky crystals? Dissolve it in IPA maybe and let dry in test-tube? Just a hobby, but I want big shards of my tryptamines!!!
thx

 

[Love In Vein]

Hi there _ I know alprazolam(xanax) isn't water soluble but I want to take like 50, 1mg pills and remove all binders, such that I'm left with pure powder alprazolam - how should I do this?
I can't answer your question.
But out of curiousity, why do you want to bother?

 

[Benzo-messiah]

So you got 50 1mg tablets?
So the theoretical yield for your extraction is 50mg. This is an extremely small amount of the substance and you are guaranteed to lose some of it in the process anyway.
Dosing it is really inconvenient and a real pain in the arse.
Why go through all the touble just to make things harder for yourself?
[ 28 October 2002: Message edited by: Benzo-messiah ]

 

[thinctwo]

i cant tell you what to do here... only if the specific binders for the pill are known, and they tend to vary. heres what you will do: read the packaging or look up the contents of the pill besides alprazolam (also known as the inactives) now, you get to look all of those up, or just know off the top of your hear, their solubilities and other general properties. now devise a scheme to remove either all the binders, or the active (alprazolam) in best yield of active. best yield you probably still lose a significant amount of product, and you really have no way of knowing your purity, so who knows what you got.
now you get to recrystallize... which i get the impression you dont know how to do..
different chemicals make different crystals in different conditions. sorry i cant be any more specific and say use this itll work for everything... you just have to look it up. making shards is a topic for some other time; im sure you wont have use of such knowledge. no offense, its just thats kinda putting the cart in front of the horse.
basically, just take your pillz as is.

 

[tathra]

with such a small amount, it would be a waste. you'd lose some in the purification, and when you dried it you'd basically just have it as a film on your drying surface.
for recrystalization, you find a solvent where the drug is highly soluable when the solvent is warm, but hardly has any soluability when its really cold. you warm your solvent, then drop in the powder to be recrystalized, let it cool to room temp, stick it in the freezer overnight, then filter out the crystals that formed and dry the remaining solvent (or dry off say half, then stick it back in the freezer to see if more crystals will crash out, but make sure you dont just throw your solution away, else you'll lose product).

 

[5-HT2]

I have done plenty of recrystallizations in my time and all I can say is that it would be a waste of good xanax.

 

[XxXStevoXxX]

Quick question about recrystalization; I am currently in a college org. chem class, and am familiar with the techniques, but how do you know what chemical is recovered from the crystals?...applying it to original posting, even if an appropriate solvent could be found, who's to say what chemical is recovered in the crystals from the extraction?...how is the isolation of a specific chemical determined...thanks chemists

 

[tathra]

well there SHOULD only be 1 substance in there really, whatever drug yr recrystalizing. after you've done your appropriate washes and cleaned up the product and such, there shoudlnt be much else left besides the pure product.

 

[5-HT2]

Originally posted by XxXStevoXxX:
even if an appropriate solvent could be found, who's to say what chemical is recovered in the crystals from the extraction?...how is the isolation of a specific chemical determined...thanks chemists
Appropriate solvent=one in which the binders are NOT soluble and the Xanax is, which also has high Xanax solubility at high temp. and low Xanax solubility at low temp. If you can't find a solvent like that, then you'll have to resort to either chemical (wastes even more xanax) or spectroscopic (doubt you have the access to that) testing methods. Just eat the pills, its REALLY not worth the trouble of isolating the Xanax.

 

[Chemelion]

Trying to recrystalize 50mg is really not worth it... the mechanical loss, through glassware, etc will mean you will have little to no product.
Chemelion