Strange cut in my speed (cellulose?) - what is it, and how can I get rid of it?

[gray_green]

So, recently I started stumbling across some cut in speed, which I haven't seen before:
- It dissolves in water
- Under some conditions, it forms fibers, needle-shaped, sometimes resembling small feathers. Those fibers are shiny, like silk, and soft
- Looks like fibers starts to form when I put solution to fringe, or if there is not very much water. If I left the solution to evaporate, those feathers appear very slowly, one by one
- If I add more water to the fibers, they completely dissolve
- In dissolved state, they can't be filtered with a coffee filter
- Even if you put solution to the fridge, and then filter out fibers with a coffee filter, you never remove the substance - in filtered solution they appear again and again, even with multiple filtering
- Sometimes they can be washed (or partially washed?) with acetone, and then when acetone evaporates, fibers are there

Photos

Fibers in glass after cooling in fringe for several hours:



Dried fibers from coffee filter:


Fibers start forming in solution:


Fibers in the glass used for acetone washing, after acetone evaporates




I found a mention of them on the forum, but there is no answer about what it actually is and how somebody can get rid of these

Another word of warning regarding IV Euro Speed: There's some really weird shit in there. Few samples get past 10% amphetamine (usually sulfate with leftover freebase). Now some adulterants can pass through 220nm filters before falling out of solution.

Try this: Heat some water and saturate it with your Euro Speed. Draw it up into a syringe and put it in the fridge over night. You will be both surprised and disgusted of what you are very likely to see.
I've been meaning to make photos of this to post them here, but haven't gotten around to it.

I suspect the substance in question to be some form of cellulose. It will completely dissolve, pass through whichever filter you use and fall out of solution/recrystallize. The substance is a crystalline needle structure. Needles can be over an inch long.

Example of what happened the last time I did this: I did NOT heat the water, so the solution was not even saturated. I did not even put it in the fridge either (both these things will increase the likelihood of this process taking place). However when I looked at the syringe the next day it was stuffed with crystals (cellulose?). It was actually hard to squirt the stuff out of the syringe.

Any ideas about what it is and how to deal with it?

 

[PtahTek]

Hey. I have no clue what this may be if it wasnt soluable I would swear it was fiberglass insulation. ha Looks unhealthy for sure.
Welcome to bl.
Hope you get answers as I am baffled.
Peace

 

[gray_green]

More observations.
Yesterday I did a water solution of a few speed samples, then filtered them with 0.45 micron wheel filter, put to fridge and left for a night.
In the morning, one sample looked clear, and the other had this strange fibers appeared in the solution.
I started evaporating the clear one... and unfortunately I immediately saw this fiber 'needles' at the edge of the solution:


After a bit of time, these needles changed to a sort of crispy crust (I think they absorbed some vapor from the air, turned to jelly and then immediately dried because of heat):


After a bit more, I noticed strange waves on the bottom of the bowl....


And very quickly the remaining liquid turned into crust too, needle crystal structure can be clearly seen


SO, 0.45 micron doesn't filter this thing out. I'll try 0.22 micron today, but from the message I quoted it looks like 0.22 won't help with this too.
I've found 0.1 micron wheel filters, but I don't have an idea of what is the size of amphetamine sulfate molecule. Will it pass 0.1 micron filter?

Also, is there any guides on evaporating?

 

[gray_green]

I did some more research, and found a couple of Reddit posts mentioning something similar:

First, Second. In the last one fiber, and, what's more important, dried fiber looks exactly the same with what I have, and author claims it's caffeine.
Photos from his post:

Here are some photos of caffeine crystals, also pretty similar.

The caffeine pattern of solubility fits with the pattern of solubility of the cut I have in my samples. Also would explain why 0.44 micron filter doesn't help to get rid of it.

What doesn't add up is that I washed with isopropyl or acetone speed I got, and after washing I still have this thing. I also attempted recrystallization with isopropyl alcohol, and when it started cooling, it immediately became jelly, just like on my photos with water.
Also, does saturated caffeine solution become jelly? Is its crystals soft like silk? Is there any reagent test for caffeine?

 

[PtahTek]

Maybe the only way to find out what it is is to have it lab tested; without this there is only opinions and guessings and this ultimately can lead to bad harm reduction practices.
I honestly think I would give this substance a break until I had hard info.... Thats just me, though.

 

[gray_green]

Maybe the only way to find out what it is is to have it lab tested; without this there is only opinions and guessings and this ultimately can lead to bad harm reduction practices.
I honestly think I would give this substance a break until I had hard info.... Thats just me, though.

I already send an example to Energy Control, I think I'll have results in about a week. But they don't identify _everything_, they identify only a relatively small list of substances.
For example, I send to them an example of something that made me stomach-sick (it was from a vendor I trusted, so I didn't expect anything bad), and the colorimetric tests were controversial. It didn't contain the substance I describe in this thread, it was something else. Aaaand... the result is 51% amphetamine. And the other 49%? Nobody knows.
I'm continuing experiments not bc I desperately want to use this stuff, but because I'm very curios, and also bc want to find some reliable way to get relatively clean amphetamine sulfate without going into acid-based extraction.

 

[Mcracken420]

It is likely caffeine. Like you said, it looks similar and sometimes caffeine doesn't show up on lab tests. Also it's a common cut.

 

[gray_green]

It is likely caffeine. Like you said, it looks similar and sometimes caffeine doesn't show up on lab tests. Also it's a common cut.

I did a quick test with iodine solution, description is there https://hackaday.com/2017/11/06/how-pure-is-this-cup-of-joe-coffee-conspiracy-and-citizen-science/
And it's most likely not caffeine, because solution didn't change its colour at all. I dropped a bit of freshly brewed coffee into another glass with solution to use as control, and color change was rapid and immediately noticeable