Time in invest in a column and TLC plates?
Do it!!! Don't shy away from chromatography IME. Sometimes you can use a really low tech version of chromatography to really clean up a mixture of compounds, rather than isolating a pure compound. It's a great tool for separation, though not always cost effective at huge scales from a crude product, which is why multiple separation techniques are used (adsorbtion, distillation, crystallization, adducts, chromatography
I see a lot of companies using mostly myc extract in their product
I have heard that mycelium itself doesn't produce nearly the amount as a fruit body, but let me ask around and hopefully get back to this. I do think you can grow biomass a lot quicker in bioreactors than the slow fruiting process. I have extracted straight PF Tek cakes and still gotten high though.
i dream of having a chromotography setup (column, tlc, whatever)
TLC is IMO always where you start. From TLC results you can extrapolate to the column. Compound A elutes the quickest, B the second quickest, C the slowest etc. And if your target compound is the slowest, you switch to reverse phase media.. It's all about the media and the solvent system. Finding solvent systems that consist of certain ratios of a weak solvent (a solvent that doesn't move the compounds quickly) and a strong solvent (all the compounds move fast and smear together), you can isolate anything.
I've always wanted to try 2D TLC, because using certain solvent systems, there are compounds that elute at the exact same rate and do not separate. But if you let the plate dry, and rotate it horizontally and use a DIFFERENT solvent system, what appear to be 1 spot/compound resolve into multiple compounds.
Also some spots glow different colors under different light wavelengths and it can be pretty wild/beautiful. If you extract voacanga with acetone, and spot on tlc with a 3:2 hexane/ethyl acetate solvent system, its like a rainbow.
thanks for the tips, i have only gotten the hang of thc extractions.
Extraction is both a science and an art IMO. At bluelight we aren't allowed to discuss synthesis of chemical compounds, but it seems extraction talk is generally tolerated. There is a lot of misguided information out there, so I will always talk about extraction. When I say extraction is an art, I mean that how you do it, the techniques you use, how much resolution they provide, and what order you use them leads to different products at different economic efficiencies. Using science is the art
I've never crystallized psilocybin personally, but I think i remember Hofmann saying the crystals were blue?