MDMA Extraction

Is MDMA soluble in water?

Not knowing much about how MDMA works in water, is it possible to crush up your pills into cold water (distilled) and then filter it thru a coffee filter or the like. So that you remove all the bindings.

Is it likely the water would have only MDMA/MDA in it?

Thanks







Be Safe.

it would be better to put the crushed pill into near boiling water and shove all that through a syringe filter thingy....even after that though it wouldnt be so safe for iv/im which is the purpose of this im assuming.... y would u want to do this?

criom, not for IM or IV. Just want to remove the impurieties (i.e. bindings) and be left with a purer product, if its possible.

I too would be interested in this, but unless you're using a chemical reagent you're going to be using solubility properties at different temperatures, and in all liklihood you'll lose a significant percentage of the MDMA...

take it with the binders and feel yuck, or have a purer product, but not as much... interesting choice

MDMA is a HCL salt, so it is soluble in water, but who is to say that much of the binder isn't as well? If you decide to dissolve one in water add heat (not boiling)to help dissolve the salts and try it through a coffee filter, lemme know how it works. The fun part is letting the water evaporate to leave behind crystal looking stuff (that is if you are not going use it to poke yourself with anything)

in any event, be fuckin safe ok?

i'm certainly no chemist, in fact i hated it at school. Now I wish i had taken a little more notice

so heat won't destroy the MDMA?

I once put LSD microdot in near boiling water and found out later that LSD doesn't like heat, Doh!! I was trying to share a single microdot amongst three of us.

So what are the likely binding agents?

i asked this along tme ago and got a synthesis for it........

i dont think im allowed to post it so i'll pm Velo with it and if he agrees he can send it your way

MDMA is an organic compound, like paper or wood, and can burn/scorch if it gets quite hot. However, it's fairly durable, and shouldn't mind a little boiling in water. (LSD is a remarkably fragile chemical; it's synthesized in photography-style dark rooms to prevent light from destroying it.)

MDMA hydrochloride (the form used in pills/sold as powder) is extremely soluble in water (and other beverages), but as others have said, some of the binders probably are too. High-quality extractions of MDMA from pills are quite possible, but beyond the ambitions of the vast majority of people (convert to freebase, extract, re-form crystals.)

thanks guys.

I'm certainly not looking to make MDMA. Just trying to ensure that I get only MDMA or a more pure product. It sounds a lot more complicated than I was expecting.

I thought that the bindings were possibly less soluble than MDMA, and I guess i was hoping that MDMA extraction would be like cold water extraction of codiene (google).

I guess I will have to persist with crappy pills.


TheDEA.org, yes i found out later after trashing my LSD, that LSD doesn't like heat.




Be Safe

MDMA is an amine. Because most amines can exist as either a protonated salt, or as the free-base form, amines generally lend themselves rather well to purification. However, with any purification process some of the desired product will also be lost.

Unless the tablet formulation is backyard derived, it is more than likely tablets will be made with insoluble excipients and binders. If these were too soluble, there's a strong chance of absorption in the stomach or duodenum. Amines are hygroscopic which also means tablets with soluble binders would have a tendency to get soggy in humid environments.

Each of these methods will progressively improve the product, but the third makes use of the properties of amine i.e. the acid salt is water soluble and the free-base is not. Freebasing isn't suitable when only a few tablets are to be used, as the volume of the free-base liquid is simply to small to handle.


Procedure

Method A: Extraction

Using a mortar and pestle, grind your tablets to a fine powder. Dissolve in a minimum amount of cold water by stirring well (~ 8-10mL/ tablet should be fine). Filter and evaporate water to leave crystals.

This should remove most of the water insoluble material. MDMA is very water soluble, so using cold water will limit any slightly soluble materials, providing these aren't calcium or magnesium salts which increase in solubility with cold water. If you think you may have tablets containing such compounds, repeat the exercise a second time using hot water.

Method B: Mixed Solvent Re-crystallization

Product from above is mixed with warm acetone (heat on water bath -no flames) and 95+% ethanol is added drop-wise until the crystals dissolve.
The mixture is then placed in the refrigerator. As the solution cools, crystals will precipitate out. Filter and dry crystals. Re-cool/filter solution until no further crystals appear.

Method C: Acid/Base Extraction (not suitable for small amounts under ~2g of amine)

Amine crystal is placed in xylene or toluene etc, and sodium hydroxide (or bicarbonate if NaOH sounds scary) is added a small amount at a time until all the amine dissolves (pH should be ~7-8). Using a separating funnel (can be homemade) the solvent/free-base mixture is added with water and shaken. When things have settled, discard the water layer.

Add HCl gas (best) or 35% pool acid solution, until no more crystals form. Evaporate and wash with fresh xylene. If the crystals were brown after the first or second method, they should now be white and fluffy.

okay so if i am correct... you grind thefuck out of the pills...till their a powder... then you put a tiny TINY bit of water mixxed in.... THEN you pure all that water with the powderthrough a coffee filter... then you let it evaporate
?

and if i'm correct.. does that mean the visible powder in the murky water is the shit that isn't mdma, but the stuff that looks like normal water, is?

^^ Yes the MDMA will be in the water (providing it is completely dissolved) and the insoluble gunk remains in the filter (discard)

Using a minimum amount of water means you aren't waiting so long for it to evaporate. As ~1g of MDMA will dissolve in 1mL of water, it may be possible to use much less water, but too little and it will be difficult to mix and separate.

what common cuts / adulterants / fillers / binders are too highly soluble in water and can be expected to have in the product after such a procedure?

In reality there are many things which can be used as binders. I've even heard of PVA (poly-vinyl acetate) wood glue being used with chalk or similar. Ghastly as it may sound, it's possibly not too bad for the health as PVA is supposedly inert in-vivo.


The reason I say that most larger producers/pressers would use commercial or equivalent mixtures, is due to the usual properties of pills seen. The more rarely seen crumbly or odd consistency pills may indicate the presence of soluble binders or other "OTC" materials, but such tablets could simply reflect the ability of the tablet maker. According to reports, tablet making is considered both an art and a science, often requiring extensive practise and instruction in order to get a decent product.

The most likely things present which make purification difficult by the above methods are other amines, the commonly noted being; Ketamine, meth or other amphetamines and PEAs. Of course, any of the orally absorbed - MAO resistant tryptamines could also be added, but reports tend to indicate tryptamines in pills is not commonly seen (atm).

It has also been reported that pharmaceuticals are sometimes being added to pills in order to potentiate or synergize with the MDMA. Each of these would need to be identified and assessed individually before a suitable method of purification can be designed.

If you wish to test your extracted product for relative purity, the best method is TLC (thin layer chromatography), but to be done properly, TLC really requires a pure sample to reference against. It can sort of be done without using analytical grade MDMA as a reference, by looking for a single spot rather than 2 or more (which indicates more than one substance is present). I've also heard of others preparing their own references, or using other analytical grade amines as references.....for another day perhaps.

The next best thing for testing purity is normally a melting point test, but Shulgin points out that with MDMA, several states of hydration may occur and so he concludes that melting point tests are not adequate for estimating purity of MDMA-HCl.

From *somewhere we can't mention*

The melting point of MDMA depends on the hydration of the salt. Shulgin states: "It is apparent that with uncertain hydration, the melting point is not an acceptable criterion of identity or of purity."[ 1]. The various melting points are:

155 deg C (freebase @ 20 mm/Hg)
>110-120 deg C (freebase @ 0.4 mm/Hg)
[NOTE: Above fb figures are Boiling Points; p_d]

147-148 to 158-159 deg C (anhydrous HCl)
soften 132 deg C, 135-139 deg C (1/4 hydrate HCl)
soften 92 deg C, 138-145 deg C (hemihydrate HCl)
soften 50 deg C, 90-132 deg C (3/4 hydrate HCl)
soften 80 deg C, 107-133 deg C (monohydrate HCl)

Click to expand...

However, Erowid gives the Merck Index entry for MDMA where specific melting points are listed for MDMA-HCl crystallized from specific solvent mixtures. Done with anhydrous solvents, these figures can (IMO)can permit a fairly accurate determination.

Oil, bp0.4 100-110degrees
Hydrocholoride, C11H15NO2.HCl, crystals from isopopanol/n-hexane, mp 147-148° (Bailey). Crystals from isopropanol/ether, mp 152-153° (Braun).

Click to expand...

Procedure

Place MDMA-HCl sample in a small diameter test tube with a thermometer placed so the tip sits in the sample. Heat over a flame and note the temperature when it first begins to melt. Keep the heat applied until the last piece liquifies. Noting also the the final temperature required to melt the crystal completely, you now know the melting point range.

A narrow melting point indicates higher purity. Impure substances tend to melt at lower temperatures, across a broader melting point range.


Separating other components such as amphetamine etc, can often be done by using combinations of laboratory techniques such as:

• Distilling the freebase
• Using various solvent combinations and temperature variations in extraction
• Employing elution chromatography or HPLC (high performance liquid chromatography)

With stubbornly close physical properties, sometimes derivatives are made of the components in a mixture, followed by separation by HPLC or similar techniques. It's not exactly "kitchen cleanup chemistry", in that specialized chemicals and equipment are often required.


At the risk of sounding boring, I feel obliged to remind that such efforts to preserve one's health by purification, could easily be mistaken for a synthesis by those on the look-out for such....universal care being the important message.

Edited out that link to the chemistry website

well written post, it can surely be helpful to many. unfortunately my own chemistry skills are far too limited for fully understanding it, but great effort nevertheless. such quality posts are nice for future reference.

stz said:

well written post, it can surely be helpful to many. unfortunately my own chemistry skills are far too limited for fully understanding it, but great effort nevertheless. such quality posts are nice for future reference.

Click to expand...

Ask on whatever you don't understand. It could very well be my bad explanation. Worst thing about chemistry is all the terms and titles which makes things sound more confusing than they really are.

Thanks for the comments

wow. amazing stuff phasedancer!

WOW ... thanks PD an excellent post.


I will review your methods and report back if I get a chance to try any before heading overseas.











Be Safe

could you just drink the MDMA water and still get high from it?

Yes, of course - it's just MDMA dissolved in water! But it's more common to want to return it to a crystal form to determine how much MDMA was in the pill (remembering that a little bit is lost in the purification process)