Cocaine Cocaine crystallization

[MotherOfP]

I have been a semi-regular user of cocaine now for the past couple of years. My dealer consistently has good quality product, but I still perform some purification processes at home. These purification processes are usually an acid base extraction or a recrystallization, or both. These processes always increase the quality, but lately, being a connoisseur, I've been trying to crystallize my final product into "mother of pearl" flakes. The high quality product I get from my dealer is always fish scale, so I've been wondering why my purification processes don't yield these pearly crystals when the purity is going up?

Let me give an example. For an acid base extraction, I will convert the cocaine HCl to cocaine base using ammonia. Once it's dry, I dissolve the cocaine base in acetone (usually 1 gram of base to 15-20 mL of acetone). Then in a separate beaker, I will dilute concentrated HCl with methanol and acetone (1 gram of base to 0.25 mL HCl, 0.5 mL methanol, 10 mL of acetone). Then while swirling the base/acetone solution, I will quickly add the acid-methanol-acetone solution. Crystallization begins almost immediately, but all I get is a grainy powder. Why is this?

By the way, this process was taken from David Lee's cocaine handbook. I've also tried doing the same process but without methanol, and I've also done it without diluting the acid at all. Still, I get a grainy powder and not the flakey crystals I desire. I know solvent choice probably plays a part in how the crystallization turns out, but it seems that no matter what I do, I always get a grainy powder. What can I do differently? And by the way, generating HCl gas is not an option for me - it's not worth the trouble or risk.

Would an acid base extraction followed by a methanol recrystallization produce the flakes I want?

EDIT: In the source country the final step is converting the cocaine base to cocaine HCl, and they always seem to be able to produce shiny flakes when doing so...so what are they doing that I'm not?

 

[tacodude]

A slow evaporation is key. Dissolve it in something like naphtha, alcohol, or acetone and let it evaporate at room temperature without disturbing it. If you put a neodymium magnet under your evap tray it should cause a denser crystal formation. You could also add some powdered purified coke to the solvents fully saturated with coke to act as a base for the cocaine to be to attracted to as it crystallized.

Also remember some cuts are added to make it look like fishcale.

 

[d1nach]

Well for starters by conc hcl i assume you mean 30% hcl cocaine has molr mass of 303 and hcl of 36 so at minimum 1-1 ratio is like 100/30= 3.333*(1000)= 3300*(36/303) like .3 ml

 

[d1nach]

My guess is they use high conc of hcl so they have anslight excess of hcl then rotate till completely dry

 

[MotherOfP]

A slow evaporation is key. Dissolve it in something like naphtha, alcohol, or acetone and let it evaporate at room temperature without disturbing it. If you put a neodymium magnet under your evap tray it should cause a denser crystal formation. You could also add some powdered purified coke to the solvents fully saturated with coke to act as a base for the cocaine to be to attracted to as it crystallized.

Also remember some cuts are added to make it look like fishcale.

Do you mean that once the the acid is added to the acetone (or naphtha, as you said) that I should just evaporate that entire solution? I have done that. In fact, once I have obtained the cocaine HCl, I have dissolved it in methanol then evaporated the entire solution (I know this wouldn't improve quality, but would at least help with a better crystallization). What I end up with is usually a layer of crystals, which when I try to scrape off, become crushed, or "damaged". A few of the crystals scrape are flat and shiny, just like a cocaine flake would be, but the overwhelming majority of the crystals get crushed because of the scraping. Is there a better way to extract the crystals?

 

[MotherOfP]

I use about 37% HCl. I forget the exact number that I calculated, but the stoichiometric amount to use in this case is about 0.27 mL.

 

[MotherOfP]

My guess is they use high conc of hcl so they have anslight excess of hcl then rotate till completely dry

You mean they rotate the solution until evaporation is complete? Wouldn't rotating, and hence disturbing, the solution result in smaller crystal size? Or am I missing something here?

 

[d1nach]

I mean is solvents break them up for example if u take salt and evap the water it forms chunks if you saturated salt in a solution at 212 f then cooledd it to room temp the nacl will be tiny not clump

 

[cLaTTeReD]

Washing it with chlorofrom gives you a nice fish scale flake

 

[Ksa]

I didn't get the part of the neodymium magnet, why does it help the crystal formation and how will the crystal be denser? In my chemist view, a crystal has the same density in pure form except if the crystal structure changes, and a magnet only interacts with ferromagnetic compounds.

 

[JBrandon]

I only have experience doing this with meth, but I followed an almost identical process to what you described.

The key for me was temperature and time to get the biggest and best crystals.

I made sure my evaporation was as slow as possible at room temperature, and I set up a vibration dampening system with some rubber mats and a box lined with sound dampening materials.

It may be worth your time to send a sample in to ecstasy data and see if any cuts / laces remain that could be surviving your A/B and wash. I know the 2-solvent crystallization usually can handle minor cuts that make it through but who knows.

 

[crzydiamond]

I would just question why you are going through all the processes when you start off saying that you get good quality fishscale?

I mean, it sounds like your original product is better than the resulting product? Correct me if I'm wrong, it's just what I get from reading. Believe me I completely understand why you would want to purify inferior product, but if you're starting out with good fishscale maybe you'd be better off leaving well enough alone?

Just out of curiosity--What's your ROA? Do you IV or insufflate?

 

[MotherOfP]

Washing it with chlorofrom gives you a nice fish scale flake

I don't see how a simple wash is going to induce crystallization. Unless you mean that recrystallizing with chloroform will give nice flakes. If that is what you meant, did you actually do this yourself?

 

[MotherOfP]

I would just question why you are going through all the processes when you start off saying that you get good quality fishscale?

I mean, it sounds like your original product is better than the resulting product? Correct me if I'm wrong, it's just what I get from reading. Believe me I completely understand why you would want to purify inferior product, but if you're starting out with good fishscale maybe you'd be better off leaving well enough alone?

Just out of curiosity--What's your ROA? Do you IV or insufflate?

I am starting off with good product but it always improves after the A/B extraction, so I figure, why not do it? I also very much enjoy purifying the product - it's fun for me.

And to answer your question, I only insufflate.

 

[kleinerkiffer]

What about adding the acid-methanol-acetone solution slowly ? By adding it all at once the product will crash out immediately and doesn't have the time to crystalize, but if you add it more slowly it should crystalize better imo

 

[d1nach]

Doesnt all the water have to evap or a large amount of cocaine hcl will just be in the water

 

[MotherOfP]

What about adding the acid-methanol-acetone solution slowly ? By adding it all at once the product will crash out immediately and doesn't have the time to crystalize, but if you add it more slowly it should crystalize better imo

I will try this out after the new year and update this thread in case anyone else is interested.

 

[MotherOfP]

Doesnt all the water have to evap or a large amount of cocaine hcl will just be in the water

I'm using concentrated hydrochloric acid, so the amount of water is minimized. Some cocaine HCl will be lost, but whatever amount dissolves will probably be hydrolyzed, in which case there is no point evaporating the solution.

Unfortunately I have to accept some loss unless I want to do this under totally anhydrous conditions, which I already said is not an option.