I have 10g of "Syrian Rue Alkaloids Extract 10g (Peganum harmala) Extract Seeds FULL SPECTRUM", the description doesn't say if salt or freebase.

It's a light beige powder freely soluble in water, doesn't seem to be soluble in 99% IPA.

Am I right in thinking this is likely the salt form? How can I be sure if just the above info isn't enough to determine it?

I'm trying to make changa so want the freebase I guess?

Looks like the route from salt to base is just to add sodium carbonate solution to aqueous solution of the salt, is that right? What sort of concentration of initial salt solution should I have?

Thanks for any help!

Frac4

I edited your post to remove mention of sourcing.

How much IPA did you use?

From my experience extracting, it's likely easier to keep it as freebase after extracting so that's what I'd lean towards.

I have some extract that is titled the same and it's freebase and works great for changa (though I prefer extracting my own).

And you shouldn't need much sodium carbonate. You'll know you put enough in once you can see the alkaloids precipitate.

One love

Thanks for the correction, I get the required style now

I tried dissolving 20mg powder in approx 15ml IPA ( I kept adding for a bit to see if it was a low solubility problem ) I tried heating it to about 40C for a while too. The amount of powder in the vessel does not seem to have diminished at all.

The same amount of powder dissolved completely in very little (tap) water, say 3ml.

Hope the above helps!

Frac4

Yeah, sounds like it's salt.

Dissolved some in water, add sodium carbonate dissolved in water(sodium hydroxide works also), and pour in until you see it precipitate. Sodium carbonate won't raise the PH as high as sodium hydroxide, but you may want to check the PH after you decant the water and allow the alkaloids to dry once they've settled fully on the bottom surface of the vessel. If memory serves me correctly, you'll want a PH between 7 and 8. If the PH is higher, then you'll want to add approximately 200ml of water, stir, allow to settle, and check the PH again. Repeat this process until you've reached the desired PH.

One love

Thanks for your good info!

So does the initial concentration of harmaloid salt in water have to be very high? Is it better to start with a concentratedor dilute solution?

And the final step to get the ph right is basically just rinsing out the excess Sodium Carbonate or Hydroxide, yes?

Annoyingly I have 50mg DMT dissolved in that IPA too, guess I can just filter then use appropriately 😁

Many thanks again for helping.

Frac4

I'm confident it's something you can eyeball. Just add some water, stir, add some water, stir, until it's all dissolved. But I'd go on the side of dilute so that it's fully dissolved.

Yep.

You can also just allow the IPA to evaporate under a fan. The DMT will be stuck to the bottom once fully dry.

My pleasure

One love

Well first trial didn't go well!

I dissolved 1g of extract powder in about 30ml of water. It made a pretty dark brown opaque solution.

Adding saturated sodium carbonate solution slowly, about 5ml at a time seemed not to produce any colour change or visible precipitation.

I kept adding until I'd added about another 50ml and thought I might see some extra murk when shining a light through it. The colour was lighter, but that might just be dilution.

I put it in the fridge and a few hours later found large amounts of crystallized carbonate lining the vessel, it looked like it had frozen about 1/2 inch thick in from the walls of the vessel!

I've drained off and kept the liquid, and added water to see if the carbonate will dissolve and leave me with any solids that might be trapped in the crystal mass. It also looks like a much larger volume of crystals than the carbonate powder I used, but I think it was initially anhydrous, so lower initial volume. It looks like a coarse white powder and is labelled 99.5% sodium carbonate, "cleaning grade".

I clearly completely overdid the carbonate!

Can anyone chime in with actual quantities of water to initially dissolve the salt and saturated carbonate solution that have worked for them?

Otherwise I guess I need to follow the harmala extraction tek starting before the salting stage as I suppose "full spectrum" means there are undesirables in there too.

All help welcome, clearly I need it

You will most likely have precipitated a load of sodium bicarbonate which is way less soluble than the carbonate. If there was anything acidic in the solution (including any harmala salts, relatively speaking) this produces carbon dioxide which will in turn react with an excess of carbonate to produce the bicarbonate. The carbonate can also absorb CO2 from the air quite readily which adds to this process.

Add to that the fact that a 'sesquicarbonate' - which is a mixture of the normal carbonate with the bicarbonate - can also form it should be fairly clear how you can end up with a load of crystals after sticking a near-saturated sodium carbonate solution in the fridge.

It really shouldn't take much carbonate solution to freebase 1g of harmala alkaloids so it seems somehow likely that something is bunk somewhere. Is your soda old? Otherwise it's the harmala material that's junk. Try again one last time with a stronger base such as sodium hydroxide or concentrated ammonia solution.

Thanks!

I have sodium hydroxide, can you even vaguely quantify "shouldn't take much" for 1 gram of harmala salt in a few tens of ml of water?

many thanks,
frac4

Are you shure it really had dissolved in the first place? I would expect a coloured but relatively clear solution from harmala salts.
Does it glow under UV light when mixed with water? A solution of the salts certainly does while the freebase does not or way less at least ime.

Just an update:
I've yet to get anything to precipitate out of a solution of my original batch of "extract", even with lots of lye. So I've no idea what I have there. the colour will change to a darker colour on adding lye solution, but nothing precipitates. It might just be gravy browning for all I know!

I have since found two other alleged "syrian rue extracts" and have precipitated alkaloids out of a filtered acidic solution of one successfully. So I now know what it looks like at least! The other just appears to be finely ground seeds as far as I can tell (white matter and brown flakes which do not dissolve in either acid or alkalai ) which will get an acidic boil next to see what that filters out to. so the lesson appears to be .. do your own extraction!

Cheers,
frac4

If you got powdered seeds, don't bother trying to extract - it will be a huge pain in the arse!

Check that the powdered seeds contain something by mixing a small sample (~teaspoonful) with hot water and checking for bright yellow-green fluorescence. If that's a positive then maybe you could use them "like coffee" but use way less.

I would strongly suggest getting hold of actual Peganum harmala seeds so that you stand a decent chance of getting the right thing.


They will react in a ratio essentially equal to the proportions of their molecular weights. Assume the harmala salt to be harmine hydrochloride and it should work out OK.

it sounds like FB to me...
try to put a little bit in water ,and add a couple drop of vinegar, see is it turns yellowish / reddish ...

The salts definitely fluoresce in solution. The free base doesn't in my experience as well. This is with long wave, standard black light. This would be a simple way to check the state of the extract.

-D.