Hello everyone.
I plan to extract some spice again.
I m going to use marsfold tec. https://wiki.dmt-nexus.me/Marsofold%27s_tek
For the polar extraction which ph will be the best you think ?
And also i need to learn the best ph level in the basifying time. I m gonna use Sodium Hydroxide and CHLOROFORM for the solvent.
Also I want to ask if there is anything wrong to use Sodium Hydroxide with CHLOROFORM together ??

Have you used chloroform before?

Usually as a rule I think someone who asks these questions should not be using chloroform, but let me know if I'm being overly cautious.

I guess what I'm thinking is that marsofold's is the ultimate classic kitchen extraction. Whereas chloroform should be kept as far away from the kitchen as possible.

It will be the first time i m going to use this solvent. I have a gas mask and i m going to work in an empty room. So anyone got answers for my questions.

If you don't have a flow hood, you really shouldn't be working with chloroform, imo. And as Soulfood pointed out, if you have to ask these questions, you probably shouldn't be engaging in an extraction using chloroform either. Honestly, why can't you just use one of the many other much more forgiving np solvents? Why do you want to use chloroform if you have no experience handling this incredibly powerful and volatile chemical when there are much easier/safer options available? Seriously, I used chloroform for some chromatography work at a lab and the one day we were using it and didn't have access to the flowhoods (all 6 were in use for other stuff) it quickly became very apparent how crucial a flow hood is for working with this chemical.

Why not use naptha, petroleum ether, heptane, or xylene? These solvents do the job well and do not depress the central nervous system as can chloroform. You really need a fume hood to work with this stuff which I doubt that you have access to. I am curious as to why you would consider using chloroform?

I want all the alkoloids in the plant. and i hear chloroform and dcm are the best solvents to get everything in it. So I bought 2.5 lt chloroform. In the past i used toluene. The ph levels were 3 and 13. but with some solvents i read that we dont need ph 13 in the basify time , ph 10 is enough. But i couldnt find any information for chloroform about the ph. So i wanted to be sure by writing here.

With DCM or chloroform ph 10 will be ample.

To responders:

Do the same cautionary notes apply to to dichloromethane as well, or is chloroform more dangerous? I suppose it must be the later since i havent seen the same amount of caution in labs working with DCM ( i vaguely remember it is propably more dangerous to have chloroform than DCM around).


To the original poster:

Both chloroform and DCM are rather good at A/B or STB procedures.You can keep your exposure to chloroform,if you are set to use it, to minimal even if you dont have a flowhood IF you act like a reasonable mature adult when handling such stuff. I think most of the danger lies in,let me paraphrase computer support guys,PEBWAC situations ("Problem exists between workbench and chair" ).

Are you the guy that would evaporate solvents except water in the same or adjascent room that you eat/sleep/reside?
Is "Ventilation" a word you need to open the dictionary to find out about it?
Do you walk around flammable solvents or work with them with a cigarette hanging from your mouth for extra coolness points?
Do you work stoned or drunk?
Do you let out a "britney spears" style giggle if you spill something on yourself or anywhere near the place you work/sleep/eat?
Do you believe that nothing can go wrong, that you know very well what you are doing hence no reason to take no precaution whatsoever?

If you can answer "Yes" to any of the above questions then its quite propable that with this solvent,as well as many others you might run into ID-Ten-T Error which can range from innocently -almost cutely- mild to severe.In such cases even water can be a very dangerous solvent!

Apart from that,which is longwinded so as to take serious notice of it, everything has been more or less said by previous posters.

Well I don't think reacting with NaOH is much of a problem, but if you are doing an A/B with chloroform you could use sodium carbonate instead, if that makes you more confident about the whole thing. NaOH is only really necassary for use with solvents that require the high pH. Also I find with sodium carb, I need to use more water than with NaOH... which is a bit lame.

A sep. funnel is also a lot more than a help with this stuff for the sinking rather than floating thing.

Also when you retrieve the goods from the solvent you may want to do an extra cleanup step as I imagine the results could be pretty gooey as a full mimosa alkaloid profile doesn't really crystalise... not like pure freebase anyway.

Be very careful about your tools as well. Pretty much most plastics are a no no with chloroform... not sure about HDPE. I know DCM can be stored in HDPE but I'm not so sure about chloroform and unless you know better, I wouldn't risk it.

http://www.camlab.co.uk/...tructions/Plasticomp.pdf
http://fundimensional.ne...olvent_Compatibility.pdf

This mentions "moderate compatibility" for chloroform and HDPE, but they also give the same rating for methylene chloride (DCM) and HDPE. Propably HDPE withstand both under "room conditions" (temperature-pressure). If anyone knows better,please comment in this thread.

A tool you might find interesting while checking for compatibilities is also this : http://www.coleparmer.com/techinfo/chemcomp.asp

Hmmm Teflon seems the king of plastics as far as withstanding both conditions and chemicals is concerned