a few things about it:

1. is STB dangerous.. yes thats a lot of lye. use mask and goggles and gloves and close toe shoes and long pants and sleeves. any additional suggestions?

2.what is a good solution to neutralize lye spills. can HCL be used diluted in water to have on hand? can diluted hcl be applied to the skin if needed? or is vinegar best.

3. how hot is this vessel going to get? will it boil the solution or is the basic solution prepared first then added to powdered MHRB? how hot? is it going to explode?

4. what Vessel? what size is needed for a kilo at a time? a carbouy? 5 gal? no because of the narrow neck? or HDPE buckets poured through sep funnel?

5. how are these vessels and the contents disposed of. someone mention cat litter? and then bag it? how much HCL to neutralize a Kilo of lye?

6. how are the NP pulls done? i hear turkey baster and i cringe, SWIM has seen them melt. so is it a decant off the top into a sep funnel?

7. how chunky does the STB fluid get? is a siphon or sep funnel even an option or is it just turkey baster?

1. is STB dangerous.. yes thats a lot of lye. use mask and goggles and gloves and close toe shoes and long pants and sleeves. any additional suggestions?

Lye can be dangerous. Take precautions and you will be fine. Make sure to vent the vessle containing the lye stew as vapors can accumulate and create a lot of pressure

2.what is a good solution to neutralize lye spills. can HCL be used diluted in water to have on hand? can diluted hcl be applied to the skin if needed? or is vinegar best.

Vinegar is SAFEST! I won't put dilute HCL anywhere on my skin.

3. how hot is this vessel going to get? will it boil the solution or is the basic solution prepared first then added to powdered MHRB? how hot? is it going to explode?

Nothing will explode. Just don't keep it in a sealed glass jar and you will be fine.

It will get a little hot. Starting with cold water and adding the lye slowly will help keep the thermal reaction to a minimum. You can make the lye water first or add the mimosa first...kinda up to you. I'd add the mimosa first to keep splashing to a minimum.

4. what Vessel? what size is needed for a kilo at a time? a carbouy? 5 gal? no because of the narrow neck? or HDPE buckets poured through sep funnel?

I use plastic milk jugs (HDPE). Carbouys will work but I have heard that lye will etch glass and after a while even a tiny bump with shatter the whole thing.

5. how are these vessels and the contents disposed of. someone mention cat litter? and then bag it? how much HCL to neutralize a Kilo of lye?

That is a personal preference. I highly suggest recycling your solvent (reusing the naphtha over and over and over) so that little is wasted and you are not evaping a ton into the atmosphere. Lye water can go straight down the toilet....man your pipes will be clean!

6. how are the NP pulls done? i hear turkey baster and i cringe, SWIM has seen them melt. so is it a decant off the top into a sep funnel?

I use a baby nasal aspirator. I'm not doing 1 liter naphtha pulls, only 200-300ml at a time, so they work great for me. The naphtha doesn't eat them, they are very easy to handle and can really get every last bit out.

7. how chunky does the STB fluid get? is a siphon or sep funnel even an option or is it just turkey baster?

Many people have problems with the STB tek because the mimosa at the bottom turns into a thick sludge. Adding water helps this problem.


I personall prefer A/B extractions simply because I can defat and I like working with the plants.

1-gallon containers seem like more than enough for 1 pound or powdered bark + naptha.


Siphoning works well. Don't worry about getting every drop out since multiple pulls are generally employed.


The basified water can be a viscous sludge. However, the naptha should not change from its normal consistency. Separatory funnels aren't needed for removing the Naptha from the STB container, but they help with cleaning processes like Sodium Carbonate washes.

so you are suggesting doing naptha pulls and freeze precipitating between each npull then a final evap? SWIM really likes the idea of this. how much tends to precipitate without any evaporation?

or

evaporating down, freeze precip and then pulling with the resulting naptha from that proccess and adding it to fresh naptha and using "new/old" naptha for each pull in order?

Generally people freeze precip, then reduce the solvent volume and freeze precip again, etc etc. This is pretty much unavoidable as far as I know, since freeze precipitation relies on a fairly saturated solvent.

Many evap into the atmosphere, but you could instead use a form of distillation to reduce the volume, capturing all of the evaporated solvent for later use. Perhaps someone else could share an effective/inexpensive method for achieving this.

How does one agitate or upend the vessel to mix the NP?

ChairMaster used a wine bottle with 100g MHRB and 100g NaOH and 250 ml of naphtha (room temp) and when all mixed and combined, ChairMaster corked the bottle upended it once ...thought about the resulting pressure from the expanded naptha and uncorked the bottle...


ChairMaster was the covered in boiling hot NaOH toxic Sludge that took 2 days to clean off of the white walls...they have to be painted he says. and he was lucky not to suffer permanent damage to the face and eyes and hair. He said it was an explosion. Every object in the room was covered with Caustic Root.

May I HIGHLY suggest going for an A/B extraction. You won't need anywhere as much lye and you won't get covered in lye sludge.

It's extremely dangerous to use that much lye. If you get it on your hands you're going to get one hell of a burn and if you get it in your eyes you can be blind for life!

It's no joke.

Here’s what sodium hydroxide can do to your eyes if you get any in them:


That guy's eye no longer works anymore.

I would not mess around with concentrated sodium hydroxide unless my life depended on it. All it takes is one slight mistake and you could be blind for life. It’s not worth it. There are plenty of other bases out there that SWIM has used to very successfully extract DMT using other techs. SWIM has gotten phenomenal yields from chacruna using sodium carbonate and DCM in A/B extractions.

SSSSHHHHIIITTT that eye looks scary man. that's why i always use googles , i put them on the beginning and only take them off when everything is locked up away and my hands throughly cleaned , you can work with dangerous stuff , the only thing is thinking about safety our own and everyones around you , you can always lose your work and start again , better than losing a part of you
THINK SAFETY FIRST BEFORE ANY ATTEMPT TO MAKE ANYTHING AT ALL, EVEN WITH THE MOST SAFEST STUFF
ACCIDENTS HAPPEN AN THEY DON'T HAVE A TIME TO HAPPEN EITHER

If you're always careful, then using dangerous compounds is no problem, but even the pros make mistakes once in a while and get burned. Most chemical burns hospitals treat are those that have happened to trained professionals. Accidents do happen, so BE VERY CAREFUL.

I was doing my thirth extraction and became a little careless. I had a warm water bath on the gas with fire on the lowest. thought it wouldn't matter.....
started pouring the 2 fluids from one container into the other to mixem up real good.... The naptha drops where spilled abd caught fire.... and whooom.. the whole kitchen was on fire for an moment... happily ever after the container with MHRB extract and the still burning naptha could be saved by trowing the towel over it... my hair, eye bows and eye lashes... could not be saved!!! MHRB/lye sludge was all over the place/ walls and ceiling... and it was also on mee... quick wash with vineager... and i was ready to continue the extraction... with very shaky legs!!!! My girlfriend watched from the sofa and i was a bit scared that this was to be the last extraction done in this house of us... but i was very pleased to hear "hope you learnt something from it for the next time"... haha
I had a bit lower yield though

Either will work. I can't give you straight numbers, but I like to recycle my naphtha as much as I can. I'll do 2 small pulls, combine, freeze and throw the used naphtha back in the jug. One can also add fresh naphtha while freeze precipitating.

OMG

Helle 69ron, I have been reading a lot of your posts.

I want to make one comment about NaOH. At my work I have routinely mixed 50 kg of NaOH beads into a 45 gallon drum filled about 35 gallons with water and using an industrial mixer. I was trained to do this safely and using the proper safety equipment and have never had and injury doing this, nor have any of my co-workers.

I would say that handling flammable np solvents is much more dangerous than lye. Fire sucks.

What if one would just pour out the fluid into a sep funnel, leaving the sludge behind at the bottem? Or would this result in a lower yield?