Hi,

A friend of mine is extracting Harmalas both from Rue and Caapi but he is confused about the washing step. He is using Sodium Carbonate to basify and he successfully extracted from Caapi for the first time. His second attempt was with Rue but this time he made a change and skipped the washing steps. He started with 4g Rue and ended up extracting more than 6g of alkaloids What a success?

Of course he understands the problem and he is washing it now. But he has doubts about this washing step, which is why he tried to skip it. Here is the problem:

We know those freebases Harmalas are not very soluble in water. So there is no problem according to an answer in a very old post. BUT when he is washing the lye or sodium carbonate with water, he is reducing the pH to 7~8. Doesn't this convert some of the freebase Harmalas into salts those making them soluble in water? Therefore aren't they thrown away with the water? Especially harmaline has pK9.7 at pH7 isn't it 99% salt?

I don't really understand the science behind it but I wash my harmalas down to ph7ish and the yield is always good.

I think it is fine, some may be wasted but not much, and rue is cheap so im not to fussed if a little goes down the toilet.

Thank you. I understand it is okay as this is what everybody seems to be doing but I am trying to understand why it is okay. Just as I thought I am getting the logic behind extractions, now I meet something that contradicts my understanding. So, why those harmalas are not turning into salts and getting washed away with water?

magic

Hah I see...

Noticed: demineralized/distilled water washes more harmaline away (and also more difficult to get pH down, needing more washes) than using the local tap water, over here.

If one uses sodium carbonate for last basing step, then there is no real need for washes compared to NaOH, is this right?

I think you might have broken the laws of physics

There might be no health concerns but accurate dosage seems problematic. As I mentioned, I started with 4g Rue and ended up with 6g of alkaloids. Obviously most of this is Sodium Carbonate. During basification, I dissolved Sodium Carbonate in water first until pH was 10.3. But when I added this to the acidic solution pH dropped significantly. So, I added Sodium Carbonate directly until pH was above 10 again. Maybe it was too much and not all of it was dissolved. I am still washing it so that I can know how much alkaloids I have extracted.

Assuming a 2% yield from 4g, you should have about 80mg of alks.

Assuming a 4% yield from 4g, you should have about 160mg of alks.

I guess I will answer to myself. The answer came to me yesterday while I was performing a very important task for my existence. It downed on me while I was shitting.
Once we basify a solution, alkaloids are converted into freebase and when we wash it with water, pH will drop. However freebase will not convert to salt and washed away with water, because there are no acidic molecules there to connect to freebase molecules to convert them into salts. So, it doesn't matter how much pH has dropped, alkaloids are still in freebase form until we start putting in some acid.
My mistake was to assume that freebase/salt form was all based on pH levels. It is not. I am not a chemist, as you can tell.
If this is wrong please correct me.
And thanks to everybody who answered me.