Hello, I am looking for some help with a chemistry question that is beyond my level of knowledge and so far my research parameters.

I understand the frustration from posters here with people being lazy, and in the world we now live in, all the answers to the questions we have and information we want, is available with the touch of a few keys. I like the policy on Nexus of encouraging people to find answers for themselves, in the end it the effort put into finding solutions to problems is rewarding.

I have put in some time to finding out what I need to know, but ultimately my main question is still unanswered.

I made a mistake during an extraction, my second, of placing aluminum foil over the jar which I was using for the MHRB and sodium hydroxide mix. In my quest to find better equipment I opted for an Ikea spaghetti jar, but I was concerned about the rubber seal breaking down from the solvent. So in my naivety I chose aluminum foil as a barrier. I left the jar to sit after some rotations and noticed little bubbles coming through the mix. I immediately opened it to discover that the foil had begun to break down and a small amount of it had fallen to the solution. I realized there was a chemical reaction going on and some gas was being released. I cleared the remaining foil away, left the jar open and went to see if I could find out what was going on.

What I know so far is, that the reaction between sodium hydroxide and aluminum foil creates sodium aluminate and the gas being released is hydrogen. I discovered is that sodium Aluminate is toxic, but is not soluble in oil, so I am to assume it would not pass to the solvent. What I would like to know is if the sodium aluminate could combine with the dmt in any way to form some other compound which gets into the solvent and subsequently pulled. I want ahead with the extraction and have the crystals but I am unsure if it is safe to use, or is recrystalising a way to clean it.

Thanks in advance.

First off no sodium aluminate is formed.
You go straight to Aluminium Hydroxide. The amount of base used will determine the amount of Sodium Aluminate you are forming. The gas is hydrogen BTW so make sure to open the windows so it doesnt stick around and explodes.
Aluminium Hydroxide is as "safe" as other aluminium. So you could just reX.
Also it was used as antacid before so a small amount in the DMT wouldnt harm you.

The amount of base used will determine the amount og Sodium Aluminate

Thank you very much for your reply and the information.

To follow up on this, I did a recrystalisation of the product to clean it and to my dismay the amount of product went from, pre re-x, 1.8gms to just over 1gm after recrystalising. I was surprised that there was 750 mg of crud in the initial extraction. Funnily enough I left the residue in the glass I was using and 2 days later I noticed that it had kind of crystalised, I could see there was some crystals on the brown substance.



I still had some naphta in the same MHRB mix, I pulled it and put in the freezer, and when I weighed what this produced it was 280mg. I did a recrystalising of this, but I used the glass from the last time with the brown stuff in the bottom to mix the warm naphta and the 280mg of new extract. When the dish came out of the freezer today there were no crystals visible, only a layer that looked like frosted glass. After drying and scraping this layer off, it weighed in at 626mg of fluffly off white product. I managed to recover 350mg of the missing crop.

All's well that ends well