I did a search for heptane and xylene in the subject line and was surprised to find zero hits. My object here is to put side by side notes about various non polar solvents (NPS) in one place. Suggestions welcome to amend with pertinent information I'm likely missing. I feel like this would be useful for many as a WIKI reference if were all there in one place.

I have 99% n-Heptane, Naphtha, Xylene, Toluene and D-Limonene, and would like to understand them better, not just follow an extraction tek because it's what that author used.

I've been finding a post here and there briefly mentioning these solvents, but can anyone corroborate my understanding of the attributes of these solvents? I was all set to pull using xylene or toluene, but after suggestion by forum member, heptane is perhaps better for this task and just not used as often simply because it is difficult to procure, and thus less info available for amateur like myself. There's a few ?'s listed below, if anyone cared to fill in the blanks that would be fantastic.

Also, could someone elucidate what makes a solvent evaporate faster/slower at a given temperature?
Up til now I thought it was relationship to boiling point, but it seems I've been wrong about that.

Heptane
-NPS good for pulling pure DMT
-boiling point 98.83°C
-evaporation relative to other solvents??? not sure?? odor not as strong as xylene/toluene
-difficult to find
-will pull spice decently at room temperature
-high level of confidence that this reagent grade heptane won't leave mystery substances
-will it work with FASA or FASI?
-most desirable for maximum/purest extraction of desired alkaloids
-notes to run heptane through distillation apparatus?
-if evaporated, recommended wash protocol?

Toluene
-NPS good for pulling DMT and jungle spice
-boiling point 111°C
-evaporates faster than Xylene but slower than Naphtha, strong permeating odor
-moderately difficult to find - generally replaced in stores by the "safer" xylene
-will pull spice decently at room temperature
-uncertain of purity as it is sold as paint thinner
-works with FASA (and FASI?)
-notes to run toluene through distillation apparatus?
-if evaporated, recommended wash protocol?

Xylene
-NPS good for pulling DMT and jungle spice
-boiling point 138.5°C
-slow evaporation, strong permeating odor
-easy to find
-will pull spice decently at room temperature
-uncertain of purity as it is sold as paint thinner
-works with FASA (and FASI?)
-notes to run xylene through distillation apparatus?
-if evaporated, recommended wash protocol?

Naphtha
-NPS good for pulling DMT only, no jungle spice
-boiling range 30-200°C (full range naphtha)
-fast evaporation, odor better than toluene/xylene
-easy to find
-elevated temperature helps to assist solubility of DMT (per Vovin's tek)
-uncertain of purity, mixture of hydrocarbons
-will it work with FASA / FASI? (I haven't been interested in this since it won't grab jungle
spice, but wanted to be thorough here)
-notes to run naphtha through distillation apparatus?
-if evaporated, recommended wash protocol?

D-Limonene
-NPS good for pulling DMT and jungle spice
-boiling point 176°C
-slower evaporation, orange scent
-easy to find
-will pull spice decently at room temperature
-uncertain of purity, but non-toxic, food safe
-works with FASI i.e. BLAB tek (will it work with FASA?)
-notes to run D-Limonene through distillation apparatus?
-if evaporated, recommended wash protocol?

Some of the infos are not correct. Heptane doesn't pull "jungle spice" (whatever jungle spice is supposed to be...). Heptane is actually more suitable for extracting pure DMT, in other words, it dissolves DMT more selectively. It evaporates about as well as Naphtha, since it is one of the components of Naphtha. You can may be look for chemical suppliers to get pure heptane. It does dissolve DMT at room temperature, just like Naphtha as well, but the solubility is somewhat lower. Nevertheless, the room temperature pulls yield purer DMT. Also, the initial pulls are cleaner than the latter ones of you are using the same solvent again and again (the plant fats etc accumulate and start to precipitate in larger amounts. I am unsure what you mean by whether it will work well with FASA, FASI, since, for FASA/FASI, the heptane itself is irrelevant! you take the freebase precipitate and dissolve it in acetone or IPA and then add the fumaric acid.

Toluene can also be sourced from vendors of chemical and scientific supplies. DMT is much more soluble in toluene and xylene, so these are more suitable for room temperature pulls. As for the FASA/FASI question, I am again unsure what you mean.

The boiling point you mentioned for Naphtha is wayyy too high. Naphtha is usually a mixture of hexane, heptane and a few other cyclo-alkanes. The different components have different boiling points, hexane is around 40-60 something... other components may have a higher boiling point, but I don't think it would be 160-220, that is way too high! As I mentioned already, Naphtha doesn't necessarily need higher temperature to dissolve DMT.

For "Jungle spice", toluene and xylene would be a better option, and you will have to either evap, or salt with acetic acid and then... I am unsure but... may be base with sodium carbonate, dry, and pull with acetone or IPA? and then evap them? I have never tried it, but it could work...

Ok, I will edit my original post accordingly - as I said, I have in my possession all solvents mentioned here, including the 99% pure n-Heptane, but I'm still listing it as "difficult to find" relative to everything else.


What I mean is: could the word xylene be substituted with the word heptane from "The FASA Method" excerpt below:



Boiling point of hexane is 69°C. I grabbed the 160-220°C number for Naphtha from wikiDoc, which upon further reading, is talking about "heavy" naphthas. Full range naphtha boils from 30°-200°C. I'm not sure if VMP Naphtha from store would be considered full-range or?

hmm. This contradicts what I've seen indicated elsewhere on the nexus (Vovin's tek, and more). I've never done side by side comparison of heated vs non-heated naphtha pulls, have you?

Thank you for all your input!

Naphtha isn't really a specific thing, it's more a catch-all term for liquid, aliphatic (mostly!) petroleum distillates. It's usually broadly referred to by the terms light, medium or heavy with respect to its boiling range as I'm sure you've already inferred. Countless other names are used for (more or less) specific fractions within this range, such as ligroin, benzine (this one being particularly confusing and inadvisable as a coinage in English-speaking areas at least), petroleum ether (usually identified by boiling range), petroleum, kerosine/kerosene, paraffin (these three being heavier fractions and pretty much the same thing - lamp oil), etc, etc

The exact meaning of any of these names may also vary depending on your location and it can take a certain amount of research and/or foreknowledge to get a grasp of what exactly any given petroleum/naphtha product might be. And beware - sometimes naphtha contains enough aromatics that it won't freeze precipitate, although this is usually noted in the small print or the SDS.