Hello everyone. I've been a reader of this forum for quite some time, and I finally decided to register today. I would like to say that the information provided on these boards has been absolutely INVALUABLE. Thanks a million times for what you're all doing here!

Now that we're acquainted, I have a question.

SWIM was experimenting with an idea he had for getting pure spice by using a secondary mini A/B extraction, and decided he could save on naptha by doing one large pull with xylene, salting with acidic water, using a weak base to drive the alkaloids back out in freebase form, and finally pulling from the clear basic solution with a minimal amount of heated naptha and evaporating. He tried this twice. Once using sodium carbonate as the base (which yielded 370 milligrams of some of the cleanest white spice SWIM's ever seen without re-crystallization),and once again using calcium hydroxide. He was iffy about using calcium hydroxide because of it's limited solubility in water, and unknown (at least to SWIM) solubility in naptha. He went ahead and pulled with naptha anyway, only to find that it was saturated with calcium hydroxide. It's evaporating now, and SWIM wants to know what the best way to wash out the excess base in the final product would be. He figured he would just dissolve his spice in 99% IPA and filter out the contaminants by covering his re-crystallization vessel with a coffee filter, and decanting the alcohol into a separate container. Would this work? If not does anyone have any ideas?

Nevermind. That was a stupid question. SWIM just read the MSDS, and calcium hydroxide is insoluble in alcohol.

Thanks anyway!

Welcome And good luck with your extractions

i would recommend using d-limonene instead of xylene....smellls MUCH betterr

xylene is NASTY why so many people using this crap. The info is here, it seems like I here more about it each day, why? its nasty poison there are advanced chem apps sure. Why is this the new noobs choice.

Sure I am insane dont beleive a word but I dont get it?


MV
confused again

How useful is d-limonene for defatting? Anyone have any experience?

it probably works very well...but with FASW(fumaric acid saturated water) the defatting step is the same as pulling the spice from the d-limo...

I was thinking as part of a standard a/b.

it would probably work very well...but an expensive option

the FASW tek is just a B/A/B except it uses a small amount of solvents compared to doing a typical defat..

I know. It's in the mail now. Green Terpene takes FOREVER though. The only reason SWIM used xylene was because it was very readily available, and he knew he wouldn't have to evaporate it with this process (it still managed to stink up his house though):evil: SWIM's really looking forward to the day when he won't have to use this nasty cancer scented petrochem anymore.