on my last extraction, i was torn between using ammonia or sodium carbonate.....well already had the SC, so thats what i went with, and i would just like to say that it worked wonderfully....i actually had already freeze precip. and had some orange brown spice that i knew was covered in lye and what have you, so i added warm naptha to dissolve it...prob. 50ml...then about the same amount of sodium carbonate water mix...using prob. 2 or 3 grams of SC prob. less tho as i eye balled it. i added the two mixtures and mixed very well, allowed to seperate, then poured the water solution out....leaving just the naptha (napthat on top) put naptha in AIRTIGHT jar and into the freezer.....i was left with super white shiny spice...the best yet....very impressed with the wash, curious if anyone else uses this method and what they think.
love and light
art

Yeah I did just the same yesterday with an extraction I just made
But actually I used sodium bicarbonate but is seem like it worked. Well I'm evaporating some of the naptha now so I don't know if I lost some spice.

But can any of the chemists here tell me if sodium bicarbonate acts different in this method than sodium carbonate? I'd like to know. 'Cause I don't want to loose any stuff because I'm using the wrong substances.

ive read that bicarbonate eats spice, but personally i dont know. i didnt notice ANY loss at all...almost looked like i had more....i think its because it just made the crystals finer, but it looks soooo clean...il prob. try some tonight

Yes. I often encourage people to try the carbonate wash, it works wonders removing watersoluble impurities! A tip is to add a pinch of table salt (NaCl) to your washing solution. It acts like an anti-emulsifier and allows you to shake the washing solution and the solution to be washed together really violently without risking any lasting emulsion!

Wow. Thank you for posting this. I had mixed feelings about the sodium carbonate wash before. But Swim will ahve to give it a try as he his getting a new batch of MHRB tomorrow. Do you have any pictures of your spice for us? SWIM will post his when he his does. Thanks Peace!

Can anyone here confirm that sodium bicarbonate does eat DMT. And if so how much?

Idk but i've read somewhere on here that there is a method to turn bicarbonate into carbonate

SWIM considers this kind of wash almost essential for obtaining a very pure product. Not so much for removing lye but for removing other polar impurities that could have gone into the organic solvent.



SWIM does not believe the claim that sodium bicarbonate eats DMT. It doesn't even really make sense. How could a weak base like sodium bicarbonate damage DMT when super strong basic environments with NaOH are pretty much harmless for the molecule?

The problem with sodium bicarbonate compared to sodium carbonate is that sodium bicarbonate is a weaker base and can't bring pH as high as sodium carbonate. Its important when doing a basic wash to make sure the pH is at least a pH unit or two above the pka of dmt otherwise some of the dmt will go back into the aqueous phase.

SWIM believes this is why people in the past reported yield losses because the pH wasn't high enough and some of the dmt went back into the water phase.

I just did a wash on some spice and I am very dissapointed w/ the results.

I used 1:1 Portions of naptha and sodium bi-carbonate saturated water... Did I use too much?

Well the layers separated but the naptha looked different than before. It was more cloudy. when evaporated it resulted in some very yellow and oily dmt that didn't crystalize.

Do you think if I did the same on some naptha w/ 4:1 naptha/sodium bicarbonate water and did a freeze precip that I would get some dmt out of it?

I have another jar of naptha that I washed with the 1:1 proportion in the freezer right now. I haven't had the time to check to see if there are crystal's or not. I will let you know.

weird, I could swear I answered your first post darkbb..

anyways, as I said: proportion of base solution and naphtha doesnt really matter.. Your oily result came from evaporation, not because of the wash, this has nothing to do..

indeed try freezer (and the naphtha must be saturated before putting in the freezer, or else yield will be small.. if nothing or little comes off, evap half and stick in freezer again)

ive been using sodium CARBONATE, with my last few extractions, and its cleans up wonderfully, took all the lye and what ever else out of it, turning itfrom an orange to bright shiny white powder

I think I lost some of my spice cleaning it with sodium bi-carbonate. But what came out of it was very clean compared to what I had before.

hmm nice info guys thanks. but i just had a question, what pH does the SC+water should have before mixing with naphta? any suggestions?..