Hey!
so i'm using lime for the first time and i have ran into an issue.. since im not following any specific tek, i will explaind procedure:

nearly 200g of MHRB where boiled 4 times with a large volume of water acidified with phosphoric acid (2 drops per 5 liters of water, dont know the exact ph, but the ph drop test shows its below ph 4.)

Rootbark was set aside and all liquid was boiled down until 3 liters were left, and the rest reduced to a more or less half liter volume, in a heat bath, forming a thick paste.

to that, i added 4 spoonfulls of lime, wich i believe its more or less 80g. mixed everything, let it react for a few hours, and then, seeing it was bone dry i added a bit of water, until the whole cake felt like wet sand, and let it aside for a few more hours.
i didnt add any more lime, because this mix resulted in a cake with an unexpectedly large volume.

i added 0,5L of limonene to the cake, mixing once in a while.

after 24 hours i went to check on it, and the limo is still completely transparent, as new.

wich leads me to the question: is this normal with limetek? im used that in teks with lye the solvent becomes orange, almost red.
or did I added too little lime, not basifying the solution enough to freebase the alks? will the solvent change color if its freebased enough?
if so, can i just add lime to the solution and mix? or is it better to make the lime a bit wet first?

thank you!

so, adding more lime was a bit unwanted to avoid the increasing of volume and also solvent loss, but after 3 days without any noticeable change, i decided to divide the whole "cake" in 2 containers and added 40g of lime to each one.
then more limonene was added, and it became opaque with lime's color, wich i assume its unreacted lime that mixed into the solvent.
after 3 days the solvent is yellow.
now comes the next issue wich is separation, its really hard to get solvent out without the unreacted lime going together with it.
im thinking about puting it in a thin container with some water. my only issue now is: will this create emulsion? any suggestion on how to separate the lime to get the solvent as clean as possible? thanks

You've picked up some solid particles of lime, calcium phosphate and/or calcium carbonate. You'll need to pour off the limo, then leave it to settle and decant, or filter with something like celite as those fine lime particles are tricky to get rid of.

That said, pulling back into vinegar would clean up most of this, as long as it's not phosphate - which, given the amount of phosphoric acid used in the first place, should be minimal.

yeah, even with passing the limo in a coffee filter a few times i can see some small particles in the bottom. i could go around that by putting the limo in a thin container, letting the particles settle, and sacrificing the last 30ml or so of limo from the bottom. that is now in an even thinner container, and im waiting to get a pipete to recover it, since the glass seringe is to thick for that container.
I estimate that in the whole process i might have lost at least 20% of solvent.

so, my idea is acually backsalting it with vinegar, evap, dissolve the resulting goo in hot IPA, put in freezer until the goodies precipitate, freebase it with a sodium carbonate paste, pull with IPA, let it evaporate completely, dissolve in a it of warm water, and put in the fridge for a few days until all goodies precipitate. this should get rid of the minimal amounts of phosphates right?

other idea comes to mind, would a good heat on the vinegar reduction help? there are a few threads on how dmt acetate when heated around 100c, will evaporate all the acetate leaving only freebase behind. could this eliminate some phosphates too?

i only used the phosphoric acid because my inicial intention wasnt doing a drytek, but in the middle of the acid boils i was organizng my extraction material box, and found some lime that was put aside long time ago (I compltely forgot about its existence) and curiosity was stronger then reason. next time i will repeat the same procedure but using only acetic since the beginning.

Are sure this will work? Crystalline DMT acetate from IPA seems extremely unlikely - or have you done this before?


DMT isn't soluble enough in warm water for this to work.


No. It's acetic acid that evaporates. Phosphoric acid is not remotely volatile at 100C. The idea of freebasing acetates with heat also has been largely abandoned as the results were unpleasant to smoke.

Using lime even with acetic acid can cause problems with particulates, particularly (no pun intended!) if your lime is a bit old.

im not 100% sure, but im assuming knowing that it has the same solubility as fumerates, wich i have some experience with. my intension is not to get cristaline dmt, i will be happy with goo, since it will be for changa.



well, im not sure if it may work, but there is no need to dissolve it completely, since the main intention is just to wash out any phosphates.

im just not sure about the phosphates solubility, and couldnt find any precise information on the web, that why im doing both IPA and water wash.



ok, thats what i needed to know about phosphates not being so volatile. the main idea here wasnt to freebase the dmt, just using the heat to get rid of the phosphates.



the particulates are a problem that with enough time and patiente, and the right materials (that is if one wants to recover as much solvent as possible), can be dealt with. the idea of using acetic since the beginning is to have only one acid with solubility properties that are easy to deal with,to get a final product as pure as possible, with much less work then this particular extraction.

thank you for your inputs

Have you had a look at this thread?

One final note, if one were to try heating DMT phosphate, as phosphoric acid isn't the strongest of acids it's theoretically possible to sublime the freebase out - at least partly - under reduced pressure onto a cold finger. That would require more than just kitchen equipment, of course, but it's not rocket science either.