Hello everyone. It's been a while since I last wrote here. I did 2 successful extractions back in 2010 and 2012, using Zippo lighter fluid as napthta and some other brand back in the day. I have no way to use the other brand that was available back thenm, and I'd rather not use Zippo because it is very expensive and also from what I read not very good. I have been wandering to find a solvent for use with Nomans tek, because I'm now 8 years later planning to meet the spice once again. The best thing (I think) I found at least where I live is this product called Lamp Oil.I have attached pictures below. Would very much appreciate some help.

It says on the label in a rather broken English "Contains: Naphta (Petroleum), Hydrotrated heavy". The Romanian translation (required by law) is even worse. What do you think ?

That stuff will pull DMT, and do so well - freeze precipitation too - but it evaporates very slowly. You would have to clean up your initial product with one of the usual methods - recrystallisation from heptane/zippo fuel/light naphtha, or a mini-A/B, for example.

Thank you downwardsfromzero, for your quick response.

However, I think I found something better. Or at least something that I'm MUCH more confident about

I found another product that specifically says on the label: CONTAINS: distilates (petroleum) chemically neutralized light. How cool is that ? Now, I hope I'm not wrong, but I think this is the real naphta ! The one Naphta most teks call for. And this product also has a full spec-sheet. Now, I'm unable to understand anything out of that sheet, but PLEASE, if there is someone more knowledgeable here reading this, please confirm this is the real deal for my peace mind during the extraction. This product gives me more confidence beacuse it has a spec sheet on its website and also less broken english.

In the spec sheet pic, the left column translates as following ( I tried my best with the scientific words):

1. DENSITY AT 15 C:
2. COLOR:
3. Cinematic? viscosity at 20
4. Inflammation point
5. Distilation
-Up to 200 C
-Up to 300 C
6. Mineral acidity and alcalinity
7. Neutralization index
8. Ash content
9. Sulfide? content
10. Residual carbon
11. Water & Sediment
12. Disturbance? point (or a similar word for when something becomes non-clear / opaque)
13. Flame height (without smoke)
14. Lower caloric power

That's still a medium-heavy naphtha you have there. 18% distilled by 200°C, 98% distilled by 300°C. Bear in mind, heptane will be 100% distilled at 98°C.

If you use this product you'll still need to do a post-crystallisation clean up/re-x.

I have never done any re-crystallisation / cleaning-up....what consequences would not doing this have ?

If the product were to be consumed by vaporisation, you'd be introducing heavy petroleum distillates into your lungs - albeit in sub-milligram quantities (with any luck). Surely you'd prefer your product to be clean? You'd only need a bit of lighter fluid (or similar, more volatile saturated hydrocarbons) to do this.

The process is relatively simple and instructions can be found in the wiki.

Yup - I agree with everything dz said

What will work so as to minimise the presence of unwanted solvent in the final material will be to freeze precipitate DMT, then recover crystals as per usual.

Then dissolve the crystals in a small amount of ethanol (dmt reebase is extremely soluble in ethanol) and let the ethanol evaporate. Repeat 3-4 times. isopropanol and acetone can substitute ethanol.

The reasoning is that you give enough time or the solvent trapped around and within the crystals to evaporate. That however will only work if your solvent evaporates cleanly, even if it does very slowly.

I am not convinced that the solvents you showed us can evaporate at all. Some of their components may not be volatile at all. Yuo will have to buy and try - if a thick non-volatile goop remains, then this is a no-no.


Alternatively, you can buy pull with the solvents you showed us and then do a mini-A/B. Pull with those paraffin solvents, move to aqueous phase using acid, then pull again with minimal amount of zippo lighter fluid.

I would rather vaporize a clean product of course and would love to learn to "clean" the spice. It would be a next logical step from what I achieved in the past. I realize I might seem lazy from what I wrote. The main difficulties I have are 1) I have literally no knowledge / background in chemistry. I did not understand anything even when I first extracted back in 2010 and 2012. I just follow the steps carefully and chosen the tek that seemed the simplest. Second problem is I'm having big difficulties finding any "real" products containing the ingredients called here.

I have 2 questions:

1. IS my understanding correct in that if I were to use the way more expensive solvent that I can get here, which is Zippo lighter fluid instead of the second product I posted here, then the extra step of cleaning the DMT would no logner be necessary ?

2. If I wanted to clean my DMT with ethanol, what kind of commercial product should I try to look for ? Many chemical products that are not meant for human consumption in my country do not list the ingredients.

Thank you for your continued support.

If cost is a problem you'd do well to use the cheap lamp oil, freeze precipitate and recrystallise with Zippo, as Infundibulum also says. That way you only need to buy one can of Zippo. Recrystallisation is easy so you might as well learn how to do it, expand your skills base and share your results.


I have no idea what ethanol products are available in Romania, but biofuel ethanol for alcohol stoves is often denatured with butanone (MEK) only. You could in principle do an evaporation test with some of that. Or, as Infundulum has said, seek out some isopropanol ('IPA', isopropyl alcohol) which is used for cleaning electronics.

It's a matter of getting into the right mindset for finding the desired solvents - which may, incidentally, include learning just a little bit more about chemistry

Hello everybody. Just a quick update. I'm going to do the extraction today following Noman's tek. Found some 99% IPA to do the clean-up.
I'm going to use 200 grams MHRB that I converted from shredded to fine powder last week.
I will add 15 ml tap water for every gram of MHRB. so 3 L water with the MHRB in a 5 L jar.
I will then slowly add 200 gr of granulated lye.

Does this sound ok so far or do you have any adjustments that you recommend ? Also , is there any other consensus that differs from the initial ratio between 1:1 naphta/MHRB ?

1:1 is great for a STB tek like nomans. If at some point in the future you do a A/B extraction (acid boils and then separating the tea from the spent bark before basing) know that you can use much less, 4/1 bark/NaOH works well for me.

Thank you for the feedback, Tony6Strings. Hope it turns well and I'll have some spice by Monday.

Hello Things did not go very well. But given what happened , I now realize it could have ended much worse if I wouldn't have taken some basic safety measures. I'll try to explain maybe it will help someone not to repeat my mistakes:

I had decided to use 250 grams MHRB of the 400 I have, because that was the amount I had already tediously powdered.
Turns out the jar I was using was about 4300 ml, not 5000. When I filled it with 3750 liters of water I was already questioning whether it would fit my amount, but figured after adding my 250 gr powdered mimosa it would be ok and perhaps even good to have the naphta layer close to the opening since I was going to use a medical syringe to pull the naphta as it would be easier to reach the layer being closer to the opening.

I have made the procedure in my bathroom and put jar in the bathtub, knowing that I am going to work with dangerous substances like lye. I have used gloves and goggles.
I have very slowly added the granulated lye (Product: Mellerud Drain Pipe Cleaner ( https://mellerud.de/sanitaer/rohr-frei-granulat ) while stirring with a long spoon for the granules to dissolve.

The water started turning from clear white to a greyish tint and the jar started to become warm as expected but not hot.

After pouring all the 250 grams of lye, I continued to stir the mix for a while.

Then problems arose: I had poured the powdered MHRB and this filled the jar almost up to the brim. I tried to push it down with the same spoon I used to mix the lye, but only a very small amount dissolved, most of the powder still floating and quite a bit forming a big chunk. I had tried to further mix it so about maybe 4 minutes after pouring I decided to close the lid. I somewhat tightly closed the lid and began to shake the jar. Then I heard a sound like pressure forming inside the jar very quickly and a few seconds later it started releasing pressure through what has appeared to be a not 100% secured lid. This increased in intensity and a couple of seconds later I decided it would not be wise at this point to open the because I was afreid of the whole jar blowing up (maybe this would have not been a real possibility but I am no chemist so this was the thought that scared me). So I stepped back maybe 4 or 5 steps. At the very top of the jar , the only space left was filled with a sort of light brown foam and then this brown foam started escaping through the lid slowly.


Al this time, the pressure sound from the lid and the foam continued and then increased so I went outside the bathroom and closed the door shut. Then maybe 30 second later I heard a POP. I then entered the bathroom and the pressure inside the jar had popped/blown the lid off the jar. The lid was still in the bathtub. The foam was spilling on the outsides of the jar into the bathtub.

I had cleaned the place and let the jar opened for about 15 minutes while I was outside my bathroom. When I re-entered I could smell in the whole bathroom a very distinct caustic soda odour. I ventilated the bathroom and washed the amount of foam and MHRB that has been spilled out in the bathtub.

I did not dare at this point to put the lid back so I slowly mixed the MHRB with the lye-water solution with the long metal spoon and only then put the lid. Very large chunks of black MHRB formations still remained in the jar when I put the lid on and slowly started to shake it, periodically opening the jar to release some pressure that seemed to be still forming, until no more pressure was felt when opening the jar after a period of intense shaking.

I then let the solution sit for 1 hour and then added the naphta.

I know I will get a lot of critique and people will probably give me harsh reactions but I thought it would be best to be authentic and describe the experience sincerly maybe others will learn from it.


What do you think ? Where were the main mistakes ? What should I have done differently / where should I have thinked differently ? Was that foamy reaction normal ? Was the lye that I'm using impure or had other additives that caused that reaction ?
Also, is it normal for lye to have grey-color granules among the white ones like my product had ?


Thank you for reading this lengthy piece and apologies if my spelling/wording is awkward , english is not the language I use everyday.

Ok. So the lye I was using has the following ingredients (according to their website): SODIUM HYDROXIDE, SODIUM CHLORIDE, ALUMINA, PARAFFINUM LIQUIDUM

source: https://mellerud.de/medi...r%20Frei%20Granulat.pdf


Is this very bad ? Will I be able to extract something and/or safely consume the spice ? I already have a naphta pull in the freezer.

Next time you go STB- bark into container, add water, then add lye. This way, you have an idea of how much space is in your jar and do not risk adding too much. Pressure buildup is not uncommon, I extract in a 1000 ml Erlenmeyer with a rubber stopper, sometimes (especially when stopper is slick with solvent) the pressure from the extraction will pop the plug out of the flask. Keep a gallon jug of white vinegar handy always to neutralize caustic soda accidents. Glad you are OK. Let us know how the pulls go, that's the funnest part (besides smoalking the stuff).

Just saw your last post. You want straight up sodium hydroxide. I use Roebic drain cleaner, it is 100% sodium hydroxide. I don't know anything about those other ingredients, but the sound of it makes me nervous. Sodium chloride is salt and that's fine, good even, but not sure about the others.

It is hard to give feedback without pictures. Next time, try to take pictures after each step?

I can recommend 3 things personally.

First, use smaller amounts when you practice. Try 50g of MHRB until you have done a few successful extractions.

Second, there are DMT extraction tutorials with pictures and even videos available - just search around. You can learn a lot of small tricks that will make the process much safer and easier. Watch videos on general recrystallization techniques - re-x is time-sensitive so it benefits from solid skills and developed intuition.

Third, while this is an STB thread, consider drytek extraction methods (like Gordotek on youtube). In addition to using calcium hydroxide (pickling lime) instead of corrosive chemicals like lye, dryteks are harder to mess up since everything is already separated. You sacrifice time and yield, but there are no long acid boils, no filtering, no separation of liquids - very little drama.

They meant aluminium. That reacts with sodium hydroxide to produce hydrogen gas. You are very lucky not to have caused a serious explosion.


Clearly the answer is yes, it was a terrible idea to use it.
You have put the safety of yourself and other people at grave risk by doing this.

Remember what I said earlier about learning more chemistry before proceeding?

Ok. Thank you Tony6Strings for your very prompt reply and also Hailstorm and downwardsfromzero. I was very hesitant about pictures because I'm a bit paranoid about it, and also because last time I posted, I forgot to strip the files I attached of their EXIF metadata, which btw would have been very very reveling, but I was very pleasantly surprised to find that the administrators of this site do a good job saving people's asses, as after I tried to download a picture I uploaded, back from the forum to my computer found that all the EXIF metadata has been auto-stripped off automatically by the forum hosting software.

Here are some pictures.

This is how the naphta layer looked in the jar about half and hour after the lid-explosion accident and after all the foam subsided (on the outer upper side of the jar just under the lid you can see marks left by that foamy-substance with mhrb bits that initialy began to spill at the lid-seals before finally creating enough pressure for the lid to be blown away from the jar):




And top view:



This is the result of the first and second pull after freeze-precip:



This is some yeald after a few days sitting, after the naphta evaporated:



And final image is how the solvent layer looked after a few days. The top was clear and those foamy patches dissapeared.



The yield was terribly low.

Something I have not mentioned is that I have made this extraction in colaboration with a much younger friend. The deal was he buys the MHRB and I show him how the extraction goes, as I have extracted succesfully back in 2010 and 2012. I obviously did not do a good job showing/teaching him how it's done, as this extraction was a semi-disaster (not only the accident but also the yield was like 10 times less that what I obtained in the past with same amount of MHRB.

But besides this, I could not convince him no to try the product you have seen. He did not want to wait for any recrystalisation and being the reckless type he is said he wants to try DMT and doesn't care if nobody responded to this thread regarding that aluminium+NaOH product we used. The spice seems fine from what he told me, and one week later he doesn't seem to be having any health-related issues. Also, the ridiculously low yield (very few crystals) we have obtained have a tendency to melt at room temperature. I am still interested if that aluminium and the paraffin that was in the NAOh product is dangerous (regarding health) and if it can migrate to the freeze-precipitated crystals.


Thank you for your continued support. I love this community.

EDIT: Ok, so I don't know how to insert the image files between the lines of text. Figured I would just write the file name between the operators like: . 0001.jpg being the filename I attached to the post but it doesn't work like that. The order of the pictures is the one described in the text. You figure it out Cheers.

Oh...and also, WHY would you even put alumina in a drain-pipe cleaner? Can someone who actually understands chemistry teach me ? I've just watched this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IeRS0wbcnkM and I'm shocked about the reaction. What is that goo that resulted after the aluminum coke can was dissolved/melted in the lye water ? I've read aluminum and Sodium Hydroxide create Sodium Aluminate... what does that do ?