ok im new here g'day!
toluene, make sure you get rid of all that shit if you useing it in tek
if you dont know ,high amounts of exposure can result in cancer of white blood cells aka luekemia
that is if your cooking in the kitchen what not
xylol a little more friendly

peace rechard-kid

yes toluene is nasty and has a high boiling point compared to things like naptha hexane etc.

VM&P Naptha works very well as long as you blow it off with suction,works well with other things as well LOL!!!!

Any sources on the comparative dangers of the two Rechard? I've heard some people that xylene is worse than toluene, others say toluene is worse than xylene. Can you compare the hazards or summarize what the issues to consider are when choosing between these solvents?

As long as you are working in a well ventilated area it shouldn't matter much what solvent you use. I must say though shellite is much less smelly and evaporates in half the time xylene does. On the other hand xylene pulls twice as much per volume and increases yield because of that.
As long as there is no solvent left in the final product it won't matter what solvent you used to get there, providing the clean solvent evaporates without residue.

I think everyone knows to use shellite/naphtha hydrocarbon solvents to pull the spice initially. But lately there's a lot of interest in pulling the "jungle spice", where your solvent options are diethyl ether (hard for most people to get ahold of), DCM (reactive to DMT), xylene, and toluene. With xylene and toluene being the only commonly available choices, it'd be nice to have some more specifics on the comparative hazards (I know they're fine in well-ventilated spaces, but we're talking kitchen extractors here, not lab techs).

i would almost recommend if your using xylene or toluene to do those pulls (3-4times) first since spice is actually more soluble in those solvents. then evap them. You will get a red mushy mess but you can easily recover clean spice with using small volumes of warm hexane naptha whatever.

could you elaborate on this process burnt? you take the red goo and pour hot naphtha over it?

im doing naptha pulls first, then going for the toluene, but if i can just pull with toluene and then seperate the white and red with naphtha it might be an easier way to go.

The process he's talking about is covered well in Entheogenist's Jungle Spice tek, in my Jungle Spice thread (I forget which section, just check the index at the top).

Toluene is very similar to benzene in structure..Benzene, being highly carcinogenic, is metabolized by the human body via an epoxidation of the ring. This highly reactive epoxide (with an ortho diene moitey) is directly attacked by nucleophiles all over the place in your body. This results in benzene being attached to DNA.

Toluene has the exposed methyl group. This methyl group is directly oxidized to form benzoic acid, which you can urinate out of your body.

A small percentage of Toluene is also converted into the epoxide species.

Xylene, which has an additional methyl group at various positions, is also oxidized into benzoic acid derivatives. A smaller percentage is converted into the epoxide. I would say that there IS a difference in the toxicity. However, I would also say that if you are decently ventilated, and arent washing your hands, then both substances are of approximately equal safety. Go with the one that is easier to obtain.

If I were working without a fume hood, and I had to choose my solvents..assuming I was in a decently ventilated area, and that I needed a solvent for extracting this "jungle spice" my preference would be:

1. Ether
2. Toluene
3. Xylene
4. DCM

dichloromethane is nasty stuff. Chlorinated solvents are really not suggested unless you have access to a lab grade high vac. That and its just nasty for the environment. Ether is good due to its high vapor pressure and ease of removing. toluene is a bitch to get out, even when I work with it in the lab, with vaccums, rotovaps, etc etc it just sucks to get rid of...

I assume you meant "are washing your hands"?

I meant, arent washing your hands with the solvents in question. as many chemists used to do with benzene.

Is benzene the one with the very cool flame? Where you could burn it in your bare hands to impress your friends?

i definatly agree with you on that list of solvents rdwoodward. diethylether is nice it causes few emulsions and evaporates easy which is good if you dont have access to certain nice toys. it smells like shit but its not as toxic as some of the other ones.

yea im not sure what tek sais what i just said cause my friends never read them. but anyway a friend of mine once did an extraction with toluene and ether (he was trying both to see what had least emulsions etc). anyway when he collected his organic layers he dried them to find red goo (jungle spice as people here call it). and he speculated well my spice must be in this red mess. so he added warm hexane to the red mess and two layers formed. this red stuff and hexane layer. he seperated the hexane layer with pastuer pipette and dried it to find spice. nice yield too.

i guess only reason im discussing this method is that i think spice is more soluble in toluene and ether and stuff then it is in hexane hence why you can recrystallize with hexane. i think it sais something about solubility of spice in the merck index too if anyway can find a copy to take a look at. so in some ways its easier if you are safe and in good ventilated area to just pull with ether or something then purify your crude extract with small amounts of warm hexane. however i really have no idea if you get the same yield or not either way you did it.

I have grown to love the smell of ether, as well as ethyl acetate. Pyridine..well not so much.

In hypothetical work with similar indoles, hexanes dont offer much as far as solvents. Good for recrystallization, but thats about it. Tolune is a good solvent for extracting non-polar amines (such as these indoles), so you are right on that account.

ethyl acetate is a nice one heh


it seems many people do toluene diethyl ether etc pulls after their hexane pulls. what i propose is just do the opposite and you can save yourself solvents($) and time. do a few ether pulls evaporate. get the gooey extract. and pull out clean spice with small volumes of warm hexane bam done.

i plan on trying exactly that on my next go round. thanks for the info

let us know if pans out ok.