Can i use Sodium Carbonate instead of NaOH to do the extraction?

not in an STB extraction, its not strong enough base for that.. In an A/B it could be possible

I'm using the Nomans tek, so that's possible you think?
I sure hope so.

nomans tek = STB, so no, sorry.

Ok thanks a lot for your help, i see that i have some granulated sink destop, the label says it's 100% Natrium Hidroxide, so i'll be able to do the extraction with that, thanks again!

i dont think that will work.. some people say even with 9pH they did succesfull extractions but that sounds like crap to me... however you can use potassium hydroxide or something which has a pH around 12.5-13 minimum... heres a list for pH of some bases:
Base.............................pH
Sodium hydroxide, N.............14.0
Sodium hydroxide, 0.1 N.........13.0
Sodium hydroxide, 0.01 N........12.0
Potassium hydroxide, N..........14.0
Potassium hydroxide, 0.1 N......13.0
Potassium hydroxide, 0.01 N.....12.0
Sodium meta silicate, 0.1 N.....12.6
Lime (saturated)................12.4
Trisodium phosphate, 0.1 N......12.0
Sodium carbonate, 0.1 N.........11.6
Ammonia, N......................11.5
Ammonia, 0.1 N..................11.1
Ammonia, 0.01 N.................10.6
Potassium, 0.01 N...............11.0
Magnesia (saturated)............10.5
Sodium sesqui carbonate, 0.1 N..10.1
Ferrous hydroxide (saturated)...9.5
Calcium carbonate (saturated)...9.4
Borax, 0.1 N....................9.2
Sodium bicarbonate, 0.1 N.......8.4

hope that helps if you need an alternative for NaOH

Thanks for your help, again
Luckily I have some NaOH, everything is in a jar now, one thing sucks though, i have only a jar for 1.5L so i have to work with very small amounts, i have now disolved 50gr of powdered bark with 50Gr of NaOH and 1.250L water, normally half of the amount of water would work, but the guide said that if you use pre-powdered bark you have to use 2 times more water then you normally should, so.

I now have to ad the Naptha, and tomorrow i hope to find those precious crystals!

Hmmm i dont know this TEK .. but yea untill you learn a gud way for urself start with small amount.. 50gr is fine... 2 times water thing sounds a bit weird coz u gonna powder it anyways and 50gr NaOH sounds like a huge amount for me but yea considering 1.25 liter water may be... if that TEK doesnt work for u i can give u my TEK that works for sure and easy as hell... sorry coz i dunno the real name of my TEK i can't give u any refference but if you can't succeed or get mixed up at any point and decide to change your TEK just PM me or start a thread do as u wish and i explain you.. as far as i heard ppls TEKs mine sounds much more easier.. so its gud for a starter

What up bro, I'm new to it all so I'm looking for some basic teks that bring positive result

I'm very new to this forum and DMT in general, so take this with a grain of salt, but I've been using the below ratio for my STB extractions using powdered MHRB:
1g mhrb:1g lye:10ml water

so for 50g of mhrb I would use 50g of lye and 500ml of water.

I've read that people use as much as 1:15ml of water but I found 1:10ml to be plenty of water.

50g of mhrb with 1250ml of water sounds like much too much water, but perhaps the more seasoned members can chime in.

Post was from 2009 Gotta love these necrobumps!

In response to the original question, I've found that sodium carbonate can be used in a pseudo-STB by making a fairly watery sod.carb/bark brew and then dumping carefully stirring in a suitable amount of calcium hydroxide. This will form sodium hydroxide in situ, along with a chalky precipitate.

So, after all, is there a sodium carbonate tek or not?

After trying to search for this on dmt nexus i only saw aome topics from 2008 when Swim was experimenting with this but then there were no conclussions about it.

I am looking for a more body friendly chemical instead of naoh , other suggestions pls?

Since I browsed this forum I have not seen anything using Na2CO3 sadly. But in general I can see 2 problems here:

When doing STB and adding the carbonate during extraction step it is much less strong than NaOH. So while technically it will also make the DMT extraction-ready by converting it into freebase, it might not have the same effect on the plant material itself. I recall reading that it was told NaOH really helps the extraction by destroying the lignified plant structures or cellulose itself. A friend once tried an STB and indeed the plant material looked quite like a sludge at the end and not like solid bark shreds.

So when using carbonates instead of hydroxides it might not break up the bark so well and potentially cause a lesser yield?


When doing A/B and adding the carbonate after the extraction then it will not cause the same (potential) issue, but then there is the problem of getting huge bubbles upon reaction of carbonates with acids, as they create CO2. If not carefull you could easily loose a lot of your soup by dropping too much carbonates into the soup which will suddenly release a lot of gas, that will over-spill your liquids. After neutralization at pH > 7 it is not an issue, but it could cause some bad surprises before

So while NaOH technically is labelled as dangerous chemical, I would not say the pro's outweigh using a different base here. Simply dont get it into your eyes and wash it off from hands if you touch it, then you are fine.

Also, don't inhale the fumes

Just to reiterate a 'safer' method of in-situ NaOH production:
Of course, you can prepare the crude sodium hydroxide solution (as already performed centuries ago) before adding the bark.

This method might still be better done using powdered bark - I've not heard any reports of it being performed with shredded bark. If you only have shredded bark and wish to try this trick, I would suggest ensuring that the bark is shredded as finely as possible and preparing the soda/lime mix beforehand.