Why is it necessary to adjust the pH of the solution to around 13 in the STB technique?

I read somewhere that the solute's pKa and the solvent's pH are related to the formation of freebases.
I'm interested in understanding how they work in the DMT extraction process and how to calculate the necessary pH from the pKa value

References:
1. According to PubChem, DMT has a pKa of 8.68 (Dimethyltryptamine | C12H16N2 | CID 6089 - PubChem).
2. For instance, in the Lazyman's tek, the solution's pH is adjusted to above 13.5 (Lazyman's tek - DMT-Nexus Wiki).

Indeed there would be no need to put your pH to any higher than ~ 10,5.

You will get a pretty quantitative conversion to the Freebase anyways above that. I think it might have 2 reasons:

1.) Definetly it is helpfull to destroy even more of the plant material, possibly aiding at extracting the DMT more efficiently from the Plant Matrix. Reason is that the plant fiber structures are composed of Cellulose / Lignocellulose / Lignin. With high temperature and heat these polymers can be broken down and thus the formerly strong plant fiber network will loosen its strength and form a mush. Actually with acidic boils for A/B TEKs this is not happening, as HCl is not comparable in this effect - still obviously extraction works just as fine with A/B. But still the destruction of the plant matrix is regarded to potentially (!) aid at extracting the alkaloids more efficiently and this will only happen at very high pH.

2.) It is told by many to throw in more NaOH if at the latter step of Naphtha extraction you will get emulsions and both phases dont separate that well. Adding more salt to the water adds ions and thus ionic strength. This will ultimately make water and naphtha "dislike each other" even more, therefore potential emulsions might break up faster. So by adding a huge load of NaOH from the beginning, it might already make the separation step later easier. Still that might be something that also is not a general issue, but no harm to already have it built-in.

Therefore as DMT is a relatively stable compound, there is no downside of adding too much NaOH already, but the above 2 reasons MIGHT benefit the whole process.

Thanks for answering, Brennendes Wasser


The process of freezing mhrb several times before boiling it with acid in brewing ayahuasca reminded me of this.
It's fascinating the ice can rupture plant vacuoles and aid in extraction. I feel happy when I understand what I'm doing.
I was reassured to learn that DMT molecules remain stable even if the pH is too high.


How was the value of 10.5 calculated?

see
https://www.dmt-nexus.me...aspx?g=posts&t=70446

welcome BlueBaaBaa, i liked your avatar..

After taking a look at freeze-thaw bark I never see a real difference - but of course I have obviously 0 clue if you could macroscopically realize that the cells have indeed bursted

Also I never truly checked if Freeze-Thaw is really making a difference to skipping it. It is just easy, so cannot hurt to do it.

In contrast cooking your bark in pH 13 will greatly alternate the structure of it, it really is like a sludge instead at the end I think. Quite a difference, so if ANY of these 2 method would have a stronger effect I would bet it's the STB plant matrix crushing. But of course then all A/B TEKs can give great results and yields, so this is totally nothing that in reality seems like an advantage.





Regarding finding out if a certain method or step is helpful for Extraction, that would be soooo easy when you can make experiments with a HPLC. But I dont have one since long time. This is basically a device that pushs molecules along a small pipe, with every differential molecular constitution taking shorter or longer time to reach the end of the tube. There is a detector to translate the amount of molecules into a signal strength, by UV absorption or a similar physical process.
And a machine like this would be everything you need to evaluate the Ultimate-Nexus-TEK

Just run an extraction with 1 variable changing and after the corresponding step, take a sample, filtrate it with lab-grade syringe filters (to get rid of insoluble plant material) and analyze both samples against each other.

So many variables would be so easy to find out this way, so we all could just go with 1 single set of parameters for extraction. Of course "many ways lead to Rome" as we say in my language and beauty comes from diversity, but I'm sure there is something like an optimum to any parameter.



If somebody can do these experiments, that could easily find out the optimum for these parameters:

In all cases take samples every 10 min and create a graph on Excel showing X = Time, Y = DMT-Detector-Signal Strength

How hot and how long?
1.) Run extraction at RT / 50 °C / 70 °C / 90 °C
a- find out at which temp efficiency caps
b- find out at which time a water gets saturated AKA extraction stops

How many boils?
2.) Filter plant material and repeat step 1.) with the optimal temperature multiple times
a- find out how much DMT is extracted in successive boils and find out IF more boils are useful and how many boils are enough for reasonable efficiency
`
Freeze-Thaw is it a thing?
3.) Repeat step 1.) but make a control experiment between Freeze-Thaw and No-Freeze-Thaw bark. Take bark from same batch obviously, also even from the same soup prior to first cook, so every single ratio of educts is the same
b- find out if Freeze-Thaw is helping anything or not

NPS-Soup step, how hot / how many pulls?
4.) Basify (if not already when making STB version) and extract with Naphtha at RT / 50 °C / 70 °C
= Take 1x sample from 1x pull
a- find out at which temp efficiency caps AKA which temperature does not hold more DMT than the one below. Then this temp makes no sense to exceed.
b- find out how many pulls are needed at which temperature, reducing the need for excessive Naphtha and also loosing less DMT when freeze-precipitating

(Here it would be interesting to also observe if any tiny peak is increasing, indicating that maybe indeed DMT Polymerization happens here at higher temperatures. But I guess even if it increases, it might stay in traces in all cases)

Stirring mode, what is best?
5.) Now compare extraction process by using optimal Parameters from 4.) and do either GENTLE SWIRLING or VIGORIOUS STORM OF HELL.
a- find out how many pulls are needed in comparison between the least amount of mixing and the most amount - then just stick to what achieves extraction in the shortest yet reasonable time.

Max Ion TEK: Does salt help?
6.) Take optimal Parameters from 4.) and 5.) and divide the freshly-basified soup in 2 halves (new batch of course) and add the NaCl of Max Ion TEK in one of them. Use optimal parameters to extract and compare
a- find out if the salt of Max Ion TEK really helps pushing the DMT into the Naphtha




That's what just came to my mind. Sounds like a complicated list, but actually it is just performing the regular extraction maybe 4-7x and taking a small sample of less than 1 ml from the said liquids that you create along the line. Just put it into HPLC and you can directly compare the individual values against each other. Probably you first need to dilute it, but then dilute everything in the same way, so you can still say:

Experiment 6.) with NaCl
1. Pull DMT Signal = 862.762 (whatever number the detector will spit out, just my example)
2. Pull DMT Signal = 251.991

Experiment 6.) without NaCl
1. Pull DMT Signal = 818.272
2. Pull DMT Signal = 228.126

Adding NaCl improved DMT Extraction by 5,1 % on first pull, by 9,2 % on second pull, ... so it seems to be worth it - or did not make any difference at all - just my random numbers. Therefore this would be actually a really easy way to finally find out if Parameter X really makes a difference by simply step by step running the extraction as similar as possible and then calculating the ratio between DMT signals in either soup or naphtha later on.


Obviously that was rather a random monologue and not really sticking to the actual question, but I really hope in some time people will have time and joy to do this, because it would probably help moving forward to refine our TEKs if we know that X min at Y °C is all you need (except love ).

Thank you, nen888! I like too

I took a quick peek at the link, and it seems to have information about pKa.
It could be quite helpful, and I might finally grasp what I wanted to know
I'll start reading it now.

I believe I had come across papers, possibly related to the freshness management of frozen vegetables, that had already convinced me of two things: first, that alkaloids in most plants tend to concentrate in vacuoles, and second, that freezing can rupture vacuoles. However, I am aware that this knowledge may not be highly reliable

In practice, it would be reasonable to investigate whether the freezing process is effective and to what extent through experiments.
Similarly, in the brewing of Ayahuasca, it seems like it would be a good idea to examine the extraction yield of alkaloids, like the experiment process by Brennendes Wasser.

The experiment provided by Brennendes Wasser is exciting
If someone were to conduct that experiment, it would be a significant contribution.

I think you need to make a kickstarter project so that we can all finance this research

About the specific pH value you asked, i checked the link further up and i think it s answered in this post:

https://www.dmt-nexus.me...&m=725877#post725877

If you take the pKs of your subsrance and imaginally count it as the pH value, then at this stage you have 50% of freebase and 50% of acid. So extracting here you would get only 50% of your goodies, which would be pH 8,68 as you say.

But at pKs + 1 = 9,68 you would have 90 % freebase and 10% acid.

Now at pKs + 2 = 10,68 you would have 99 % freebase and 1% acid.

So going to pH = 11,68 would not make any real difference regarding conversion to freebase, but maybe instead some other beneficial effects as discussed.

As mentioned, a very high PH will help break the bark down. It also eliminates the need for something to check the PH. You just make it higher than it needs to be with an excess of lye and move along.

Twilight Person, Thank you for kindly reply🤗
It was helpful as I was a bit confused by the information in the link.

brokedownpalace10, It seems to be the case

As a response to the initial question, I will attempt to summarize what everyone has taught me so far




The pKa value of DMT is 8.68.

When the pH is approximately 2 units higher than the pKa value, around 99% of DMT will be in its freebase form.

Therefore, having a pH of 10.68 or higher can convert most of the DMT into its freebase form.

In practice, to simplify the process of dissolving the bark and measuring pH, it's reasonable to aim for a pH higher than 10.68.

Hence, it appears that tek instructions recommend adjusting the pH to around 13.

refference:
1. DMT's pKa is 8.68
2. The difinition of pKa
3. calcuration of pH from pKa

Thanks to everyone's kind explanations, my understanding of what I'm doing has deepened.