At what pH is 5-meo-DMT destroyed?

Would a normal STB tek breakdown the 5-meo-DMT? If so, what would it break down into (would it turn into the oxide, or a different chemical altogether)?

My own work with Phalaris sp. would suggest 5meo is unharmed by very high ph, even when left to sit for several weeks.

SWIM was analyzing Virola peruviana which is supposed to contain 5meodmt and was unable to detect any.

Sample prep went like this:

1 g dried bark places into 1M KOH (pH 13.6)

Sonicate off and on for an hour or so. Heat 50 C mix with toluene.

Collected toluene washed with sodium carbonate pH 13.

Collect dry toluene redissolve 1ml toluene and analyze material gc-ms.

Nothing.
100g material was extracted another time with A/B technique pH4 acid and pH 12 for basic. pulled with hexane, xylene and toluene!

Only 10 or so milligrams of a whitish residue was recovered which did not test positive for 5meodmt.

So either the plant doesn't contain 5meodmt although its reported to be there or the pH destroyed it or the extraction technique was totally f'ed up in some other regard, although SWIM doubts it.



The bark could just not contain 5meodmt but SWIM thinks pH was too high. No proof though. SWIM thinks other have reported similar kinds of things.

Try using sodium carbonate.

SWIM has been unsuccessful extracting 5-MeO-DMT from any plant when using a stronger base. So I think it’s destroyed by high pH values, or more specifically destroyed by hydroxides. I don’t understand why hydroxides would do it. I know hydroxides are bad for bufotenine, which is 5-HO-DMT, and very closely related chemically to 5-MeO-DMT. Hydroxides are also bad for extracting psilocin (4-HO-DMT). Possibly the HO and the MeO on the DMT molecule are not stable enough to withstand the hydroxides. With DMT, high ph doesn’t matter, but with 5-MeO-DMT, SWIM’s tests seem to say it does.

SWIM has not tried this with pure 5-MeO-DMT. So he doesn’t know if the 5-MeO-DMT is being destroyed or somehow the plant sources used in extraction just don’t extract well using hydroxides. Maybe a lot of soap is forming, and that’s the issue.

So if SWIM is using A/B to extract a material that contains 5-meo-DMT could he still use lye, just as long as it doesn't raise the pH too high? And how high should he raise the pH if he is extracting with Xylene?

The only method that reliably works for SWIM is to use sodium carbonate as the base and DCM as the non-polar solvent. All the other solvent and base mixes SWIM tried did not seem to work.

Its difficult to say.

It might be that they hydroxides themselves make 5meodmt more unstable then just the high pH value. It might need both basic pH and hydroxides available to degrade the compound.

If you want to avoid trouble try sodium carbonate. Or compare the two that would provide valuable information.

hmm, perhaps try some sodium carbonate.