SWIM is working on a FASA tech for the extraction of mescaline from various cacti. SWIM has had great success using xylene and FASA with Peruvian Torch in the the past and wanted to create a tech so that others could take advantage of this simple technique. SWIM has run into an interesting problem though. After going straight to base and extracting with xylene, SWIM evaporated the resulting alkaloid impregnated xylene in an effort to reduce the amount of liquid SWIM had to work with. SWIM evaporated it all away and when SWIM went to redissolve all of the solids in fresh xylene, some of it wouldn't dissolve. Quite a bit waxy, yellowish residue was left that wouldn't dissolve in xylene. I'm wondering if anyone has ever encountered this before and knows what this stuff is. SWIM's thoughts are that it could be residual plant oils or some sort of alkaloid that doesn't dissolve well in non-polar solvent. Any thoughts?

perhaps some sort of oxidized mescaline?

Wait, so you've actually made mescaline fumarate? And you tried it out and it was active? And it wasn't heavily contaminated with fumaric acid? That's awesome, I swear others had tried this exact thing and the results were undesirable.

SWIM did make mescaline fumarate. Tried it and it was highly active. Contamination with fumaric acid is easily remedied by washing with fresh acetone. SWIM used the first part of the Invader Zim tech but, instead of using Hcl and water, SWIM salted the alkaloids out of the xylene by adding FASA solution. After filtering and washing with dried acetone all that is left is an almost pure white (only slightly off-white) powder. Approximately 11.5 g of alkaloids extracted from 1 kilo of dried cactus.

u know in the past iv gone on rules that advanced members set - like making mesc fum the traditional route wont work, no naptha for mesc, etc - nice to see these ideas being challenged.
seeing ppl challenge em - makes me more amped to experiment.

woot.

so xylene was salted with anhydrous acetone and Fumaric acid? at what ratios, etc?

did the salts instantly precip? or was it recovered by evaporation?


how soulable is the resulting salt in water or acetone in your experince>?

Quick Experimental results - heptane saturated with freebase mesc can be salted with fasa to yield pure white powder mescaline fumarate (cleanest mesc swim has ever seen). Heptane can be cleaned quickly with water to remove acetone and reused. SWIM performed same experiment with limonene to yield yellow powder that was a bit more difficult to decant. SWIM will report back with the results of oral dosage of 300mg.

How did SWIY did it? I doubt that he has mescaline fumarate; for once, mescaline has never been shown to be soluble in aliphatics like heptane. Naphtha was recently used to pull mescaline freebase with no result whatsoever. Also, dropping FASA in heptane will cause precipitation of fumaric acid. This is a well observed fact, It even happens when naphtha and heptane are saturated with dmt and FASA is added. I believe that SWIY precipitated fumaric acid out of heptane and not mescaline. This is why it also looks so clean.

It would be great to bioassay it however! And how about the taste? Is it bitter (would indicate alkaloids) sour (would indicate salt) does it dissolve easily in water (would indicate salt) or is it difficultly soluble (would indicate fumaric acid.

SWIM first did the mescaline fumarate salting from xylene using FASA ages ago but he was not impressed; it was more hassle to clean it than the hydrochloride or sulphatesince mescaline fumarate is soluble in acetone.

SWIM has done this before with toluene, and yielded nothing but fumaric acid, so he knows where you are coming from. SWIM did a taste test on these results, and it is definitely not fumaric acid, it is the typical bitter taste of mesc. SWIM will be assaying today, results will be in soon.

!!!!

This is truly interesting! So the heptane was used to pull straight from cactus or did SWIY dissolved some mesc+ other alkaloids in water, based and pulled with heptane?

SWIM put 230mg in capsule, swallowed, and nothing. SWIM pulled straight from cacti. There was definitely stimulation, but nothing SWIM couldn't rule out as placebo. SWIM hopes you are right about heptane not pulling freebase mesc, for then all of the goodies can still be recovered with another solvent.

Phenylthalatryx: If anyone has any suggestions about how to try to crystalise this stuff, go right ahead. otherwise its just some weird cactus goo. Unfortunately those are the breaks for home extractors like you and I. SWIM sometimes wishes he had access to some more sophisticated tools for analysing 'stuff'... but not really.

SWIM before seeing this post evapped the solvent and got exactly what you described in decreasing amounts per pull. SWIM found out that after washing the pyrex container the top layer had washed off but underneath it was yellow crystalline solids.

So, just to clear things up, here is the complete process SWIM used.

Materials:
Dried, finely powdered cactus flesh (1 kilo)
Distilled water (1 1/2 gal)
Lye (1 1/2 lbs)
Xylene (3 liters)
Anhydrous acetone (1 gal)
Fumaric acid (approximately 1 tablespoon)

Equipment:
5 gal paint bucket (new, never used for paint)
Glassware (miscellaneous sizes)
Separatory funnel
Vacuum filtration apparatus

Process:
Dissolve lye in distilled water. Place dried cactus in paint bucket, add lye water and mix thoroughly. Let it stand a digest for a couple of days. Add 1 liter of Xylene and mix thoroughly. Let stand for 24 hours or until Xylene has completely separated. Scoop off Xylene into separatory funnel and drain aqueous solution from the bottom back into the bucket and save the Xylene. The Xylene will have turned dark brownish green. Take about 500 ml of acetone and saturate with fumaric acid. This should be enough for at least 3 pulls. Add fumaric acid saturated acetone to alkaloid impregnated Xylene a tiny bit at a time. The Xylene will cloud up and turn bright opaque green like Mountain Dew. Keep adding FASA until no more alkaloids precipitate out of the solution. After about an hour or so the precipitate will settle to the bottom. Decant spent Xylene off the top. You can save, wash and reuse the Xylene but SWIM prefers to use fresh Xylene for each pull. Use vacuum filtration apparatus with fine filtration paper to separate the remaining Xylene/acetone from precipitate. Rinse precipitate with fresh acetone until the acetone doesn't change color. This will rinse off any cactus oils and excess fumaric acid. Lay the filter paper with alkaloids out and let it dry until you can no longer smell any solvent. Repeat this process two more times. Encapsulate and enjoy. Three Capsules (approximately 1200 mg) is a very dramatic experience.

Thats so cool that swiy made m fumerates Phenyl! Your mystery substance reminds me of the salts left after evapping hard water that wont redissolve. I think for the hard water the mineral ions, probably mainly calcium, are forced to salt as carbonates when all the water evaps, leaving insoluble salts. Thats really just my guess, I don't have the chem or proper reasoning to back it up. What you are seeing is also a mystery to me, but at least thats another example of a solid left after evapping that wont redissolve.

this success with fumerates makes me wonder if its possible to evap tea down to resin, anhydrous acetone bomb ala phlux- resin purifying tek, and then crashing alks straight out of that with FASA, filtering and then washing with tone.... maybe a tannin removal step during the tea making would be necessary to free the actives allowing the fumerate salt precip. Maybe sulfuric acid would work in this regard also? I'm guessing fumeric or sulfuric acid have higher affinity to mesc than tannic acid, and they may precip from a slightly dirty tone soln.

SWIM would like to find a way to recrystallize the precipitate to further purify it but, so far, SWIM has yet to find any good info on what solvent/combination of solvents would be appropriate. SWIM might try some trial and error with the next batch to see what works. Maybe methanol, ethanol, isopropanol or water/acetone might work. SWIM would find any input from someone with more recrystallization experience helpful.

Also, with the next batch, SWIM might try washing the spent Xylene/acetone with a aqueous Hcl solution and evaporating to see if there are any stray alkaloids that aren't salted out as fumarates. Although SWIM noticed a similar, if not the same, color change when salting with aqueous Hcl solution as he did with FASA. It might not be worth the effort.

Phenylthalatryx would you clarify and state for once and for all whether mescaline fumarate is soluble in acetone.

There is conflicting evidence, 69ron's post say otherwise in his d-limonene tek.

Also, could you post pictures of the addition of FASA, my cat just added the FASA but is unsure when to stop adding it, my cat was going to try a stoichiometric calculation. Can one add too much?

According to SWIM, FASA is added until no more cloudy precipitate forms in the alkaloid laden Xylene. It is technically possible to add "too much" FASA, but that would just be a waste of FASA. It shouldn't negatively effect the process. SWIM says that the Fumerate salts witch precipitate out are practically insoluble in anhydrous acetone at room temperature.

How do you know that you aren't losing product when washing with the acetone? You definitely see a decrease in weight due to excess fumaric being dissolved, but how do you know that you aren't losing mescaline fumarate as well? It could also be dependent on the temperature of the acetone.

I suppose it is possible, but unlikely. SWIM washed with enough acetone to dissolve the whole product. SWIM kept washing until nothing more dissolved. Temperature might make a difference. SWIM could try using chilled acetone but that might not dissolve the excess fumaric acid.