I was helping a friend out with his first attempt at A/B extraction, the solvent used initially was xylene, I gave him as much instruction as I could but we ended up with the worst emulsion ever. Almost the whole organic phase was a brown/black emulsion.
Temperature wouldn't break it, so we added some shellite in the hope of drawing the xylene out but just ended up with more emulsion.
Leaving it for 2 weeks had no effect on the emulsion so I decided to increase the pH which also had very little effect, I added NaCl soln but nothing happened. I did notice that the aqueous phase was very dark so I thought I would siphon this off and add some hot water to the mix in the hope of washing the cause of the emulsion away. With every rinse the emulsion became lighter and lighter in colour and then started to break down, so I kept washing until the aqueous phase was weak looking like ice tea. At this point the organic layer was the colour of honey and large globs were forming in it. In a very short time we had 2 layers and were able to pour off the top organic followed by agitation to break the rest of the emulsion.
The washing had worked. What 2 weeks of settling couldn't do was remedied in 30 min of hot (50 Deg C) clean water washes.
5 ml of the organic was evaporated in a watch glass which confirmed the goodness was indeed intact.

A trick I learned from an organic chemist lady friend is to put a vibrator in the liquid and turn it on. The vibrations will help break up the emulsion. A ton of salt will also work. I see you tried that, but it usually takes quite a bit (~ 1/2 cup/gallon)

hehe funny about the vibrator. also rinsing with either more solvent and or more acidic water usually is the fastest way to clean a nasty emulsion, which you did.

Hey, it works like a charm. Just slip that bad boy in the hole and turn it on. Miss emulsion melts like butter!

don't shake it up so much when you add the solvent, that can really cause the emulsion to form/thicken. get your PH up to 12+

Thanks for posting fable

You think this might remedy a 2 week old cacti emulsion also?

how much NaCl did SWIY use?

If you were trying an A/B on it then sure give it a go

I usually find that a cactus emulsion is caused by the elephant snot and the only way I found to reduce that was to let nature dry out the cactus completely, grind it up and re hydrate @ pH 4.

Novel emulsion breakdown tek.

I was up to an emulsion stage and I thought that vibration might help to break down the emulsion. I put on a load of washing and left the closed container on the top of the washing machine for a normal wash cycle and when I came back the emulsion had dropped out totally.

Worth a try.

Does washing the organic with anhydrous sodium suflate Na2SO4, I think... Yeah, - SWIM will try this tomorrow and report what happens. SWIM will run a generous amount of the salt over the organic and swirl swirl swirl to see if it eats up that emulsion. Any one tried this?

Just washed the organic with A LOT - I MEAN A FUCKIN LOT SON - NaCl in the form of Kosher salt. Vac filtered and its golden, brothers and sisters. SWIM had to nearly use the entire BOX of Kosher salt to get the immediate emulsion out - time to see what the yields are .

I HAD TO USE A LOT - A LOT - of NaCl

Cheers !

hmm never, ever needed salt

HOT hexanes SWIM thinks is to blame :S It sure does pull a lot of spice, though!!! Got the glass in the fridge now... gonna see if this thing can build some nice xtals

This is hilarious, and absolute genius. Just tried this on an emulsion that would just not budge and it worked in minutes. Another top tip is to wrap that bad boy in cling film (saran wrap) a few times, or your better half will never let you near her with it again