Hey this is my first post, I lurk sometimes but only joined yesterday to share my recent successes in reducing DMT N-Oxide back to regular old DMT. I couldn't find any topic specifically explaining this reduction; I apologize if this is the wrong sub forum but I couldn't post in the enhanced chemistry one. I tried to make the write up accessible to both experienced and unexperienced members.

N,N DMT N-Oxide reduction

Overview:
10eq versus DMT N-Oxide Zinc dust and 3eq HCl versus zinc is added to the N-Oxide
creating the N,N DMT HCl salt. The freebase is liberated from the HCl salt and extracted
with nonpolar solvent and crystallized.


DMT N-Oxide will usually be mixed in with N,N DMT, so to separate you can add
small portions of boiling naphtha(Zippo lighter fluid was used) until everything
dissolves except a yellow oil at the bottom of the flask; decant the naphtha
solution and you'll be left with a yellow DMT N-Oxide oil at the bottom.
Easiest way to obtain this is to add a small amount of acetone, swish it around
until it all dissolves, and pour into a pyrex dish. It should evaporate pretty
quickly, and you can scrape up the waxy oil and weigh it.

Experimental:
1.00g(4.89E-3 mol) N-oxide was dissolved in 25mL of methanol and 3.2g(4.89E-2 mol)
Zn was added to this mixture. 14.24ml(0.1467mol) 32% HCl was slowly added
dropwise through an addition funnel with magnetic stirring over the course
of about 30 minutes. Then let it stir at room temperature for another 2 hours.
Reaction complete. Zinc is filtered and washed with methanol, then evaporated most of the methanol under reduced pressure until it's mostly a solution of water. Excess 25% NaOH solution was added and the freebase was extracted 4x with 75mL naphtha and washed with 50mL 5% NaOH solution then 3x50mL distilled water. The solution was put in the freezer and upon recrystallization 0.74g of fairly white N,N DMT freebase were obtained.

For the benefit of the novice:
If you don't have any methanol lying around, 91% IPA works fine as a solvent as well, find it at Wal Mart. An addition funnel is not needed, just add it slowly/dropwise. Also, magnetic stirring is not needed,just be sure to stir periodically, i think that will work fine. After filtering the zinc, wash the flask that you filtered it from with methanol twice to pick up any residual product, then while the zinc is still in the filter paper pour the methanol rinses through the zinc-endowed filter paper into the collecting flask to get everything. Reduced pressure is not necessary during evaporation, just convenient. To make the NaOH solutions, its fine to add 10-15g to about 50mL of water for the
first one, and just a small amount of NaOH to 30-50mL of water for the second one. To extract, pour naphtha in and slosh back and forth, leave to separate, and pour off the top layer(if you have the N-Oxide you're probably familiar with this process). This has the freebase in it so save it. Repeat. Then, take the pooled extracts and wash them with water, same idea, except use fresh new water, and still keep all of the toluene. You must use distilled water the entire time, NaOH will make nasty salts with tap water. Its 88 cents at wal mart. PM me if you have any questions.

One last note is that I noticed the N,N DMT HCL does not oxidize during the evaporation of the methanol. I have read problems of people storing DMT and having it oxidize over the course of a few months to their chagrin. The hydrochloride salt is much less prone to oxidation, so if you're planning on storing DMT for any amount of time and don't want it oxidizing, you might consider storing the HCl salt and reforming the freebase later if you want.