Ive been reading up on the chilled acetone extraction tek. I have a couple of questions;

1. In order to speed up the process the tek suggests using a centrifuge. While I don't have access to a lab grade centrifuge could I make one with a blender engine? Has anyone tried this or know of any ways to make a homemade centrifuge?

2. What grade acetone do I need in order to extract the salvinorin? Would this suffice?
http://www.sierrachemica..._virtuemart&Itemid=2

3. Should I get a respirator as acetone vapors will and can chew holes threw your brain?

Hi kikko,

maybe you read the tek somewhere else, but as far as I know centrifugation is not a requirement. Please take a look at gibran2's Salvinorin A Extraction thread, if you haven't done so already.

99% tech grade acetone should be okay. And regarding the vapors, if the little exposure you might get from fast chilled acetone pulls chewed holes through your brain, most people using acetone based solvents to regularly clean nail polish would have no brain by now, so even if using respirators if available is a good rule of thumb when dealing with volatile compounds, I don't think you should worry much.

I realize that it is not a requirement but it does reduce the processing time quite significantly. If you look at some of the numbers like having to wait an entire day for the sediment to fall out then you can see how a centrifuge is quite effective is hastening the process.

used a centrifuge once, when I did my first and only salvia extraction. Did lots of pulls which had to fit in these little 30ml bottles and centrifugated, separated and evaporated with a rota vap. Then I washed with I think it was hexan or toluol and ended up with a few mg's of nothing. The stuff had no activity. I don't know where it got lost or if there wasn't any to start with. Whoops, now I remember not drying the solvents..