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hmm and i wonder if salt or MgSO4 could be added to help the dmt saturate the nps..
good idea iracema i like what you have to say!

If i understand this correctly, your basically using the carbonic acid to make carbonate salts of the alkaloids, or lower the ph of your brewing water?

Neat idea!

I'd love to hear from one of the chem-heads here if thats whats going on, and if its viable. I like the idea of not adding any extra acid when brewing.

And correct me if im wrong, but all this is doing is using the carbonic acid dissolved in the water to extract the salts, possibly converting them into carbonates in the process. As well as using pressure to help break down plant material. Theres nothing non-polar about it, when co2 is in solution. But its acidity can help break down plant material.

Now liquid co2, yes, non-polar, and a viable method of extracting freebase alkaoids. But a bit too dangerous for my taste. Not because its flammable, but the process usually involves high pressure, and thermal (very cold) stress on the vessel involved. Had a cousin almost blind himself by putting dry ice in a plastic container and sealing it, then having it explode and shatter instead of shear as the plastic in question should have since it was so cold.

But, with the right vessel, its viable and safe if you know what your doing, and safer than butane in that respect in terms of supercritical liquid non-polar extractions. Makes great hash oil as well, but the machines involved cost thousands of dollars, though they re-use the co2 so thats pretty neat.

Enough rambling, i like your idea op, and would love for someone with a chemistry background to explain whats going on, and if it has advantages/disadvantages or is practical/impractical.

i would also be very interested to hear one of the knowers of things to illuminate this subject, sounds very cool, i have been interested in co2 extract for awhile but never thought it could be this easy!

interesting idea, but the title of this thread is still misleading.
Theoretically, totally possible. But not in your standard pressure cooker.

Pressure cookers create their pressure using the expanding water vapour.... meaning, the temperature is already extremely high just to achieve a pressure of 2 atm. Mine reaches around 120C at 15 PSI, which is 250F or 393K.

This is very hot. There is no way in hell you can get super critical CO2 with temperatures like that. Satan doesn't decaffeinate his coffee. He has no need for supercritical CO2

What you are describing has nothing to do with supercritical, or 'critical' CO2. The water is doing all the extracting.

like suggested above, it is an interesting idea, since carbonated water has a lower pH. Although, keep in mind, even distilled water has a low pH, usually around 5, due to dissolved CO2 from the atmosphere.

But your not even close to passing the critical point of CO2. Which is why the title is misleading

Your understanding of gas laws is a bit skewed. I myself, use a pressure cooker to extract my MHRB, its fast and effective, I use dilute vinegar cook at 15 PSI. This seems to effectively extract the alkaloids at a much faster rate then just boiling.


Pressure cookers can reach around 2 atm, to use CO2 as a solvent, you need a LOT more then that to pass the critical point, more like 70 atm at 300 Kelvin. You can't do this with a pressure cooker, since the temperature is also increasing proportionally with the pressure.


Unless you had a tank of CO2 feeding gas directly into the system, and a pressure cooker capable of very high pressures, and some way to remove the heat energy being relased. (Just as releasing pressure causes a drop in temperature, pressurizing causes an increase. Its exothermic. You can actually feel this effect if you put your hand on the cynlider of a bicycle pump and start pumping, or the reverse with a can of N2O) Then you could dissolve more and more CO2, and if you were able to reach the critical point in temperature and pressure. Then it might be possible. otherwise you can't extract anything with the CO2 behaving as a solvent.


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Also, pressurizing the sparkling water isn't going to do anything.

For instance, if you bought this product to keep your pop fizzy, your an idiot.




Oh, and here is a graph that might help your understanding on what kind of temperature pressure ratios you would need to get into the supercritical range of CO2, the area past the critical point.

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I would love to try this. Unfortunately my budget is very limited ATM, but when I have some money to spare
I will defenitely buy a pressure cooker to give this method a try.

Neat idea, iracema. How pure do you reckon the dried up extract obtained from
the 3-step process you described would be? Would it need alot of cleaning?

I'm with mindlusion on this. It doesn't make any sense and I see no benefit to doing this over a typical pressure cooker extraction with say a dash of lime juice.

The link you posted iracema isn't really very similar to this at all.

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Yes, sparkling water is usually pH balanced, I imagine that is why it tastes so funny when it goes flat.

So wouldn't this be working against your idea of using carbonic acid as your acid?
You might actually have better results with carbonic acid if you used distilled water.

I applaud your curiosity and interest in these ideas, but like you said, im just here to make the 'supercritical' response.


If your trying to increase the solubility of CO2 to make more carbonic acid in solution, a pressure cooker is not your best bet.

Solubility of gases increases as pressure increases.
BUT
Solubility of gases decreases as temperature increases.

So your effectively canceling out any hope of getting more CO2 in solution, not even considering that you couldn't add any more CO2 into the pressure cooker once you've already closed it.

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You can use carbonic acid as an acid, but remember, the alkaloids inside the bark are ALREADY water soluble as some kind of salt. So you don't actually need an acid in the first place to extract the goodies.

This idea might be better suited for creating some carbonate salts, rather then extracting some preexisting salts.

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