i know this is a simple question.. im just not sure whether to

1 mix dried alkaloids in sodium carbonate and dry and then pull with acetone

or

2 dissolve in sodium carbonate solution and wait for alkaoids to precipitate and then filter and dry..

which will work the best? or is there a better way?

thanks!

You'll likely pull mescaline too doing either of those SWIM imagines.

What could possibly be done is use a solvent to extract the plant material (IPA/acetone/chloroform/ect), then evap it. This could then be freebased with a small amount of water + ammonia, pulled with a np (pulling out the mesc), and then the water/NH3 layer evaporated to give a non-mesc freebase residue. Thats all a theory of course...

Also, it seems that some non-mesc alks come through np pulls with san pedro and end up in final product. Thats why it often has to be cleaned. So if that is the case you could simply follow normal mesc extraction procedure, then let that end dirty cleaning solvent evap off (leaving the sticky residue), and then simply freebase that with a base.

sorry i should have explained a bit better.. there are little to no mesc alkaoids present they have been seperated and the remaining non mesc alks are sitting in an acetone/water solution that has been salted from xylene with sulphuric acid, so they are in salt form in solution, now should i evap and do what i said in either 1 or 2 in my first post?

Since I don't know what they are, I'm not sure their FB is soluble in acetone. It might work. A foolproof but slightly stinkier method would be to dissolve in minimal water, base with lye, pull with clean xylene, then evap the xylene.

When you base with lye you may find the bases separate at high PH anyways. This may appear as an oil floating on top of the water layer.

Have you tried eating the other cactus alks to see what their effects are before attempting to smoke them? I'm not sure if there are any additional dangers involved with smoking bases that are normally safe to eat. Maybe corpus callosum wants to chime in here?

Ahh well in that case..

Sulfuric acid soln doesnt really evap, it would need to be nuetralized with excess base first, then dried. Method 1 you stated earlier would work, though SWIM isnt sure how well sodium bicarb would freebase cacti alks, would probably just use some lye and then pull the dried residue with acetone.

thanks,

I will basify solution containing alks with lye to around ph 12 evap. then pull with anhydrous acetone.

thats the kicker...no-one really knows what is in one cacti to the next. and certainly the info about boiling point/solubility/etc is not out there
all we could tell you is subjective guesswork at best

Exactly what dg said, will be interested in your results nonetheless report back!