I (who IS "I"anyway?) have seen an interesting looking extract from this species recently..
Some branches and phyllodes were concisely and swiftly pruned from a dense area of trees, some had dark red shiny stems and slender trunks with glossy phyllodes others had fairly dry and papery burnt looking phyllodes.
Standard acid base with much filtering.
Reduced to 500ml Then defatted with shellite.
Based with sodium carbonate, this is quick to raise pH to 11+ but takes a while to lyse the plant matter. At first the solution is ruby red and has a brown gravy-like sediment of gums and resins and after 3 or 4 days turns a maroon colour.
250ml of hot sunflower oil was added and the mix was shook vigorously.
At first the gums hang in suspension in the oil but after a few days drop to the bottom
forming a sediment.
2 or 3 tablespoons of salt was added to try to float the alkaloids, if present , above the sediment into the oil.
The oil was left to sit for a few days to clear of debri. Oil was separated.
A 100 ml or so tartaric acid solution of pH 2- 3 was added and shook rigorously.
Repeated and combined. Reduced on heat to 75ml. A white cloud appeared.
Split into small salt pots rebased and pulled with a mix of 25-30 degrees c heptane and light naptha.
Result after evap was a clear oily substance not an alkaloid most likely a bit of the sunflower oil.
Something precipitated again from the basified water after it was left to sit.
Warm days reduced this to 50ml so was put in a tray and mixed with excess sodium carbonate then oven dried and pulverised with a hammer to a fine powder, this was ' jarred'.
Oil was salted again and the result was boiled down to 20ml or so.. The slick of oil present was almost impossible to remove some acid water had to go with it.
The white substance in the glass was then pasted with Na2CO3 dried crushed and added to the jar for an ipa paste and pull.
Slow outside sheltered evaporation resulted in a crusty translucent extract that smells like no other, a pleasant fruity plasticy smell.
There is still sodium carbonate contamination but not much just a spot its only greeny brown from the trees in the background its more of a pale yellowy white. Its inside drying completely.
DreaMTripper attached the following image(s):
IMG_20140114_125644.jpg
(122kb) downloaded 96 time(s). IMG_20140202_190830.jpg
(292kb) downloaded 100 time(s). IMG_20140202_191123.jpg
(166kb) downloaded 96 time(s).