1ce wrote:Using this, I removed the syringe plunger, stuffed the cotton ball down at the end, and poured the solvent down the top like a column. I had my crystalizing dish in a heatbath. The excess solvent ran out of the syringe tip and into the dish where I loaded the plunger and pumped the solvent out.
This makes me really curious, extracting with naptha tends to lead to more fats being pulled, true. But I wonder if preparing a syringe with a cotton ball or two and using the above method would bring out a cleaner end product.
I'm actually about to basify and extract now, I'll try that this time and post back on the results!
Well, I tried it, woulda done a lot better if I used 2 cotton balls. I literally based it and extracted with 25ml at a hot temp. I warmed my crystalizing dish on a hotplate so that my solvent wouldn't cool instantly and leave my spice in the cotton. I didn't remove any fats, oils, wash it, clean with charcoal, literally nothing.
First pic I've got everything lined up, cotton ball rammed down the syringe, warm hotplate below. There's even a little basic crud sitting under the hot naptha.
2nd pic I drop the naptha through the cotton, the basic crud is immediately left behind as the solvent falls through into the dish. I pump warm solvent through it from the dish back into the dish.
3rd picture I squeeze it very very dry so there's not much left behind. I might rinse it off tomorrow and repeat this process with boiling heptane and see if any spice got left behind.
Impurities getting stuck behind on the cotton are immediately visible, demonstrating its value as a purification technique. Thank's for sharing OP!
Edit: The spice was far from perfect but I intentionaly extracted it using terrible conditions to provide a 'bottom line'. It is however, absolutely smoalkable though. I included a picture of the crude extract. I also included a picture of the spice recrystalized using the same principle.
I can conclude that OP's found method of purifying spice works very very well even for hackjob extractions.
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