Hello Nexians.

I am merkin and I am not a chemist and have no training and I am hoping to learn a lot more about the spicy goodness around which this forum resolves. I have made two extractions that went well, well sort of. Not without mishap. Haven't tried the fruits of my labour yet as I have no ideal vaporisation device. I have been wanting to do this for many years now since hearing Terrence McK speak once on a visit to the US but its been on the backburner. For about 3 years I've had 500g of MHRB sitting airtight in a cupboard until recently. Finally got the ingredients, gear and motivation to start trying a spice extraction.

First I tried some powdered san pedro and that all went pretty well. Awesome actually and no mishaps. Product was fantastic. Thinks: I can do this!

Now I am a South African and I things like 'naphtha' are pretty much unheard of. None of the usual chem supply places knew what I was talking about. There is nothing on the shelves like that so one has to dig around MSDS's and such. I still have no idea what its called here! If in fact it is available in some standard way. As for the lighter fluids, Zippo I can find but its not held in highest regard. No ronsonol whatever. So I had to look elsewhere. And this is what led to my first hiccup on the extraction front.

I tried converting 50g of MHRB via noman's tek and got a (disappointing) 360mg for my troubles. At least it was something. Then I stupidly re-xed with nHeptane and lost a bunch of that. Not sure why but after much reading I should have been happy with my yellow tinged white powder. I'm not a purist, I'm on a quest for a breakthrough experience and need some fuel.

Now - 'Naphtha'. It seems to be a beast with a thousand faces, names and CAS numbers! Where the heck is the scientific precision that seems to apply to everything else. All other chems often referred to (solvents etc) are relatively easily available here. But Naphtha? Nope. No-one's ever heard of it. I thought I'd found some in a solvent from a ***** supplier. It said 'Heavy aromatic petroleum solvent 95%' and 'Medium Aliphatic petroleum solvent 5%' on the msds so I got two 2 litre jugs. When opened there seemed to already be a problem - one was tinted yellow and the other clear. But the same stuff according to the label!

Everything I read here and around says that Naphtha is clear. Not yellow. Only time yellow is mentioned is in connection with a pull. Anyway, what the heck, Noman + 50g plus my yellow Naphtha, here we go...

Result: 360mg slightly yellow/white crystals! Phew! It worked. But the more I read, the more it was always clear naphtha. So now I tried to up the ante. Cyb's Max Ion tec. 100g MHRB. But this time I'll go with the clear Naphtha. Makes more sense right. Evap was clean, good to go.

Evapped down to a cloudy yellow soup and into the freezer. A day or so later I take it out...frozen solid! Well looks like it. As I touched it I realised it was sort of mushy. But frozen crust like thinly iced lake. And it melted fast. But most importantly ZERO PRECIPITATION! Zero - just a swampy slush-puppy mess with nebulous white stuff floating around. I'm a noob here and couldn't even post here screaming for help yet! Eventually after trying a few things I gave up and just let it evap. It went clear again with yellow globs of oil floating around. Its still evapping!

What a waste I thought. Water in the mix freezing? Naphtha doesnt freeze though? Maybe it wasn't Naphtha. WTF is Naphtha anyway and why is it so iffy! Obviously this was my problem. I looked at my 2 litres of black darkness and thought what the heck let me try with the yellow version...well, lots of cloudy pulls. Let me keep going till it goes clear. I'm on pull 8 now and its still cloudy! Its gotta be good right? Even cyb says cloudy yellow is good! Into the freezer. Wait till morning. Looks in freezer --- omg it still liquid! And there are the familiar floater white things from my first attempt. Its working. Back to the pulls...work in progress.
Which brings me back to wanting to hook up with fellow countrymen here. What TF is naphtha called here. Guaranteed real naphtha that works in these tecs?

Googling I can find no less than 12 CAS numbers and all sorts of equivalents. "White Spirits" is available here. Some dude's solvent. Is that it? White spirits is not looked up to here. And I just don't have the material to experiment with? If I go back to the supplier and get the same product will I get yellow (good) or clear (useless). I don't want to ask first and appear suspicious! Its where I get my GBL too. And I would anyway prefer to get the Light version as it seems better by all accounts. But hey, Toluene, Benzine, Xylene, nHeptane, NaOH etc. No problem getting this stuff through regular channels rather than hardware stores. It says what it is on the bottle. No ambiguity. Easy peasy. Not some kind of industry brand® substance cover name and who knows if its the same formulation as in the MSDS.

So - Saffas! My question: what is the good solvent and what the heck is it called in this country!?
In meantime my quest continues unabated. By the time the spice reaches my brain I know the quest will have been worth it. But anyone able to help me find a predictable source of whatever is the correct naphtha? I know its gotta be out here somewhere hiding under some other name...

Also I love shrooms and cactus and all sorts of other things when I can get them from someone I trust. I am seriously paranoid about powders or pills from unknown sources. That's why DMT has to be a DIY thing. I need to KNOW. I am seriously in awe and gratitude for people like Sasha Shulgin, Nick Sands and Stanley Kubrick among others. I enjoy Hamilton Morris's video forays and wish I had a chemist friend like him...

And, uh, hello the rest of the world nexians, thanks for the enormous wealth of information you have piled up (and keep piling up) here. Truly useful and inspiring.

Much gratitude.

Such respect!

Howzit
Neon and Newport brands of lighter fluid ftw. Both are clear liquids.
Many supermarket cig counters will stock one of these brands. (100ml tin can)
Clipper is good for zippo lighters only.

Howzit merkin!

I'm also from South Africa! So nice to meet a fellow countryman!

Sorry but I can't help you with your naphtha problem unfortunately. I've never extracted before.

Just wanted to say hi and welcome to the Nexus.

Welcome, brother!

Thanks form is emptiness! I will definitely check that out and try on my current adventure. Only ever seen Newport in gas versions. A lot more expensive than 5l of the 'naphtha'-alike solvent I bought earlier though so I will quest to find the real thing in a 5l plastic bottle. Its gotta be out there and a lot cheaper than lighter fluid

Thanks JustAnotherHuman

If you don't have a hardware/paint store that sells naphtha as a solvent/thinner for paints, of course the next best thing is lighter fluid as long as it evaporates clean. Some of us here in the US are having problems with some unknown impurity in our naphtha that only shows up in an acid wash. https://www.dmt-nexus.me/forum/default.aspx?g=posts&t=70738
If you have access to chemical supply, you could use heptane or hexane. Xylene will work for pulling DMT from basic solution, but not for re-x and is completely incompatible with any kind of plastic or rubber.

And naphtha is not a chemical per se. It is a soup of petroleum distillates that are pulled off the distillation column at a certain range of heights. In the US it sells for $15-20/gallon, so it's cheap and does everything we need for extraction.

Thanks syberdelic. I can get either (n)heptane or hexane - which one would you recommend?

Heptane ... probably better for your health ... Good results.

Solvent update: After some more detailed reading and a bit of interaction here it seems that the best option for me would be to use Petroleum Ether as a solvent. It's about half the price of the lighter fluid, is available in 5 specified boiling point ranges and is guaranteed to be exactly what it says it is, and not identified via the MSDS which may not always match the contents of the container (a fact I appear to have found out the hard way!)

The specific version recommended for pulling was the 30-60°C BP so I will go for that one. Apparently the German version is called Wundbenzin and by some nexian reports is highly regarded for the task? I have about a half kilo of mhrb left to experiment with so I will attack that in 50g portions until I achieve a pile of powder rather than a smear of oily yellow!

Onward...

I'd say 30-60 Pet Ether is better for recrystallisation. Good extraction results have been had with a heavier distillate. In a hot climate your low-boiling solvent might disappear rather quickly, too.

I agree that you want a higher boiling point especially if you are going to heat the solvent to increase solubility. I would say the lower boiling point should be at least 60C.

I have found that many of the "better" solvents for the initial pull from basic solution are very problematic. For instance, xylene is great for performing the pull, but has an awful odor and evaporates very slowly. It will also eat through just about any kind of plastic or rubber whereas naphtha, hexane, heptane are fairly benign.

If you use one of these to pull, the pull can be placed in the freezer until all DMT is precipitated. Simply pour the cold solvent back into the basic solution and repeat. There are going to be more pulls this way, but near zero evaporation of solvent. You can reduce the number of pulls by heating up the solution to no more that 50C during agitation and separation. The great thing about these solvents is that the solubility of DMT freebase is near zero at the 0C and very soluble at 50C.

Now if you want to convert the final product to salt form, xylene would be a great solvent to use since all the DMT would migrate back to aqueous solution. At this point, you can freeze the water/DMT salts and pour off the xylene for reuse.

And remember never to use flame for heating solvents.

Thanks folks. I did get some PEther and I noticed the effects of the low temp boiling immediately-30°C is not that hot! And you're right - pretty close to ambient temp on a hot summer day. On the positive side, unlike what I had previously that took weeks to evaporate to a yellow oil, this stuff practically flies out the container. Maybe a bit hasty on that decision, but nevertheless I'm happy to try again. Haven't used it to extract yet.

Should I stick with the PEther and just go for the 60-80 or 80-100 BP versions or rather stick with a solvent that has a name like Heptane?