Hello, as announced in a bad written topic some weeks ago, I've performed a FASA. My yield though hasn't been satisfying, and I would like to see where there's room for improvement.


I prepared a FASA solution and a solution of acetone and citric acid (should have been 5g/100 ml, but this could be debatable... even if honestly it's more likely to have been more than 5g). The FASA was left several days to absorb as much fumaric acid as possible, even stirred for a whole afternoon, and in the end there was still fumaric acid at the bottom.

I powdered 10g of MHRB for about 1-2 minutes in a coffee grinder.

I stirred the plant for 2h in 40ml of the acetone+citric acid solution. x3 total. Filtered and combined. I notice a significant decrease in the volume.

Added something like 120 ml of FASA (which seems to me an overkill). Covered with plastic wrap, put a bigger beaker with the mouth oriented towards the ground to contain the one containing the solution. (Hope the explanation is clear). I did this hoping to protect the solution from moisture (I live in a pretty humid area).

Waited 3 days. Collected 45 mg of DMT fumerate.

Something done wrong? Bad plant material?

I want to try to add more FASA, just in case.


Thanks for the attention!

Your method was completely awry, it's amazing that you recovered anything! What information was your method based on?

I'm not convinced you'll pull much from bark with citric/acetone. DMT citrate is only poorly soluble in acetone, IIRC. With the caveat that most citric acid is sold as the monohydrate. Anhydrous citric acid is (or was) available as a descaling agent. So if any of us were wanting to use properly anhydrous solutions of citric acid this sort of thing should be useful to know.

The humidity most assuredly hasn't helped, you'll want to build a makeshift desiccator. Think plastic tub with anhydrous calcium chloride or silica gel. Needs to be big enough for your solvent container, naturally.

I'll wager that most of the goods are still in the bark and anything else is in your damp acetone. Otherwise your bark is bunk.

The above method may have been taken from here:

Yes it was taken from there.

Funny thing is that I discarded the idea to use citric acid time ago, then after a series of weird reasoning I decided to use it again.
At least my citric acid was anhydrous

But so, would an extraction into plain acetone work? I mean, in the plant we have dmt-tannate right? Isn't it insoluble in acetone?

I'm not sure we even know. Chances are about evens that it's soluble as that it's insoluble. A vinegar (or better, acetic acid) soak followed by drying then pulling with acetone should eliminate that ambiguity.

FASA might not precipitate terribly well if your acetone is too damp so eliminate that variable first, if you believe the tek to be sound.

On a sideline, I've found an OTC source for both 60% acetic acid and acetone locally so I may try this out just to see. (As you may infer, I have the anhydrous citric already ) Trying the procedure with plain acetone, and maybe also with a vinegar/sodcarb pre-process, would be variations worth investigating.

One final question: you did dry your acetone thoroughly, didn't you?

Well, first I'll give a try with just acetone (actually I tried already... but at a certain point I discarded everything because I felt sure it couldn't work), then even the vinegar soak sound promising.

My acetone was sold to me saying it has at most 0.5% water.
I also already have acetic acid, probably above 60% (can't recall actually)

I don't live in the USA, here it's quite easy to get a lot of stuff!



Thanks for the answers

I don't live (and have never lived) in the USA either, but I recently moved to a different country and finding new supplies has been an adventure. I'm still adjusting to the difficulty of finding pure caustic soda OTC without questions! It's fun to be inventive while learning everything in another language.