SWIM wants to bake his own sodium carbonate from store-bought baking soda to avoid the hassle/risk of buying real sodium carbonate online. However, he is worried that the product he produces won't be pure sodium carbonate, and could introduce impurities when used in his tek (specifically, he was going to use it to freebase DMT acetate). As such he has 3 questions:

1) Is there any way to verify that sodium carbonate is present in the product that comes out of the oven? (i.e. by checking pH when some of the product is added to dH2O?)

2) Is there any way to purify the sodium carbonate + bicarbonate mix that comes out of SWIM's oven?

3) Is there any possibility that, if SWIM uses the mix of carbonate + bicarbonate for freebasing, some of the leftover bicarbonate would dissolve in IPA (which swim is going to use to extract the freebase DMT)?

SWIM knows these are some heavy, theoretical questions not directly related to DMT but would appreciate any insights!

both sodium bi carbonate and carbonate are insoluble in alcohol/ethanol according to wiki.

dissolve 45.5 grams in warm water, and you should have a ph of 11-11.6-wouldn't this would indicate a successful conversion?

when i baked sodium bicarbonate in the oven, i used a clean pyrex dish, used 450f and more like 2.5 hours-removing the pan and stirring it to give more surface area to heat. also said oven is of questionable condition, and wanted to be sure conversion took place.
also, store it in a glass jar with lid.
good bye lye.

Easy; just check the weight. The conversion of sodium bicarbonate to sodium carbonate is coupled with release of water and carbon dioxide. This makes the final product ~37% lighter, so if you bake 100g of sodium bicarb you should end up with just above 60g of sodium carbonate if the conversion is complete. Refer to the original tek for more details

ahh -there it is

i was looking in google to find ph of saturated soduim carbonate solutions, and everything i found stated ph 10-11.6.
now previously, i had disssolved 80g in 200ml warm water, and tested with old ph papers, and my best guess at color was ph 13.
when i added this to vinegar/water solution in an a/b tek, the ph was now 12. i thought how could this be-how can i be getting a higher ph then 11 ? will it reach 13?

I bought a giant jug of 100% sodium carbonate for 10 bucks at WalMart in the swimming pool supplies section. It's for adjusting the PH of my imaginary pool
If you can't walk in and buy it at a store, I wouldn't worry about getting it online. It's a common substance that's necessary for those of us with pretend pools and as such shouldn't arouse undue suspicion

Add some to some vinegar and shake.

Baking soda = MASSIVE FIZZ

Sodium Carbonate = ~20% of the fizz....

Not too scientific, but SWIM's experience has taught him this basic fact.

My friend who refuses to use the internet says he tried this and it worked exactly as you said! After ~4 hrs in the oven at 450F the weight dropped by almost *exactly* 37% (like, within 0.1 g). Pretty cool!

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I just got out of my pretend hottub. Ahhhhhhhh. I sure am pretend relaxed.


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I REALLY AM happy for you!