Yes, I dried the chloroform with MgSO4, which already resulted in an oily substance when evaporated. The recrystallization from pet ether (which was not dried) gave the same thing.
I will abandon this extraction, since it's a very small amount anyway.
I'm going to try again using a more specific procedure:
Reflux for 30min finely powdered mimosa in 3x 96% ethanol with frequent hand agitation, combine and evaporate. Redissolve in water, basify with NaOH to pH 12-13 and extract with chloroform once or twice.
Now the part which I'm not sure: I was thinking of adding a saturated solution of salicylic acid in chloroform to precipitate DMT salicylate. Has this been tested? Salicylic acid is somewhat soluble in chloroform. I'm having a hard time getting fumaric acid. I don't want to evaporate the chloroform and risk obtaining some probable N-oxide again.
benzyme, you say that you evaporate the chloroform and recrystallize from pet ether, but how exactly do you do this?
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