while dreaming, swim prepared a decent sized batch using youkaindoles ratio's. 100g root/55 g NaOH/500mL water/100mL naphta (swim is dreaming less vol with toluene instead)

he added a bit of water, to that some NaOH, then added his rootbark, sloshed around a bit, then added the remaining basified water, gently sloshed a bit and then added some toluene.

before adding the toluene, he looked into the container and noticed that the rootbark powder had taken to floating atop the basified water.

Fearing saponification, he gently rolled the container and added the toluene anyways.



few remarks/questions:

first off, will the water eventually make its way to soaking into the rootbark? or should swim remove the nonpolar layer and then go ahead and shake the crap out of the mix in order to get a more homogenous mixture?


secondly, yes, he has the black color, but the mix definatly seems rather thick- swim is preparing to add heat (this reaction has been dreamt in a COLD environment so far!!!)

Will the addition of heat forego the need to mix the hell out of the solution?

the mix appears rather thick as well, should swim up the volume (maintaining pH of course) towards Noman tek specifications ..... considering the fact that heat will be applied?

how important is it to avoid saponification? (swim already understands the need to avoid emulsion...)