Would back salting a non polar solvent
(In this case sunflower oil) containg dmt freebase with soda water work to produce dmt carbonate? Or is soda water to weak?

Anyone know if dmt carbonate is solid or goo?

this is a very basic question, next time use the FAQ.

No this will not work, you need an acid, like vinegar fumaric or citric, to make a salt.

Hope this helps.

intosamadhi, what was your reasoning behind this idea?

Seeing as sodium carbonate can be used to turn a DMT salt into DMT freebase, it should be fairly clear that DMT carbonate is not stable at normal temperatures and pressures.

Soda water contains carbonic acid.



I am just playing with ideas for an alternative to vinegar for the back salting. I know i can use citric acid instead, but was just curious about whether it would be possible to make dmt-carbonate. Vinegar is the most convenient even though it doesn't interact so nicely with the sunflower oil (which is what i use as solvent). Some always gets trapped in the oil and forms a dirty layer. My main reason for this though is that I want the end product in a form which i can use directly in my mouth without burning the skin off. Both freebase and concentrated dmt-acetate burn quite a bit.



I don't quite follow this. Simply because a base can be used to freebase a salt doesn't necessarily mean that the salt is unstable, or am i missing something?

Sodium bi/carbonate is stable at normal temperatures, so I just assumed dmt-carbonate might be a stable solid also.

I think the carbonic acid is released with the bubbles so you would have to put the lid on and shake under pressure so the bubbles can't escape. I'm no chemist but I reckon it would be worth giving a try and writing up the results. If it doesn't work you still have your sunflower oil to salt out. I've been wondering if there was a use for soda water in extractions. I was thinking more along the lines of a cold soak soda water extraction for powderised caapi vine, or something like that. Drive off the bubbles and your left with a less acid brew.

If you go ahead with a trial run be sure to report back.

Intosamadhi, there have been previous reports of using carbonated water to salt out alkaloids; please search for the posts of amor_fati who used selzer water to salt mescaline and also dmt if i remembr correctly.

Any way you cut it, there is no reason why carbonated water wouldn't work. Carbonate is water-soluble and has an acidic pH, it can thus protonate (or "salt", more colloquially) dmt. Carbonate is also a volatile acid and if you boil a solution of it,it will evaporate, thus deprotonating, or freebasing any salted dmt. The latter means that yes you can salt dmt using carbonated water but no, there is no chance of boiling the dmt carbonate solution to yield dmt carbonate residue.

So could you salt out using carbonated water and evaporate off the solution to leave freebase?

Hmmm... now, there's a thought...

Wikipedia entry on carbonic acid.

- this may affect the efficiency of any back-salting.

I realise that in my previous post, I was answering the OP's question with the assumption that a crystalline carbonate was desired. How silly of me. "Assume makes an ass of U and me" - or in this case me (and not for the first time!) - so, sorry about that.

The correct answer would be, "try it and see".

Now I'll search for the posts of amor_fati "who used selzer water to salt mescaline and also dmt(?)"

It strikes me that some kind of soda syphon might come in useful in these kinds of process.

Having performed a couple of searches using different combinations of words, I can conclude that there is no readily findable data regarding the use of aqueous CO2 for the back-salting of DMT.

So go ahead and generate some data, someone...

This was my conclusion also so i may give it a go.

On a side note: I wonder in what form dmt exists in the human body? I suppose dmt-carbonate would be the most likely candidate as carbonic acid exists in the blood. if so then dmt-carbonate if maintained in a solution might be the most 'natural' form dmt would be absorbed into the body.

The form of DMT in the body (besides freebase vapour in the lung cavity ) is most likely as the protonated form. It won't be the carbonate per se as dissolved salts dissociate into their respective solvated ions. A certain amount of the DMT is likely to be bound to plasma proteins and platelets in various ways. And of course some will be bound to certain cellular receptor sites. Just off the top of my head.


I'd be very interested to hear of any results using carbonated water. Perhaps putting the NPS in a glass or metal soda syphon with some - maybe twice the volume of NPS - distilled water and then adding the CO2 would be worth a try?

If you can salt out with carbonic acid you could put it on leaf and evaporate off the carbonic acid to make enhanced leaf or changa..totally food safe changa..

So... did intosamadhi or anyone else try this?

If back-salting to soda would work, why not do hot water pulls on plant material, combine pulls and reduce to a very low volume, add the carbonate, shake, fan evap dry? Or is the natural plant state dmt acid stronger than the carbonic acid? Meaning it won't change to dmt-carbonate and later freebase. Then there are the plant impurities which stayed in the solution.

You'd need more than water pulls to separate the alkaloid from other materials. Addition of a base and extraction into a non-polar phase is a must.
Exactly. The DMT needs to be freed from the tannates and other plant acids.

Backsalting from the NPS into pressurised soda water will probably work. I still think it's promising and I had largely forgotten that this thread exists. (Thanks for the bump!)

Thanks. Yeah, thought so.

Backsalting FB from sunflower oil into soda water is on my to do list. I will report here.

Above I read complications about using vinegar with sunflower oil. Could I use carbonated water for the acid stage?

- place mhrb in a container
- perform 3 boils on the bark with carbonated water *
- discarded plant matter, combine boils and reduce volume
- base with sodium carbonate
- pull with sunflower oil
- back-salt with carbonated water
- evaporate

* The acidity of the carbonated water will benefit breaking up plant material and releasing DMT compared to boiling with only water. During the boiling all co2 will escape. This is not a problem because the DMT will stay in its tannate salt state throughout the acid boiling process. Correct?

Will sodium carbonate be just as efficient as lye?
Will back salting more than say 10min pull in impurities?

Yes



* The acidity of the carbonated water will benefit breaking up plant material and releasing DMT compared to boiling with only water. During the boiling all co2 will escape. This is not a problem because the DMT will stay in its tannate salt state throughout the acid boiling process. Correct?[/quote]
I do not see the point using carbonated water, as you say it will escape. Why not use some other not so volatile acid?

Better use the carbonate for backsalting.

Also, there is not such thing as dmt tannate, nor dmt salt. In acidic solutions, dmt exists as protonated species and that's all. Acids (be it from the plant or added by the extractor) just help the solution to be acidic.



I'd say no - sodium carbonate works poorly in raising the pH in complex solutions such as plant concoctions. Will work in simple solutions though like water & dmt salt.


Hard to say but possibly yes.
I personally do not trust sunflower oil. Sunflower oil will saponify to some extent when in contact with base and those soapy compounds (soluble in water and no polar solvent) will be hard to get rid of.

Maybe Endlessness has already tried the extend soaps come along and stay using rigorous detection approaches as opposed to theory (me, here) and has come to more solid conclusions?

Thanks for the info Infundibulum.


Please help me understand. With FASA the freebase DMT reacts with the Fumaric acid to form the DMT salt DMT-Fumerate. For pharma adding freebase DMT to lemon juice turns to DMT-citrate. Are you saying the DMT state naturally occuring in plants stays in that state (which isn't a DMT plant salt such as DMT-tannate) regardless of the acid type added to the solution?


I was hoping the acidity would help for as long as it lasts per boil. Each new boil gets new carbonated water. If so this could be used for Caapi brew to obtain a better taste as rahlii mentions. Instead of boiling in an open pan, could you heat in a closed bottle preventing co2 from escaping keeping the solution acidic?

I agree that for extractions using an acid which doesn't evaporate away half way through the process makes more sense. Which other acid easily obtainable as food grade would work (not mess with the veggie oil)? Citric acid?


For plant concoctions. If I do 3 boils on the bark, discard bark, combine boils, evap down, let solids settle for several days in the fridge, separate solids. Will the remaining solution be "simple enough" to use with sodium carbonate? Or will lye still be preferred? Again the point is easily obtainable food grade products. But I don't want to scarifies yield.


Good to know. So the trick is finding the right base /oil type combo. There are 4 main options for bases: Sodium Hydroxide, Potassium Hydroxide, Calcium Hydroxide, Sodium Carbonate. There are plenty of options for veggie oil: sunflower oil, rice oil, peanut oil, coconut oil, etc. I could test for soapy compound formations. Will the "soap" be visible? Or will it dissolve in the NPS, then redissolve in the back salting solution and only become visible after evaporation?


If anyone has any info regarding which acids, basis and veggie oils work best and duration /temp suggestions, please do share.

Already found some info here, but since the hippy salad tek disappeared almost everyone stopped talking about veggie oil as NPS.

Thanks for the help guys. It would be really nice if we could get this tek working.

When you concoct DMT-containing plant material, where the naturally occurring form may be the tannate salt, in solution you have DMT H+ (protonated DMT ions) and tannate anions.
If you concoct it with vinegar added, you'll also have dissociated acetic acid, i.e. H+ and acetate anions.

It doesn't make sense to say that the DMT stays as the tannate salt in solution, because it's simply protonated DMT. Now, as you evaporate water, the solution becomes saturated and DMT salts will start precipitating. It's my understanding that you'll end up with both DMT tannate and DMT acetate, and the ratio will depend on the respective acid strength and the relative abundance of the respective acid anions (e.g. if tannic acid is stronger than acetic acid, the DMT H+ will combine with the tannate anions preferentially over acetate ions; although that's a simplification).


Citric acid is not volatile. Acetic acid is.


It will still be a very complex solution. Letting the solids settle doesn't really change the solution; what settles is the suspension phases. What's dissolved remains dissolved, although the fridge decreases solubility and can cause solvated things to fall out of solution (among which may be your goodies).


Calcium hydroxide (pickling lime) is a strong, yet food grade base.

Limonene is quite popular, but it still infuses the backsaltings with a smell / taste you want to evaporate your solution completely to get rid of. And it's pricey.
Reportedly, mixing some limonene into sunflower oil helps break emulsions.
I'd be interested to hear more about the other oils.