Hey Fam,

super exciting times ahead.

Iv been experimenting and having with DMT for some time now and am about to embark on my own extraction process.

im struggling to find out the difference between VM&P naphtha, Zippo fluid, or lighter fluid and which is better to use when DEFATTING?

Ive managed to get hold of 'CLIPPER' lighter fluid, but is it the same as "ZIPPO FLUID"? and or is VM&P naptha better to use? ive even found info stating that just plain naptha will also work?

so yeah struggling a bit to decide which to use

I'm not familiar with the US products, but I remember that everywhere it was stated that VM&P Naphtha seems the way to go.

What I can just say it that the best Naphtha regarded overall is the one with the Hexane-Heptane-Isomer mixture, often labeled as C6-C7 or otherwise described as hydrocarbons with boiling range 60 - 80 °C. Just take a look at the ingredient section, maybe these data is written down - at least in Europe its fully labeled.

Too low boiling point like 40 - 60 °C will decrease DMT solubility heavily and also higher boiling stuff is quite bad, I saw one time that the freeze-precipitation step does not really work well if I recall correctly.

But you especially ask for the DEFAT step. Well the best Naphtha for the Defat step will also be the best one for the extractoin of your active ingredient later on. Or is there a special reason why you only ask for Defat?
Besides Mimosa Root Bark normally does not require any defat. Some "bad" bark may produce yellowish glue when not defatted. You would have to do 1 run without any defat and look if your product is crystaline or rather an oily mess. Then you know if you should do a defat all the time - that would save you a lot of work instead of doing a defat all the time, even though you may not even need it ;D Acacia species will always require defat, at least that's what is often written here.

In general the simplest thing to do is using the same solvent for defatting and pulling.

Think about it - if some impurity is soluble in your solvent, then you will extract it after 3 defats and very little of it will remain to be pulled later. If some impurity is insoluble in your solvent, then your pulls will not pick it up either. Filter that bark out of the container before you defat.

In reality solubility changes in acidic vs. basic conditions, so it is not as simple as above. For maximum purity you should ideally use a solvent that pulls a wider spectrum of chemicals, and for pulling you should use a solvent that leaves most of them behind and only picks up DMT. For example, you can use limonene for defatting and hot heptane for pulling. Mimosa does not contain much fat, but who knows what other non-polar impurities it may contain, so it cannot hurt to defat.

I found the best to use is pure heptane. Yes it yields a little less but the product comes out cleaner and sometimes you wont need to re crystal. I have also found that using heptane, the color of the end product was white and not yellow. Supposedly even vm and p naphta has impurities now, don't know if that's true.