Hi guys,

So i did my first ever AB extraction with HCl. Everything went perfectly until i did the last step with HCl to lower PH. When i added my 1 ml (i did .5 increments) it made my water layer containing the alkaloids far too low. Ph 2.5.


Now i am unsure what to do to rectify this. Do i evaporate the crystals and then readd them to my zylene and redo the acid extraction/H20 with a far lower amount of HCl?

Any suggestions would be helpfull.

I can suggest two options.

1) Continue with the TEK as is. Too low of a pH is not a big issue. You may have pulled extra stuff into the acidic water as more things become soluble in the lower pH. Slightly dirtier product, shouldn't be an issue.

2) Base the 2.5pH water, re-pull with xylene 5x times, and titrate again. This is a bunch more work. Personally I would not do all this extra stuff for the sake of less contaminants. They should be in trace amounts.



No, the xtals won't dissolve in xylene. You need to base the mescaline.

I would evaporate it, wash crystals with cold acetone or ipa and then try to recrystalize it from dual solvent system.

I though mainly sulfate was good for dual solvent system (water + acetone). Is there a good system for HCl?

Not sure, someone here on the forum suggested ethanol/acetone iirc. Definitely some experiments should be done to found out which are the suitable solvents and ratios.

Thanks for the advise. I think ill just skip and do option 1. Is ot normal for the h20 pull to be clear?

Also going to start the cielo tek tomorrow and see how it goes. 🙂