SWIM has quite a lot of nearly pure bufotenine sitting around. When he tried it orally a few times, he noticed that there was a very slight taste of xylene present after swallowing the dosage. When he’d burp during the trip, the taste of xylene was quite evident.

SWIM thought he removed all the xylene from the bufotenine, but apparently not. He can’t smell it when he smells the dried crystals, but it’s definitely still there.

He ingested up to 100 mg of crystals, and is figuring the purity to be about 96%. The aftertaste of xylene was present especially when burping 30 minutes after ingesting the bufotenine. SWIM is guessing that less that 1% is xylene, so SWIM ingesting probably less than 1 mg of xylene. He’s not happy about this. He was fine afterwards, but still doesn’t like the idea of ingesting even traces of xylene.

During both of his oral tests, he experienced an uneasy feeling in his stomach for a few hours. He attributed this to the bufotenine itself, but is now not sure, maybe the xylene was responsible for this uneasy feeling in the stomach?

What would happen if a person ingested 1 mg of xylene? How toxic is xylene in the amounts SWIM may have ingested orally?

Does anyone have any good ideas on how to remove all the remaining traces xylene from the crystals?

Here is the order of toxicity (roughly) for some of the main aromatic hydrocarbons benzene -> toluene -> xylene. Some of the xylene can be converted oxidized in the body to make a carcinogenic epoxide (SWIM thinks, this happens with benzene for sure). More so happens with toluene and the worst is benzene. But small amounts of it shouldn't be a problem. Chronic long term exposure is more of a real problem for any of the above solvents mostly benzene the others aren't so bad.

Anyway SWIM is paranoid about toluene residue in jungle spice (and can smell it sometimes when only air dried and even when evaporated with a roto-evaporator under reduced pressure!) so SWIM redissolves in pure ethanol and then re-evaporates it so it gives the toluene a chance to evaporate more with out needing to heat things at a higher temperate. Also xylene can be trapped within the crystals of any substance that once dissolve it and adding ethanol and re-evaporating allows these trace amounts to be removed again. SWIM would recommend anyone working with these solvents do this extra step if they suspect residual solvent. Remember toluene and xylene have relatively high boiling points compared to many other organic solvents.

SWIM still has that xylene taste in his mouth...

I'm assuming ethyl acetate is used in hydrolysis causing a reaction of breaking bonds between the solvents, but that's just a guess.

what about hotplate and keep it in a constant below-vaporizing temperature for a while? What about doing like burnt mentioned and dissolving it in alcohol and then letting it evap again, maybe even a couple of times?

a friend dissolved his jungle spice in ethanol 4 times and let the ethanol evaporate. he also remelted the dried product about 10 times or so, letting it sit on a hotplate for 15minutes for each remelt before storing it. yes he is VERY paranoid about traces of solvent being in his end product. he likes to live a healthy life. when it comes to health one can't be paranoid enough these days

10mg/l will kill trout. But not his notes



Since boiling point of toluene is pretty high (144 celsius) , ILPT would try toluene wash and then evaporating toluene damps from solid filtrate in vacuum on the slightly hot plate (bath,sand)