After a bit of searching, I failed to encounter a solid disaster spill thread. If there is one out there, please direct me to it and treat this as my personal extraction melt-down. I figured others could learn from my mishap. I am reasonably experienced with DMT, as most of my experiences have derived from DMT for which I performed the extraction. Yet bad luck can strike even the careful and reverent amateur kitchen-chemist.

We all have read about and likely had experience with the potent staining capabilities of Mimosa and Acacia at various stages of extraction. If you are doing an A/B extraction, you have dark red acidic liquid that will readily color tile, stove-tops, linoleum, and oh yeah, clothes and carpet. At the basic stage, one ends up with viscous, black-purple liquid of very high pH. It's soapy to the touch, like bleach.

A few weeks ago I was using a 2L Ball mason jar as my extraction vessel, containing ~1.75 L of basified tea and 120 ml hot naptha. The jar had been in a hot water bath in between mixing the basified and naptha layers to reduce emulsions. I had just finished pipetting off the naptha from my first pull into another glass container from the basified layer when I noticed a hairline crack going across the lower half of the extraction vessel. Uh-oh! It was a good thing I was prepared, and had another brand new 2L Ball jar handy. I grasped the neck of the extraction vessel to transfer it's contents into the new jar when it separated cleanly from the bottom half of the now bisected jar.

Disaster . Blackish-red liquid vomited microwave, chair, pants, fridge and kitchen floor. I had brutally murdered my extraction, all over my kitchen. Because the gods are kind and wise, I had completed my first pull and it was miraculously, perfectly intact and unspilt, despite my aghast reaction to my blunder. I took stock. Respirator? Check. But I had failed to exercise basic lab procedure and I was not wearing shoes. Standing in a the messy puddle, surveying the carnage, my feet where covered and starting to tingle. Some of the basic solution had actually landed in another beaker and bowl. These, and my naptha, I set aside. There were plenty of paper towels, so I began sopping up the mess with them and tossing them into a bucket. But, wow, had this stuff done a number on my linoleum. And me feet still tingled.

I grabbed a jug of vinegar I had on hand. In the tub, I rinsed my feet with white vinegar and put on shoes and fresh gloves. Then I went back and sloshed some vinegar on the floor. This did what you would expect, and turned the soapy dark red basified liquid into something more watery and easier to mop up with paper towels. Into the bucket. I did surfaces, getting tough spots with 100% vinegar. The chair I sprayed-down with a hose. I went through a whole fresh roll of paper towels and almost saw daylight in the cleanup effort.

But I wasn't finished. See, although I had done a first pool, there was still gold up in them hills...the bucket!! While there was about 300 ml of unadulterated basified tea recovered from the beaker and bowl, by squeezing out my paper towels, I collected about a liter of dark red liquid. It tested at pH 9.3. This I strained, re-basified, and did my final pulls.

The things that really made a bad situation not spiral into catastrophe were actually pretty simple. First, I remained calm and prioritized. Second, I had a number of back-up and materials on hand and in abundance. Third, I didn't put it off, I acted quickly and and was able to mitigate potential staining by neutralizing the pH and absorbing the spill. Finally, by keeping my eye on the prize, I used a cleanup method that allowed for further extraction.

While it's probably not the most fun topic on the Nexus, if you have similar stories to share, post'em here !

Did you put lye pellets into the glass jar directly?

I had this mishap a while ago, making strong lye solution by putting lye pellets into a glass flask, flushing tap water into the flask in such a manner as to disperse the pellets from the bottom and swirling the flask to mix and dissolve the lye pellets into the water.

The bottom fell out of the flask containing hot pH14 lye solution!

Luckily, I was (in order of importance)
- wearing goggles
- wearing gloves
- holding the flask in/over a large bucket placed under the tap
- doing it outside

The bucket contained the spill nicely... phew!

Since then, I only dissolve lye in stainless steel containers. You must still be careful not to breathe in the aerosol or get it into your eyes!

Mimosa hostilis root bark is sold as organic dye. I have personally used MHRB very effectively for treating severe burns (not related to extractions). The purple watery extract that I used creates brown stains that cannot be washed out of clothes.

By the way, I think I read one story here of someone who had a 3 liter (or gallon?) glass flask filled with based MHRB and toluene break in their garage.

The morale may be that glass has downsides too.. Of course, plastics can also fail catastrophically.

I did add the lye directly into the glass. I had suspected that was the culprit and now I have confirmation. I'll be making a lye solution in a separate container from now on. First time it's happened after many extractions...must have just been using thicker glass in previous extractions.

I take it you aren't married, otherwise, your problems would have only begun with your spill.

Hehe. So true!

After spilling 3l basified solution I can confirm this. *g*

Me dumbo ---- >

A 15 liter wine baloon bottle with a PH 13 mixture in it . I was swirling it only wearing underpants ......... about 1/2 a liter came out and flowed down my arm from my elbow to my hand . I ran straight away to the bath and ran VERY much water over it as fast as i could = For the next 6 weeks or so my arm felt like i had bad sunburn ....... right into the bone .

i have never been more pleased to not have a misses when a jar exploded, on the carpet, i just bought a rug

It's quite nice when your partner is a supporter and an active beneficiary of your alchemical activities

She was actually very understanding, despite a mess bigger than either of us had seen in years. I just said, "This is my mess and I know how to fix it. Just go to sleep." She was happy to leave me to it and it was clean by the morning.

I used to use mason jars it isnt worth the risk of spills and incrreased fumes ..
I find that clear narrow neck ..glass vinegar bottles].. work best for extractions..
When heating and cooling glass vessels alow the temperature change to change slowly to prevent cracking...
I also use pipetts to remove the napatha layer using a small computer fan to suck fumes out the window..
Be carefull..

pitubo, like you, I have a cautionary tale that could have been worse had I not been prepared. While performing an extraction in my garage late one very cold night, the styrofoam ice cooler water bath was too hot, and immediately upon contact with a nearly full, two gallon pickle jar of your standard, highly basified mhrb, said contents fell, along with the jar bottom, into the 2-3 gallons of hot water, making for alot of nicely toxic soup. Fortunately the flimsy styrofoam ice chest was already in a larger container that could be safely moved when full of hot-purple-death-water. To make a long story short, I added vinegar, disposed of the soup, and went on about my evening.

The things that helped me avoid a worse catastrophe are:
1. The safest location available was chosen. For me this is my garage in an area cleared out of stuff and equipped with an exhaust hood. For you it may be the back porch, the kitchen, bathroom, or the back of a moving pickup truck, I understand and am not making any judgements on that, and recognize that each of the preceding might be the best choice given the circumstance.
2. Wearing appropriate personal protective equipment including long cotton pants and long cotton shirt sleeves, gloves rated for the solvents and bases in use, goggles, and old leather boots. Like everyone else here, my intention is always to not even have a single splash or errant drop go anywhere unexpected; however, here I am reading and contributing to this thread! Accidents do happen, please don't put yourself at risk of adding injury to insult. Eyes, skin, liver, etc., all do worse with exposure to solvents, acids, bases, and other chemicals.
3. Spill containment equipment was at the ready for the types of chemicals I was working with. Three gallon jugs of vinegar, rolls of paper towels, a trash can, and a garden hose.
4. Obsessive "What iffing?" Prior to performing the extraction I'd mapped out the tek and equipment to use and looked for weak points in how I would perform the extraction, particularly when dealing with the pickle jar of basified mhrb. The styrofoam cooler was a great insulator, but very flimsy and could split if filled with hot basified water, so it was placed into another container that could be moved and carried while full. It is good to be paranoid! Look at your set up, where will liquids go when spilled, how will you clean them up, what if zombies stagger in while you are mixing your solution? Have a plan! Be prepared!

Okay, so preparing ahead for "the incident" was great and all, but it would have been even better to have avoided it. The pickle jar in a hot water bath has worked great for me many times, but I've never actually bothered to measure the water bath temperature, just relying on a digital thermometer - my finger. I knew it was a little warm in the kettle when I brought it out, but apparently it was a lot warm. Another of many lessons learned.

Wishing safety to all!

CS

Yep them ol' pickle jars don't like heat or lye. I've had the bottom drop out of one in my sink, thankfully I just finished my last pull. Soup just washed down the drain. I'll stick with thick hdpe jugs now, haven't had any issues with them yet.

It might be a good idea to keep a bottle or two of distilled vinegar nearby, should anything similar happen again. I've only had one spill, but it was small, and I got vinegar on it immediately (I always have a jug ready to go when extracting). However, once I managed to drop some lye pellets on a paper towel without noticing, then went to rinse the paper towel with water, resulting in a ball of sun-like heat burning my hand. Luckily, I threw it down before it could actually hurt me and ran water over it until the reaction stopped. Both occurred early in my learning, and I have since become very particular when it comes to safety.

Sorry to hear that! I never knew that mimosa/acacia could stain like that. It's definitely good to get that info out there.

I have a relevant story that happened to me recently.
I had a brand new separatory funnel and I was in the final stage of an extraction. It was loaded with DCM and a water solution full of goodies. I capped the funnel and left the room to go get a plate to put the DCM on to let it evap. While in the kitchen I hear a boom and glass shattering and hitting the floor. I just froze and pretty much denied that it was what it was and slowly let it all sink in.
My new funnel, hours of work, and a decent bit of supplies had just been wasted, not to mention having a room full of toxic fumes