SWIM thought about. I know that precipitation step would work with hydrochloric acid in acetone, but I don't know if it would work using citric acid. SWIM doesn’t have the materials available to make the HCl acetone solution.

From what I read, the acetone needs to be boiled out when toulene is used. If the acetone remains the mescaline HCl doesn’t precipitate out.

Do you know of anyone having success precipitating mescaline citrate out of xylene?

The syrupy citric acid extract that's drying in the oven at 175 F now has two very different crystals that are forming in it.

One type of crystal that is forming is obviously citric acid. I can tell because I know exactly what citric acid crystals look like.

The other crystals are NOT citric acid. They are long thin rectangles. They look sort of like salt crystals, but they are long and thin, not square. I’ve never seen this type of crystal before. Is that what mescaline citrate looks like?

ive read that mescaline does form long thin crystals..it sounds like you did it

Yeah, most of SWIM’s crystals that are forming do look very similar to that pic on Erowid. Hopefully it is mescaline citrate.

It’s not completely dry yet. It seems like it has many hours more to go before it’s done.

The second methanol Soxhlet extraction SWIM is doing on the same cactus material is now very dark, nearly black, so there’s a lot more in the cactus that 99% IPA was unable to extract. I have no idea if any of what’s being extracted by methanol has mescaline in it. Hopefully it does.

SWIM is really hoping that he gets at least 700 mg out of this work. He wants 1 decent trip and hopefully some leftover to experiment with in various solvents.

yeah that would be exciting..and if this forum can work on new extraction teks..we may be able to get something that was really easy..and safer than the existing techniques..SWIM isnt all too fond of sodium hydroxide and xylene..he would much rather stick with heptane, acetone, MEK, and the alcohols..he would like to set up a distilling apparatuses..to purify all his solvents so he could reuse them..

SWIM should just get a Soxhlet...could you get one that had a secondary path for the siphon side arm..so that you could use it to distill your solvent first

I don’t like sodium hydroxide at all. I won’t allow it in my house period. It’s way too dangerous. I also don’t like hydrochloric acid for the same reason. Xylene smells awful. I don’t like it either.

Yes a Soxhlet with a drain valve is a cool thing to have. They are not as commonplace but you can find them. You occasionally see them on eBay for a good price. They will cost you a little more than a normal one but because they double as a still they are worth the extract cost. Even if you don’t use it as a still, having the drain valve allows you to concentrate your extract right in the Soxhlet. SWIM’s doesn’t have a drain valve so he has to put his extract in his still to concentrate it down. It’s more work that way, and more glassware.

The best size Soxhlet is 1000 ml or more. That will handle about 100-300 grams of herb at a time (depending on what you’re extracting). What’s nice about them is that you just fill them with your solvent, let it run over night with running water cooling it, and the following morning it’s done in most cases.



SWIM’s extraction is NOT going well. The material left behind from the IPA extraction amounted to less that 25 mg after cleaning it with dry acetone. It looks like mescaline, but it’s just too small of yield to be of use.

Such a bummer.

It’s late. SWIM will let his Soxhlet methanol extraction run overnight while he sleeps. Hopefully the methanol will pull more out.

That would be because mescaline is soluble in acetone. Acetones problem for extracting mesc is grabbing lots of other shit as well. This is bassed on what i have read. Though maybe i could help by suggesting something to try. Make a good Acetone extract and take the FASA way to drop the crystals out and filter, then wash the crystals. I see no harm in trying.

Ofcourse unless its been tried and dosen't work.

Which mescaline? Mescaline chloride is insoluble in acetone. Mescaline citrate is insoluble in acetone. Mescaline sulfate is insoluble in acetone. Mescaline fumarate is insoluble in acetone. Freebase mescaline on the other hand must be soluble in acetone.

But we do not know about what type of salts mescaline is naturally found in in the cactus. Judging however from the solubility of other mescaline salts however, one could assume that they are not soluble in acetone. But actually we do not know.

I have seen some people proposing the use of acetone in a soxhlet extraction (albeit methanol and ethanol are always cited as far superior) of cactus powder, but I've never read any reports (and quantitative results) of actual acetone extraction of cactus powder/chips.

Do you have any reference of mescaline being extracted from cactus powder/chips via acetone? that would be pretty interesting!

Yes, on Erowid in one of there teks, thats where i read this. And it was reffering to maescaline as it is in the cactus. I'll double chek to confirm.

I don't know, i'm pretty sure i read it a few times, but i cannot find it, i remember something or someone saying that Actetone dosen't work that well because it pulls lots of other stuff out as well, but i cannot find where i read that. I have no idea, i guess i should had confirmed before speaking because i can't find it anywere. it still seems like i read it, i don't know. Sorry.

No prob.

I know which document you're referring to. I bet this guy neve really tried acetone for extracting cactus. For some people methanol, ethanol, isopropanol and acetone may look very similar and misconceptions may arise thinking that they can be used interchangeably.

But acetone is a whole different solvent chemically quite distinct from the others (it is a ketone). Methanol, ethanol and isopropanol are alcohols and they can sometimes substitute for each other. However, as far as the ability to dissolve alkaloidal salts, methanol goes on the top, with isopropanol being the worst. The latter comes from SWIM's experience and from considering their physical properties.

In the end, SWIM’s methanol extraction managed to pull a lot more mescaline. This time he used xylene as the non-polar solvent, ammonia as the base, and used hydrochloric acid to make the final salt form. The yield was still a very small amount (75 mg), but it just goes to show that methanol is better for extracting the natural mescaline salt than 99% isopropyl alcohol is. Even after exhaustively extracting with 99% IPA, methanol was able to pull 3 times more mescaline from the same cactus material!

SWIM has a couple of points to make about this extraction.

* Using pure methanol was way better than using 99% isopropyl alcohol. It pulled 3 times as much mescaline out from the same material previously extracted with 99% isopropyl alcohol.
* Extracting with alcohol rather than water is far better because filtering is a snap.


Was it a mistake to use sodium carbonate in his first attempt? Could this have caused problems extracting mescaline?

I ask this because mescaline can form mescaline carbonate. So is this possible:

Mescaline citrate + sodium carbonate = sodium citrate + mescaline carbonate!


I know mescaline cannot form a hydroxide so when ammonium hydroxide is used this must happen:

Mescaline citrate + ammonium hydroxide = mescaline + ammonium citrate + water