Extraction of hexamine from Esbit?

[PapaMuffin]

After some thorough searching, I've noticed that we don't seem to have a finalized method for extracting pure hexamine from Esbit tablets. Some users (mostly back in 2003) noted that their Esbit tablets were pure hexamine, and could simply grind them up. From what I can ascertain, this is no longer the case, at least not here in the States.

The Esbit tablets commercially available here seem to be a combination of 1,3,5-trioxane with hexamine, as well as some waxy outer layer, presumably for the purpose of weatherproofing. Does anybody have a way of extracting the hexamine from this thing? I can imagine that removing the wax is as easy as dissolving the tablet and removing the waxy layer, which I imagine would separate out, but I'm not sure what to do about the trioxane.

[Alexires]

You could perhaps try and break down the Trioxane with an acid and that hopefully that won't break down the hexamine.

Give it a go, and after removing the acid hopefully you will have hexamine and formaldehyde left over.

[Setharier]

I actually dissolved crushed esbit tablets into denatured ethanol, filtered the liquid from the white wax and trioxidane mess and left the clear solvent sit and vapor off. I am not sure were the crystals that formed floating on the surface of the solvent hexamine, but believe it or not, they were indeed hexagonal form, small 1mm sized. I took a picture of it which is somewhere; I got to find it. Bad thing is, somebody tought it was some unecessary waste liquid(my "lab" is in our carage's warehouse) and poured it into sewers so I never managed to find out what the final product would have been.