tartrate/bitartrate bonding

[tigerinthetrees]

hi, I'n a newbie who's been recently slef-studying chem...I've got a friend (A) that's been poking around into hydrocodone chem recently.  While he was looking into it, namely to acid base extract of hydrocodone from the bitartrate its attatched to, but he got somewhat bewildered while thinking of how tartartic acid has 2 H groups, and whether the NaOH he would be adding would totally seperate the hydrocodone from tthe bitartrate, or if the Na would simply bind to the open end of the bitartrate, leaving something like H18C21NO3*NaC4H4O6...
another friend (B) told him he was just thinking wayy too much about it and that the NaOH would fully react giving H18C21NO3 + Na2C4H4O6...which one might hypothetically be right?

[tigerinthetrees]

that is, after extracting the acetaminophen and filler stuffs...

[Capt_Stubing]

Try excess base and then isolate the goodies(hydrocodone) as approprate. I would then say crystlize the product into a solid w/ a published and confirmable melting point/ or other physical property. When you can match you exp. data w/ known info, then your good to go. Aside from that I would say that excess NaOH( try to get your solution to be around ~Ph 1-2 titrateable @ end point )-this should kill your fears of ion complications and allow ya to dream easy.  That's my advice take it for what it's worth...

[raffike]

May i suggest not to use NaOH as a base.Hydrocodone might not very stable and may react if overbasified.Ammonium hydroxide would be better base IMO.