Same old questions...
The
plant comes in 3 main varieties; the 'wildtype' with 1.5% alkaloid content, the 'preserved line' with 3%, and the genetically engineered line with 8%. Plus there is a shit load of commercial proucts promising more or less and plenty of bs...
Alcohol extracts on the raw plant will produce a a black, shiny (sometimes gooey) musty-smelling powder. It does react (as in the literature) to produce very low yields (<10%) (tested using Hypo and RP). Further refinements included the use of naptha to 'defat' the plant and sand filters to clean the extract. Both showed minimal improvements and added to the main burden of excess solvent usage.
A/B's on extracts (eg alcohol, water, HCL) did eventually produce clean results however difficulties arise from the mechanical losses from dealing with nasty emulsions. Additionally, pigments are other plant solubles are hard to remove. Lastly, freebase ephedrine's partial solubility in both water and NP solvents lowers yield.
In
nature, the alkaloids occur as polyhydrate structures that are hence weak acids or bases of water. That means that you need to convert them to a either a strong salt (using HCL) or a strong freebase (using NaOH); in order to extract. The use of a blender and dry ice or freezing aids in the rupture of cell walls and increases the passage of alkaloids into solution.
Steam distilling can work well. Standard distillation of a pH 14 solution of the plant (or an extract) will liberate the alkaloids. Vacuum distillation didn't effect yield only speed things up. Foaming was a bitch as was the need to 'top-up' the volume of solution.
Steam distillation using an
external steam source works better. This is because the freebase alkaloids (unlike meth) are better liberated by heating up the solution and plumbing in external steam (the Dwarjet works on the same principle). The distillate is then pH'd to 6 and all the water evaporated. An a/b of the distillate was discounted due to the large ammount of NP required and fb-ephedrines partial solubility conundrum.
When steam distilling, the main adulterant is 'Tannic Acid' (thanks Newton). It is difficult to remove and the best strategy was rinsing and decanting ice cold acetone, followed by a recrystalisation (more later).
Regardless of which route used, the goal (of efficiency) is to obtain clean white/clear alkaloid salts.
Recrystalisations using alcohol/acetone were pretty good but the alcohol 'holds' onto the pseudo (lowering yields). Water/acetone works better and also better removes residual tannic acid contamination. The end result is odourless clear/white powder of even consistency and terrible bitter taste. Now to react...
Reacting this (relative) pristine feedstock, it has been dreamed using hypo, rp and h3po3 using premade 57% HI as well as Iodine alone to produce HI
insitu.
Reaction yield derived from weight of feedstock varies depending on the post reaction workup scheme used - basic NP extract 70% ----down to---> 20% for the full optimum clean.
That is, a simple a/b on the reaction mix will extract the meth, but also other reduced and non-reacted alkaloids. It may all come out white and get u high; but it doesn't crystalise and tastes 'funny'. Gentle steam distillation (not using external steam) of the reaction mix better isolates the meth from unwanteds as they are better liberated using external forced steam distillation. The product can partially crystallise but mainly stays as 'powder'. For optimum results, an a/b can be performed on the distillate and the NP/meth-fb effectively washed. This evaporates down to a clear plate of glass. It then can be slowly recrystalised by evaporating IPA to produce a majority of nicely sized clear crystals that look, crack and smoke like odourless taseless meth. Bioa$$ay on the Gineau Pigs is
WONDERFUL!.
So there u have it, take it or leave it
. OBVIOUSLY, this is a fictitious account of one individual. Results will vary, although 99% of questions and comments have been done before and the expensive lessons learnt. Just ask...
