I have a friend who likes to check on pill compositions from time to time. It's sort of like his hobby. While checking the latest bunch of gas station ephedrine pills, he became alarmed. His favorite technique no longer worked, in fact it seemed that the pills were specifically designed to attempt to defeat the method he had layed out.
He extracted gas station ephedrine pills by the usual method in SOMM 5 or 6. Grind...soak in toluene...filter and let dry...base with enough NaOH in isopropyl to make a oatmeal consistensy, stir for a few minutes,..then extract with NP solvent of the free base...
Low and behold what surprises he had...
using naptha as the extractant, he just produced a gummy mess which wouldn't extract...but lots of foriegn plastic gum was extracted into the solvent...
using toluene as the extractant, the pill mass swelled and swelled... he found it interesting to discover how long it would take under the hot sun for the swelled solvent mass to evaporate the toluene... it takes a LONG time.
I have relied upon this general method for years, but it is obvious that this generation of pills has circumvented that method. My guess is that they have incorporated microencapuslated pus which releases upon contact with NaOH and just ooozes pus.
My first thought was to replace NaOH with Na2CO3 to see if the pus bags will then burst, but this straight to E idea sounds like a winner. I wonder how long it will take to design a counter to this procedure...
I'll keep you posted, but I sure liked my old method... as far as I know, the old method still works with grocery store pseudo...but this is coming..
Fester