I have (i know, yet another) question regarding the extraction of LSA from hawaiian baby woodrose seeds (hbwr). I'm curious if anyone has any info regarding the use of toluene as a non-polar solvent to initially remove the alcohol soluble lipids that result in the less than pleasant effects associated with HBWR consumption. I thought potentially someone could use toluene if they could not find pure dichloromethane (which would be preferable... sigh). Would using toluene unwittingly extract the LSA or leave unwanted residues? I believe toluene is supposed to evaporate fairly cleanly but having never used it in and out of a lab i'm not certain.
Furthermore, I felt that if someone were to then try to extract the LSA, would pure methanol be much more effective then aqueous ethanol (i.e. booze, 75%). I've read that enzymes extracted with the LSA may cause the degradation of the LSA in aqueous alcohol solutions, and therefore thought perhaps it is best to extract the alkaloids with an anhydrous alcohol, evaporate it, redissolve the leftovers in booze (quickly) and put the result in the freezer. This way, there is no enzyme action going on during the 3 or 4 day extraction nor in the final product at -25°C.
Please kill my curiosity!
Thanks in advance.