A friend of mine, SWIM, is researching a way to reduce Ephed to Meth. He dose not have any practical lab or chem experience, but has been spending a fair deal of time the last several months researching and dabbling with a few home experiments with percurser materials. Some getto equipment is also being fabricated. He had an idea how to do this in a stealthy manner for a small quantity and would like to get some feedback from anyone generous enough. He was originally interested in the balloon method because the simplicity and small quantity. The more elaboate methods may be considered in the future, but for stealth reasons he will have to keep things as simple as possable for the time being. Based on what I read, sometimes there are bad experiences with using balloons or condoms. Sometimes they break or leak. Odors permiate them. Also based on some reading there may (or may not) be some merit to a pressurized vessel. I seems it may keep concentrations higher, reducing the time required and reducing the temp somwhat. So here's the idea: For a small appx. 10 g reduction a small 187 ml. champaign bottle is used for the reaction vessel. A 24" length of 1" I.D. high pressure tubing is attached to the top with a hose clamp. The tubing is rated for 300 PSI at 212° F. The top is plugged with a nylon stopper. The stopper has a hole through it tapped for a pressure gauge. The hose would simply add some volume for gases to expand into. This set-up was made and tested to hold at least 100 PSI with air, though should hold much higher pressure than that. If a closed system like this would be used for a small, not to high temp cook, it would keep gases from escaping, and eliminate possable breakage of a balloon or the need for a condensor. Of course, the pressure would be monitored and stopped if it got too high. a low heat sourece would be utilized. Perhaps a crock pot with some play sand. Again, based upon what I read by posts on the balloon method, it sounds like the gases don't increase in volume more than 4x. In a closed system as described, that would mean a pressure of 4 bar, roughly 60 PSI. So, dose there seem to be any merit to persuing this further. Any feedback, of course would be greatly appreciated. If it sounds promising, I'll pass the info on to SWIM and he will test his equiptment further.
