Although very much the newbee, Swim was feeling inspired by the sheer awe of the Hive, and has also been without the beloved nutrient for some time, so he decided to try something...
- THF distilled from vinyl flooring glue (the only other ingredient listed was methyl isobutyl ketone which boils at 117C, so Swim felt he could trust the distillate collected at 65-70)
- 100g of ice chunks in a 250mL flask, to which 10g of THF and 10mL of 31% HCl was added
- 25g of 65% Ca(ClO)2 was added slowly, letting it thoroughly disperse before adding more. The solution took on a yellow tint early on, lots of Cl2 produced, and the ice chunks melted pretty soon.
- Swim decided to let it stir in an ice bath... but forgot to turn it on. For about 30 seconds the solution bubbled unnoticed, until Swim turned the stirrer on...
- Swim went to sleep, but first added plenty of ice to the bath. 9 hours later everything returned to room temperature (probably sooner). There were practically no solids in the flask. Still yellow.
- The solution was brought to a light boil, then filtered (Swim figured he needed the practice, and it did remove some crud)
- Swim was certain he could smell GBL...
- 8g of NaOH were added, and the clear yellow solution turned into a cloudy dark orange mess within seconds. This was stirred for the better part of 2 hours.
- Now the solution contained lots of chunky solids, as well as lots of fine particles
- Swim checked the pH... over 12. Figured he might as well bring it down now, he'd read here somewhere that GHB would "burn" when it was dried if basic. It took about 4mL of 31% HCl to neutralize.
- Now the solution was dark brown, practically black, and all the solids were clumped together
- Swim heated and filtered this mess... solution was still dark but no longer cloudy... and it had a peculiar odour, somewhat like a cross between caramel and that smell the grocery store's fresh produce section has...
- The water was driven off in an oven set at 110C... leaving behind gummy dark-brown solids that took an hour to scrape off the dish
- The solids were dropped in 70mL of methanol (Swim figured about 12g of GHB was in there somewhere, 6mL of methanol per gram)
- Swim stirred and stirred... the methanol took on the dark-brown hue, lots of white salt and some black lumps did not dissolve, and were filtered out.
- A lot of acetone was added, and lots of fluffy solids appeared...
- The solution was filtered for the last time, this time finally keeping the solids... but damnit, the colour stayed with them!
- The solids were dried, then taste-tested. Ugh. Salty Swim can handle, but these were very bitter. Besides, the colour was all wrong, and the smell/taste overall quite different from what Swim was used too... the end product was not consumed.
Discouraged, yes, but Swim will try again. Perhaps with NaBr + Oxone next time... and probably extracting the GBL with DCM and perhaps distilling before reacting with the NaOH. Or maybe just drive off the DCM, Swim is unsure if nasty peroxides coexist with the GBL after extracting...
To Bee, or not to Bee... ;-)