Swim did a second experiment. About 3g of lysine this time, in the same apparatus, tightened fully. Placed in boiling water, no signs of gas leaking. Placed in oven set at 250°C, oven left on until thermostat turned off the heat, then switched off oven and left overnight to cool (did not open until morning).
Again no signs of stress, nothing to suggest the pipe was holding more pressure than it could handle.
Inside the pipe the acetone had turned yellow. Swim'll be posting his pictures soon, the starting material, Lysine behaves very peculiarly when it's crystallising, when the water is saturated, it forms a skin around the water. It had to be baked at 200 to get it to dry properly. Weighed on a dye scale it weighed in at 24g, which was the expected quantity, it just looked a lot more bulky than the weight suggested (lysine makes
very fluffy crystals obviously). Anyway the stuff put in wasn't fully crushed so lots of it didn't react. Pictures will be at the same url as the last post shortly.
Lysine decarboxylate freebase is very different, not very soluble in acetone or water. I think part of the colour changes has been cooking the additive in the acetone, which turns it yellow and makes it smell like menthol. I was wondering if it was adulterated. Evidently the acetone cooks the additive into something else too.
The address again:
http://www.angelfire.com/darkside/urushibara/index.htm
Second experiment proves that the pressure pipe can withstand 250°C.
Swim's not planning on doing another experiment until he gets some tryptophan. Possibly also he might get a bigger pipe.
An addendum: The substance which swim thought was a byproduct of contamination dried out, the menthol evaporated, and a free-base looking gum was left behind. It was still slightly contaminated with the menthol smelling stuff, as evidenced by the smell of it when boiled on foil with a lighter, but a distinct freebase type smell was also produced. Furthermore, the material had a strong bitter taste.
Swim's not entirely sure what the insoluble product was. Possibly high-pressure acetone does more than just decarboxylate. The other possiblility is that it was the remains of the tyrosine from the first experiment that had been previously baked in with the container open, and perhaps this brown stuff was the binder used to make the insoluble tyrosine stick to the chalk. Or possibly swimm did the extract wrong, and there was very little chalk and he threw away the chalky stuff, which might have been the very insoluble tyrosine.
Anyway, the decarboxylated lysine stuff, the gummy freebase looking stuff - swim's redissolved in acetone and with luck it will recrystallise, so pretty pictures can be taken... stay tuned.
Sigh. Swim had better hurry up and get tryptophan powder...
I know naaaathing.