Some past creations (pictures)

[SpicyBrown]

Well now that The Hive has its own upload-yer-own-pictures feature, figured I'd share some pictures from the past. These are of course pictures of fine methamphetamine HCl.

Everything shown herein came from laboratory grade I/RP mixture-based reduction of laboratory grade ephedrine HCl.


In the beginning, there was simply glittery piles of bliss:






Then, Spicy began to learn how to do a better job at recrystalizing:






Eventually Spicy learned how to grow truly nice crystals:






One day, after letting a saturated water solution evaporate for 3 damn weeks Spicy's patience finally paid off and some behemoths were found:





There used to be a picture of the largest chunk there on a scale weighing in at 3.99 grams.. Can't seem to figure out where that one went. But it was damn solid.

Unfortunately, Spicy simply couldn't handle the curse that was being able to make your own ultra-pimpass killer shit, and after an extended period of body-wracking tweekerdom he had to call it quits. Somehow, through isolating himself from all potential sources of the shit, it worked in the end.  Well- that, and no more lab-grade ephedrine..

But nevertheless, those were some times indeed.  And 'tis all owed to The Hive.



On to bigger goals-
-SpicyBrown

[DrLucifer]

Very nice Spicybrown, very nice indeed!
Lab grade E HCl eh, you lucky devil  
Nice sequence man, its kinda like a story!!
I guess pictures really do tell a thousand words  

[biotechdude]

If u dont mind commenting, what recrystalisation methods did u use in the (glorious) timeline

eg pic 1 - evap and acetone flash
pic 2 - hot alcohol, slow cool
pic 3 - dual solvent - alc and acetone
pic 4 - VERY slow water evap

[SpicyBrown]

If u dont mind commenting, what recrystalisation methods did u use in the (glorious) timeline

Sure thing. This is from memory as this was quite a while ago, but .. should be pretty accurate. 

First let me state that the crude material going into pic 1 was crude material right out of reaction that had been dried, crushed and washed with ice-cold acetone to remove most of the yellow tint. Spicy pretty much always titrated with conc. HCl then evaporated the resulting aqueous solution, resulting in oftentimes over-acidified stuff that was usually pretty yellow right at first.  Gassing was too much of an inconvenience at that time and location.

Pic 1: This was the acetone-washed crude material dissolved in a minimal amount of boiling 50/50 acetone/isopropyl alcohol.  Once everything had gone into solution, it was placed immediately in the freezer.  After some time, there was glittery goodness everywhere, and it was filtered and rinsed with additional ice-cold acetone.  As long as you don't use too much acetone/isopropyl alcohol mixture to start with, the yellowish filtrate never yielded additional product.

Pic 2:  This was, as far as I can recall, stuff like seen in pic 1, redissolved in an absolute minimumal amount of a boiling 50/50 acetone/isopropyl alcohol mixture.  The only difference is the solution is allowed to cool to room temperature as slowly as possible. Once at room temp it was already littered with shards of yummy looking stuff.  It was then placed in the freezer for a short while then carefully filtered and rinsed briefly with ice-cold acetone.

For pics 3 and 4, it's not really a recrystalization as much as a.. growing of crystals, so one needs to have material that is already as pure as can be; initial recrystalizations are necessary before such beauties can be grown.  Or, at least before clean beuties can be grown.. I suppose you could grow large crystals straight away from the crude material, they'll just be, for example, large yellow crystals...

Pic 3:  Some clean material was dissolved in a minimal amount of boiling 50/50 acetone/isopropyl alcohol mixture, and allowed to cool to room temperature.  Then, it was left out for several days (can't remember exactly) until it had all evaporated, leaving some cool shit like that octagonal crystal in the upper-left corner...

Pic 4:  Very clean material was dissolved in a very minimal amount of deionized water.  Then, the solution was transferred to a tall skinny container (in this case it was a roughly 50 mL vial) and set in the dark.  The solution very slowly evaporated over... a few weeks.  Suddenly, one morning after about 3 weeks Spicy checked the vial and behemoths had spawned in the bottom... Patience is the key.  I know its damn hard to just let it sit there for weeks without doing it, but thats how pic 4 came to be.

Any other questions?  

-SpicyBrown

[SHORTY]

So basically, first you clean the substance by doing at least one reycrystalization and then dissolve the now clean substance in new solvent and allow to evap. Is this right?  Has anybee every tried to do this in a mold? Sounds like an interesting experiment.

[SpicyBrown]

So basically, first you clean the substance by doing at least one reycrystalization and then dissolve the now clean substance in new solvent and allow to evap. Is this right?

Yes- let it evaporate as slowly as possible for the largest crystals.  I think this is why water produces the biggest, because it's the least volatile.

Dunno about a mold...

-SpicyBrown