Just browsing the newsgroups, and came across:
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&selm=20011228060021.10093.00000948%40mb-cm.aol.com
I thought that since the Hive isn't accepting new members, that I'd throw it up for discussion.
I remember asking a long time ago if this would work, but attempted only a short reaction time (30 mins or something), and it didn't work. It appears that sodium carbonate (the decomposition product of boiling sodium bicarbonate in water)
is a strong enough base to react with GBL. Cool stuff, now no one has an excuse to use drain cleaner lye. (even though the reaction does take 36hrs of reflux)
Has anyone here at The Hive done something similiar to this?
All of the recpies that use NaOH to make G have the same problem the reaction only goes about half way leaving lots of unreacted lactone in the mixture.
If you've ever had pure ghb or powder(pharm-grade) ghb you do notice a difference in effects and also have less side effects(headaches etc.), also there will be no smell at all in your ghb and the taste will be better if it doesn't contain lactone. There are a whole slew of reasons for wanting g without lactone and I could go on and on.. also when you use this method since the reaction goes to 100% na-ghb you get more mileage(products) out of your lactone...
Also not using caustic chemicals eliminates alot of headaches and even if you screw up the worst that would happen is a mixture of baking soda lactone and water which is not very bad compared with swallowing a posion (which people have done and been hospitalized for as seen in MM2K etc.) Also good about this recipe is that you know how much final grams of na-ghb you're going to have you will better be able to determine dosing....... When using an NaOH recipe results can vary due to the nature of the reaction and you end up with batches of various potency etc.
It is also easier to measure the ingredients,baking soda is of high purity and available for almost nothing at your local grocery store and you can easily make a powdered ghb simply by boiling the water away and letting dry...
Making NaGHB with baking soda and Lactone and water in a crock pot.... The only real problem with this recipe is that it takes time for it to happen, the reaction happens gradually thus allowing all the reactants to react if you give it enough time thus leaving you with no traces of lactone etc. the final product will smell like water and the taste will be nicer then your used to if your used to g made with NaOH...If all you have is lactone and you wanted some right away you could make some with NaOH, then use what you'd like then dump that mix into a crock pot add some baking soda and get the rest of the lactone to react and purify/clean your g mix up...(note: SWIM has yet to do that, though his plan might be to make some G with KOH and make some NAGHB with baking soda then add the K-GHB to crockpot add additional baking soda to react with lactone in the KGHB and have a k/Na g mixture without any lactone/impurities)..
The recipe is very simple..and a crock pot can be bought from walmart for $9.99...
1 part GBL
1 part Baking soda
2 parts water
(example: 250g GBL,250g arm+hammer,500mL H2O)
(trivia: sodium bicarbonate is 84g's per mole and butyrolactone is 86g's per mole, thus the above combination will give you a slight excess of baking soda thus making sure all the GBL reacts, if you put say only .9 parts Baking soda for 1 part GBL then you'd have some left over unreacted lactone.. not good! you
might want to put in a few extra grams baking soda just to be double sure...) dump ingredients together into the crock pot...turn the crockpot on low heat,
you must cover the crock pot with a bowl and then fill that bowl up with water, this will keep the lid cool and let the lactone drip back down into the solution so you don't waste lactone by boiling it off, if anyone wants a little picture or diagram of this let me know! It's really simple just put a big ceramic bowl from your cabinet on the top of the crockpot acting as your lid and pour water into the bowl..(the water will slowly boil away and you should add more to the bowl whenever you get a chance, if you come home and find the bowl empty NBD just fill it back up and everything should still be fine, perhaps a tiny bit or reactants/product may have escaped but probably not much and very possibly none at all)
You then leave this crockpot on LOW heat for 36 hours and all the reactants will go thru to final product...SWIM likes to leave it go for an extra day or two so you definetly have a product containing no lactone and everything gets reacted etc. Most of the stuff will react in about 18 hours , so if you wanted to steal a little from the pot then let the rest keep reacting to completion then you should wait a day or so after starting before doing so...
Much credit goes out to c610n2o2 who originally designed and formulated the recipe. If anyone has any questions or if there is enough interest I will put it up on a/my website...maybe even make a diagram/illustration and extensive commentary...of course if the lycaeum is interested in hosting such a page as well, I'd be Honored if murple or someone at the lycaeum or erowid put it up!!
Thanks all and let me know any comments etc.!
Mike
(RockTheShow@aol.com)