Oh no, Straight to E surprise

[hexagonium]

Swim uses VE's "Straight to E" when cleaning certain coveted pills. Swim has not done this technique in a few months. And does not use this technique often.

Okay, so he proceeded to clean 5 boxes and at the last stage of str82E, (you know, when filtering the xylene/pseudo after reaching an internal temp of 105c), his filter had a huge mountain of crystals. He then proceeded to douse it with MEK and goddamn! it turned into a tiny mole hill. Swim is talking 1/4 the size of the original filtered gear. Although the solution that had been filtered away was cloudy, swim didn't see anything.

This may sound retarded, but: was that supposed to happen?!

[clandestine]

Swim sais... next time start out your initial pill pull with a vm&p napthenic tetra trap..  crash your initial crystals out with chilling it in the freezer for 2 hours.

the crystals will still have peg and trace amounts of another unidentified gak..

rinse the crystals with water...  to remove residual peg AFTER the naptha has evaped from the crystals pulled from chilling..  then redissolve the crystals in fresh naptha or xylene and then gas it for clean pixie dust.

its a short simple route to clean E...  the chill seems to beat out other initial pull methods and works with all 120's..  generic and brand name... 

watch out for the 24 hours though... they pull more gack initially but are cleanable in the same method.

Sometimes swim has to react his E twice to get 100% killer goods even with the lwr... 48 hour marks hitting 60% with the new gacks without going over 225-F internal flask temps at any time.

its worth the time going that second reaction if things dont pull out the first time up to par.

[geezmeister]

Sometimes swim has to react his E twice to get 100% killer goods even with the lwr... 48 hour marks hitting 60% with the new gacks without going over 225-F internal flask temps at any time.

Does it occur to you that if you have to react the pseudo twice to get meth, you have a gakk in the pseudo that breaks down over the course of one reflux?

[hexagonium]

Ahem, just joking.

Clandestine, swim appreciates your answer. However, the issue is this:
Swim cannot bee the only one who has ever performed the Straight to E. When others rinse the filtered pseudo with M.E.K., is it standard to end up with a funnel consisting of only 1/4 of the original contents of gear before you rinsed with M.E.K.?

[geezmeister]

It not uncommon for the pseudo to precipitate in a fluffy mass of crystals that crunch down a bit when rinsed. Down to a quarter of what they were... well, that does sound like a bit too much.

What was your total available pseudo HCl in the pills, and how much pseudo HCl did you have when the stuff in the filter dried?

And you did dry the MEK before using it, right?

The advent of Eudragit polymers in the pill mix made a serious dent in the usefulness of STE alone as a means for obtaining clean pseudo HCl. One of these polymers seems soluble in acetone and MEK, and acetone or MEK with that polymer in it seems to dissolve pseudo. This is particularly true of acetone, and not as true of MEK. I have found some success with drying the pseudo completely dry, then rinsing with dried MEK. This will discolor the MEK with a yellowish tint, leaving white pseudo. The pseudo, after this type of MEK rinse, no longer dissolves in acetone.

IF you poured your MEK into the mix with the solvents, just heat it up again and boil the MEK out again. Your pseudo will precipitate out when the MEK boils off. Use due care, of course. This time, when you rinse with actone, pour the acetone rinse through the filter and collect it in a separate jar.

If you poured the rinse into a separate jar, just evap the MEK and see what forms as it dries. Chances are you will have a yellowish tinty oily film on every thing. If you do, put the whole under a heat lamp and bake it gently to complete dryness. Then flash it with MEK.

This is obviously not a complete solution... it is a help, though.

[hexagonium]

Swim didn't dry the MEK! Swim now has the following in a large Ragu jar (yeah, yeah, no sources...but we are doing the public a favor outlawing Ragu):

The filtered out xylene and the leavings of the MEK rinse. To clarify, did you say that Swim should dry out this mixed solution of polymers/gaak, xylene, MEK (and possibly pseudo)? Swim cannot stand the idea of losing all that pseudo if it is salvageable unless the work involved outshines any additional yield.

Also, wim used 5 boxes of 48ct. white 60's with only 2 listed inactives. The amount that you recommended a novice try. So far, you have not steered swim wrong.

[geezmeister]

and boil off the MEK and water. The pseudo will precipitate out again.

Some of those pills have an interesting, off-list additive. Its clear, and it doesn't dry. The name brand pills, by the way, have it. If you were to extract them by STE, your pseudo would melt and remain liquid-- including melting into the filter (not all of it, but a lot of it. This is a very different phenomenon than the one associated with hypromellose, by the way.) If you do an alky extract, the alky just won't dry. Interesting polymer. KOH is an answer. I just quit buying them rather than investigate further...