Excellent write-up geez! Complete, and comprehensive.
S/D how ever , (all though he finds it hard to believe), in a way, must agree with Osmium, that it is a fairly basic operation, that somehow takes on the appearance of the complex. So S/D is going to offer his slipstream “ghetto” post RNX workup.
Many bees, especially newbees, don’t have access or the money for lab equipment. Weather due to a limited time window, or whatever reason, often the trade off of time for a few percentage’s of yield is a desirable one.
S/D has spent many years, finding the best balance between time and effectiveness. The following is the result.
You will need
1 pint size jar with water tight lid
1 quart size jar
1 Pyrex beaker (pref 1000 ml. But any size will do)
1 turkey baster
1 stirring rod, (preferably glass), but clean un-finished wood will do.
RDL
Ice Cubes, (4-8)
Salt
Coffee filter and funnel
Fill you beaker with 100ml of H20, sprinkle in some RDL, slowly and stir. Feel the beaker bottom with your hand, continue to add RDL until it heats up real nice. This is not critical so don’t sweat it. Place this off to the side for now.
Bring contents of flask to a rolling boil a few minutes. Remove from heat and let stand until settled. Hold it up in the light. What do you see?
Liquid is;
Clear = Excellent, that’s what you’re looking for.
Cloudy (slight milky color)= You should be ok, yield might be low, you didn’t do a good job of filtering when you extracted.
Light yellow= Some gak was still in your pfed, yield and quality, will most likely be low. Extracting technique needs some work.
Dark yellow or any orange color= return to heat and boil for a few more minutes. Any excess Iodine will boil off. A splash of Acetone can be added here, taking care that the liquid has cooled a bit, as the Acetone will boil upon contact, if the solution is too hot.
Now if it’s still orange, you’ve been Gaked, you may get some low quality product, you may get some pfed, you may get nothing. Work on your extraction technique.
Pour 400 or 500ml n/p of your choice(S/D prefers Xylene) into quart size jar. Drop in a handful(4 or 5), ice cubes. On top place your funnel with three coffee filters. Make sure you pre wet the filters with some water.
Now slowly pour the liquid into the filter. Add more h2o to your flask and again bring to a boil, (microwave is the desired option). Observe the action, the R/P should rise to the surface of the H20, as it heats and then sink as it boils, this means that your R/P in clean.
Pour through filter, add H20 and repeat the last step. This time dump the entire contents into the filter. Add some H20 to completely rinse out the flask. Gently squeeze and twist the filter closed. When this is dry, be sure and save the top filter. As Geez mentioned, the fine R/P will coat the filter. That problem can bee remedy by simply saving the top filter and reusing it as the top filter. This can bee done five or six times before it needs replaced.
Now slowly pour in some of your RDL mix, and stir rapidly. Observe! We’re looking for the bubbles from the top and bottom, to come together at the same speed, and the liquid at the bottom to get slightly thick. This is something that just takes practice to get the look and feel for. Best rule is if in doubt add some more RDL mix. Feel the jar during this operation, if it gets more than slightly warm, then add a few more ice cubes.
Now add some salt. Don’t bee afraid, dump some in, a half a cup. Stir and add salt until no more can bee absorbed by the liquid, and excess salt stands on the bottom. Now stir rapidly and observe. Do you see a million little bubble rushing to the top? Good! Is the top and bottom of the bubbled closing in at the same rate? Good! If you have a large amount of emulsions a bit of Acetone sometimes will help.
Now, fill your beaker up with solution. Using the pourer on your beaker, carefully pour off the xylene, into the pint jar.Take an empty solvent can and pour into it the water/lye . This will bee our emergency jug, of which once it’s full we can tap for a few G’s. Continue until all of your liquid has been separated and your Xylene is in one jar. Now fill with equal volume of cold H20, screw on watertight lid and shake. Remove lid and with your turkey baster, suck out the bottom(water), layer. Newbees, should save this layer.
Repeat the wash again only this time use warm H20.
Repeat a third time with cold H20.
Make sure all H20 is removed, and titrate, or heat and gas.
There you are folks, simple easy, quick, and less than 1,000 words.
S/D posted this because, there’s an old saying, It goes;
A man with one watch, always knows what time it is.
A man with two, is never sure.
-S/D