swim doesnt really understand how you did it but thats awesome bro.
1.) Make Cactus Tea-Bag.
2.) Boil tea-bag in slightly acidic water until cactus is no longer bitter.
3.) Boil cactus-water down to less than 500mL.
4.) Add 100mL toluene (or xylene or both) and separate. Repeat 5x. Discard non-polar and retain cactus-water.
5.) Create a solution using 450mL H2O and 150g NaOH. Add this to the cactus-water.
6.) To your now ~900mL basic cactus-water add 100mL xylene. Separate and retain the xylene.
7.) Add 100mL sulphuric acid solution (created with 350mL H2O and 10 drops "battery electrolyte") to the previously mentioned xylene. Separate the solutions.
8.) Evaporate the sulphuric acid solution.
9.) Repeat steps 6, 7, & 8 using the same 100mL xylene and fresh 100mL acid each time.
Here's what's happening chemically:
1.) First we encourage the mescaline in the cactus to be mescaline in our water. We do this with an acid, which forces our mescaline to be a salt. Which salt depends on which acid we use; hydrochloric acid will form the hydrochloride salt, citric acid the citrate salt, etc. Not important anyway, just so long as we force all the mescaline in the cactus to be a salt in the water.
2.) Then we take that acidic mescaline-containing solution and reduce it on the stove-top to a volume that is easy to work with.
3.) Defatting. Mescaline salts are very soluble in water and not very soluble in non-polar solvents like xylene and toluene. Cactus fats and tannins are very soluble in non-polar solvents and not very soluble in water. By mixing and separating xylene or toluene into our acidic cactus-water we are removing the fats and tannins while allowing the mescaline to stay in the water.
4.) Basification. By adding an excess of NaOH we force the mescaline salts back into their freebase form which doesn't like to be in water.
5.) Extraction. Mescaline freebase is highly soluble in xylene, but not hardly at all soluble in water. By adding a bit of xylene to our basic cactus-water we force the mescaline into the xylene.
6.) Salting. Mescaline freebase is a caustic oil, decidedly difficult and dangerous to work with. We want a shelf-stable solid mescaline salt so we can put it in a bottle and look at it. Remember that mescaline salts are highly water soluble and not at all soluble in xylene. By exposing our mescaline freebase-containing xylene to weak sulphuric acid solution we force the mescaline back into the water.
7.) Evaporation. Evaporating that water gives us impure crystals of mescaline sulphate. Again, which acid you use will change the end product; sulphuric acid will give the sulphate, hydrochloric acid the hydrochloride, etc.
swim is ordering some torch and plans to try a similar process.. do you think u could do it with fresh cacti?
Absolutely. Just follow Irishlion's tea Tek, defat and basify the solution, then pick up with Waylitjim's extraction.
What was the yield? Any plans on an acetone wash to clean it up?
1.361g sulphate salt (*EDIT* by stoichiometry, this is equivalent to 1.171g of the hydrochloride salt)
No plans for an acetone wash yet. Freddy and I are unsure that mescaline sulphate can be purified in the same fashion as mescaline hydrochloride.
Edited by Phineas_Carmichael, 01 September 2011 - 07:24 PM.
caveman stylings
