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Sphere's Salvinorin Extraction Experiences |
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Written by (anonymous)
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Tuesday, 21 December 2004 |
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Page 2 of 4
The whole-leaf, chilled Acetone quick extraction method is, quite simply, highly inefficient and a large percentage of the Salvinorin A is left behind.
Sphere goes on to mention that he no longer uses this tek at all due to the ease of first performing an efficient crude extraction using room temperature solvents, and then removing the extracted chlorophyll waxes using Naphtha. Even still, one can imagine using this technique to obtain a small amount of highly pure extract quickly, while leaving the remainder to be dealt with in more thorough fashion.
Powdered leaf, warm Acetone extraction:
Chilled Acetone, as opposed to warm Acetone, allows for the extraction of high purity Salvinorin from powdered leaf, while still leaving behind much of the “black wax”. Unfortunately, there is always a trade off between purity and efficiency. For purity's sake, it may make sense to use the system referred to above, but otherwise, it makes little sense to bother with chilled solvent. Rather, it makes the most sense to optimize the recovery of Salvinorin from the leaves and then wash the impurities out of the final product.
Reference is made in Sphere's articles to the use of crushed, as opposed to powdered leaf. It is gathered, however, that powdered leaf is more effective, ultimately, and therefore nothing further is said herein about crushed leaf.
250 grams of powdered leaf is soaked for three consecutive, 5-minute soaks in a sufficient quantity (in this case, the leaf and extract should about half fill a quart sealer, apparently) of room temperature Acetone (Note: some containers are inappropriate to use with Acetone; refer to the Safety section for more info). 99% Isopropanol (IPA) may substitute for Acetone if Acetone-safe equipment or Acetone itself is not readily available. Isopropanol will not react with most seals such as Acetone does. If using Isopropanol, five consecutive 5-minute soakings are required since IPA is less effective than Acetone for a given amount of time. The solvents from each soaking are decanted and combined.
Sphere calls for two consecutive “rinses” of the wet powder with Acetone (or 99% Isopropanol), these taking only seconds, which rinses are also combined with the extracts from the soak phase. Note: 70% Isopropanol is ineffective for quick extractions due to high water content.
The combined soak and rinse solvents are then left to sit, motionless, in a cool dark place (to guard against both heat and light damage, both of which Sphere has encountered), for at least 12 hours.
The solvents are then carefully decanted, so as to leave behind the sediment which has settled over the previous 12 hours.
The solvent is then completely evaporated, leaving a greenish black residue, composed of Salvinorin and a great deal of black wax. This raw extract is scraped up, and may be reconstituted as-is in high-proof ethanol to form an effective, though somewhat bitter tincture. Alternatively, further purification may be performed on this raw extract before reconstituting in ethanol, in order to produce a superior tasting tincture.
To perform this extra purification, the scraped up residue is put into a tall cylinder of some kind; Sphere suggests vials.
Pure Naphtha must be obtained. Test for purity of the Naphtha, by evaporating some of it in a spoon, or in a glass pie plate. If it leaves no visible residue in the spoon or plate, it is considered sufficiently pure to use.
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