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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 3 of 4
Cover the raw extract with Naphtha to twice its own depth in the cylinder. Stir it vigorously for one minute. Then allow it to sit for 30 minutes, to permit the Salvinorin to settle out (as black wax is soluble in Naphtha, whereas Salvinorin is not). Now, carefully decant the top half of the Naphtha from the cylinder (an eyedropper may assist in this step) and add sufficient fresh Naphtha to replace the decanted portion. Stir it vigorously, again, and repeat the preceding steps, until the solvent remaining in the cylinder takes on little green colour any more.
The repeated washes with Naphtha, alone, will permit the recovery of fairly pure powdered Salvinorin. It is suggested by Sphere that this is a good place to stop, for most reasonable uses. With all Naphtha completely evaporated, the refined Salvinorin powder thus obtained may be either re-dissolved in Acetone and then reapplied to leaf, to make fortified leaf, or else re-dissolved in ethanol to make a high- quality tincture. Sphere has opined that the resultant tincture is in fact more effective, rather than less, for having an amount of chlorophyll remaining in it.
Further purification:
If still greater purity is wanted, either of two further steps may be taken. The one optional step involves washing the semi-refined Salvinorin with 99% Isopropanol (IPA), whereas the other involves re-dissolving the powder in fresh Acetone to check for any remaining tannin sediments.
With the first optional step, the semi-refined Salvinorin is placed once again in a vial and covered to twice its depth with IPA. This is swirled for a minute and left to settle. The top half of the IPA is once again carefully decanted and the process is repeated until practically no colour is taken up by the IPA. The Salvinorin is then re-dryed and should have taken on a nearly white colour which if viewed under high magnification can be seen to be crystalline, although appearing as a powder to the unaided eye.
A real drawback to this first of these optional steps is that Salvinorin A is significantly soluble in IPA and thus a substantial portion of the Salvinorin is lost to the IPA washes. Due to these losses, this step may only be worth taking with larger extractions.
The second optional step involves dissolving the Salvinorin powder in Acetone once more and allowing it to sit for long periods (12 hours or more). A surprising amount of sediment should fall out and is then left behind. These sediments can be washed successively in Acetone, to permit recovery of most of the Salvinorin A. The Acetone is decanted and once re-dried, should yield pure white micron sized Salvinorin crystals of high purity.
What about Isopropyl alcohol as a solvent?
Sphere deals in his writings with the efficacy of Isopropanol as a solvent, to be used in place of Acetone throughout the process. He notes that there are drawbacks to IPA, which are quite significant. The biggest problem is simply that Salvinorin is relatively insoluble in IPA and therefore larger quantities of solvent and substantially longer soak times are required. Sphere recommends soaking powdered leaf for up to 10 minutes or more per soak if 99% IPA is used, but has found that four or five 5-minute soakings of powdered leaf is sufficient to obtain over 80% of the extractable Salvinorin. Any increase in soaking time will only increase the extraction efficiency. If using 70% Isopropanol, multiple soakings of no less than 8 hours at a time are recommended for at least four times, with additional quick rinses afterwards to remove remaining Salvinorin-laden solvent.
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