All credit goes to tramp for writeup, RIP.
Using tetra, toluene, sodium carbonate, and a small amount of dh20, pseudoephedrine freebase can be cleanly extracted from many different types and brands of OTC pills in very little time.
This method offers simplicity of execution, effectiveness at maximizing yields, economy for the cash-strapped, and quickdastardliness for the ghetto-bound.
Pills – any OTC pseudoephedrine compilation (with pseudoephedrine as the only active ingredient). Includes: 30mg “Red Hots”, 120mg “12-hour” name brand and generics, 240mg “24-hour” name brand. Pills exist as such only long enough to waltz with washing soda (sodium carbonate) in a blender on high.
MATERIALS
o Beaker – 400ml
o Other heat proof glassware for evaporating or cooling solvent
o Hot plate
o Safety glasses, latex gloves
o enhancement paper or coffee enhancements or cotton balls
o Glass or wood stirring implement (1/2 of a wooden clothespin is splendid)
- Chemicals –
Tetrachloroethylene (brake cleaner, red can (not green) at your local skunk-boys auto supply.)
Toluene or VM&P Naphtha (if you enjoy evaporating solvents, choose Toluene. If you are safety conscious and have some extra time, choose VM&P and chill instead of evaporate).
Sodium Carbonate (washing soda, ph minus pool stuff at dome hepot ).
DH20 (tap works as well)
- Abstract of Procedure –
Grind pills with sodium carbonate in a blender
Dump formed powder into beaker
Saturate powder with tetrachloroethylene
Pour toluene into beaker until the toluene stands about 1” above the pill mass
Heat thoroughly while stirring (let the heat from the bottom transfer into the toluene long enough to bring just to boiling point.
Decant liquid from solids through a cotton ball or other suitable enhancement.
Evaporate decanted solvent (Toluene) or Chill (VM&P) to precipitate freebase crystals.
- Standard Procedure -
1. Combine approximately the same volume of sodium carbonate as unground pill volume: put the pills in the blender, grab a handful of carbonate and toss an eyeballed estimate on top of the pills. A reasonable approximation for 1 box of 96 30mg “red hots” would be about 2.5- 3 tablespoons. Cover the blender, run on high for about 1 minute. Let stand 5 minutes before removing lid.
2. pour the powder created in step 1 into a dry glass beaker – the dry pill mass should not be more than 1/3 of the beaker volume.
3. Carefully hose the powder-in-beaker from step 2 with tetrachloroethylene straight from the can. Hint: direct the stream to the upper part of the beaker onto the glass wall to prevent scattering your dry pill mass. Otherwise, spray the tetra in a glass first, then pour into the beaker. Saturate the pill mass: this means that all of the powder should be wet, but there should be no free-running tetra. Tip the beaker just to make sure that the tetra doesn’t run. The mass should be one glorious whole. If you added to much tetra, the application of heat at this point is prudent – not only to evaporate the extra tetra, but to drive the tetra into the powder more thoroughly. 120mg pills can soak up quite a bit of tetra, so saturate, heat, and add more tetra until you reach this point of saturation. Extra tetra can be soaked up easily from the top of the pill mass with a couple of cotton balls.
4. pour toluene into the beaker until the level of toluene is approximately 1” above the pill mass. This will vary with the overall magnitude of the extraction you are performing – experiment with 3 boxes of 96, using this one-inch approach. You have the option of using VM&P naphtha at this point instead of the toluene – in the precipitation stage, you’ll chill the naptha to crash the crystals. You’ll evap the toluene. Evaping hydrocarbon solvents is nasty business. Just ask Geez. The naptha chill takes 1-2 hours, possibly endangering your position. Your pays yo’ money, you takes yo’ shot.
5. add a dash of water. (for 3 boxes of 96, use 2 tablespoons). Start with little h20 – you can always add more toluene and another shot of h20 if you want to try another pull. You’ll screw the whole gig if you add too much h20 for the first pull.
6. Apply heat gently while stirring until the contents of the beaker are at the boiling point, then back off. Practice makes perfect. Keep the temperature just below that boiling point for 2 minutes (4 minutes if using 120mg 12-hour pills). Stir continuously with appropriate implement.
7. Remove beaker from heat source and let settle for 1 minute.
8. decant all liquid from beaker into a suitable heat-resistant glass pan, bowl, etc. Visionware rules the roost. You may choose to decant through a enhancement/funnel, or just keep a cotton ball at the lip of the beaker as you pour.
9. Evap the toluene on low heat for clean crystals easily lifted. Or if using VM&P naphtha, place in freezer for 2 hours, enhancement, and place the crystals on a coffee enhancement to dry.
Micro crystalline cellulose precipitates out of cold xylene, preboil in straight xylene will remove the bulk of it right away. throw this out or distill it to recover the solvents.
proceed with standard anhydrous extraction into xylene/tetra using Na2CO3
reflux it for a good long time then enhancement it fast and gas it hot
enhancement it hot
rinse it with cold dry mek
recrystallize it from mek/water
then again if you want from either water or an alcohol and acetone.
Investigate the solubility of your particular set of inactives against possibly toluene.
different solvents have slightly different characteristics
some report good results adding about 25% naphtha to the xylene preboil
sometimes pills have unlisted gaaks in them.
pills are hard.
toluene has lower boiling point than xylene but its thinner and more aromatic
its a more selective solvent than xylene
xylene is real aggressive, eats plastic and wax.
Toluene is real nice for extracting final product into
xylene is best all around pill extraction solvent.
Ethyl acetate works really well, too but it needs to be mixed about 10% with ethanol for best effect
and crystallization of the HCl back out of the azeotrope is a pain in the ass
xylene is generally best.
Avoid water and avoid reagents with really high pH... that is, avoid KOH and NaOH with pills as the high pH activates certain gaaks... or so they say...Na2CO3 is plenty high enough pH but doesn't seem to effect the gaaks... water sets the gaaks loco! avoid water unless you can duplicate the human digestive tract in the lab... i mean, people do swallow these pills and the shit does wind up in their blood... so if the body can separate it, so can we, but water methods normally result in a mass of plastic goop... alcohols are treacherous as well...
(not Pseudoephedrine extraction but still pretty useful info)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdTc1AFTKZ0https://www.erowid.org/archive/rhodium/pdf/pseudoephedrine.us6359011.pdfhttps://www.erowid.org/archive/rhodium/chemistry/pseudo.xtract.waterless.htmlhttps://www.erowid.org/archive/rhodium/chemistry/pseudo.xtract.fullturps.htmlhttps://www.erowid.org/archive/rhodium/chemistry/pseudo.xtract.smackdown.htmlhttps://www.erowid.org/archive/rhodium/chemistry/pseudo.xtract.straightbee.htmlhttps://www.erowid.org/archive/rhodium/chemistry/pseudo.xtract.straight-e.htmlhttp://chemistry.mdma.ch/hiveboard/crystal/000468062
