The Penultimate Guide to Salvinorin A Extraction, Leaf Purification and Dose Standardization.ArcygenicalOctober 20th 20071.0 - Introduction: Due to a particular user's interest, I have decided to share with everyone, the techniques and experiences I've picked up while performing Salvinorin A extractions on dried S.
divinorum products. This guide is written with the intent of helping you isolate the psychoactive chemical present in S.
divinorum, and later create reconstituted leaf with this isolation. Additionally, I'll be addressing issues of potency and smoking harshness, to give you all ideas on the proper method to create a very smooth product. Like all my guides, this one also assumes no previous knowledge in the areas of discussion, so naturally it's long and involved. I do feel, however, that it covers almost every aspect of the process, and if not, feel free to contact me (Arcygenical) on the
www.salviasource.org web-forum. This guide may be distributed freely, so long as it's contents are not edited without my direct consent... This is especially important for warnings and disclaimers!
DISCLAIMER:
This extraction process uses powerful and poisonous solvents and therefore I make no guarantee of your safety. I've done a lot of research on the proper handling of these chemicals and how to reduce the risks associated with them, but I'm not a chemist. Therefore, the contents of this guide should be used at your own risk. I make no implied or implicit warranties as to it's safety, proceed with caution. A safer (albeit sub-satisfactory) alternative to this guide is an isopropyl extraction, which can be found on google with the search: IPA extraction Salvia Divinorum.
Additionally, by using the techniques in this guide, you are agreeing to use the knowledge contained herein respectfully, and carefully. You also agree not to break any local laws on possession or use of S. divinorum or it's constituents. You agree to absolve the author of any liabilities, for any reason, that may occur in response to the advice given in this guide. Failure to agree to any of these rules voids any previous or future agreements you may have with the author, or any site hosting this guide. This document was written in a time and location where S. divinorum was perfectly legal, and therefore, no actions can be taken against the author for any reason, whatsoever. If you do not agree to any of this, you do not have permission to read ahead, and should leave immediately.1.1 - Materials: This process is mainly used to isolate Salvinorin A for high purity extracts. This isn't a guide for creating simple 10x or 20x leaf, and therefore has a higher expense and requires more work on your part. You'll need the following:
- Between 100 and 500g of S. divinorum leaf material.
- 300ml of pure acetone per 100g of leaf material used.
- A tiny bit (about 100ml) of extra acetone for leaf reconstitution.
- 1L of pure naphtha (petroleum ether) per 100g of leaf material used. Ronsonol lighter fluid is a great source of naphtha.
- Some distilled water... About 500ml.
- Several large glass containers. Large Mason jars can be used... Just make sure they can hold all of your solvant.
- A large glass baking pan.
- A small glass or stainless steel bowl. Nothing teflon coated.
- Some metal spoons/forks.
- A glass medicine dropper or syringe (no plastics!!)
- A tall glass jar that holds about 100-200ml. It should be about 3-5" tall, with an opening diameter of about 1" No larger!
- A tall glass jar that holds about 1L (optional)
- A stainless steel strainer.
- Many coffee filters... The large "frilly" edged ones, not the conical ones.
- A small metal skewer or rod for mixing.
- A digital scale, and knowledge of the metric system.
Yep, that's a lot of materials... None (except the chemicals) are specifically necessary, but all make the job so much easier... Always make sure that the containers used are made of glass or uncoated stainless steel, and never use plastics for this process!
1.2 - A little bit about Naphtha: Please be careful with Naphtha... The word Naphtha is used to refer to a large variety of chemicals, and different countries have different meanings on what naphtha actually is. Selecting the wrong sort of naphtha can, at worst, harm your health, and at best, ruin your extract. From hereon in, the word naphtha is used to describe the chemical
Petroleum Ether. Sources of pure naphtha are: Ligroin, Benzine (NOT benzEne, which is a carcinogen) or more commonly, ronsonol lighter fluid. One may purchase lab grade Petroleum Ether if the above products are not available locally to you. All naphtha contains a tiny bit of Benzene, the carcinogen I spoke about earlier. Therefore, one should avoid inhaling it directly, ingesting it or letting it come in contact with a mucous membrane (nose, gums, eyes, etc.). The process used to remove this will be addressed later, at the end of the purification step.
2.0 - The Process of Extraction:1) First up, you have to crush your leaf into small pieces. Leaf bits should be between 2-5mm in diameter. The smaller the pieces the less acetone you require, but the harder it is to filter. To aid in crushing them, you can freeze the leaf for 2-3 hours, and then crush them by hand or with a spoon/potato masher etc. They should be placed in a large glass/stainless steel bowl. If you're dealing with large amounts of leaf (in the hundreds of grams) you may want to split the procedure up into a few seperate procedures and collect all the evaporate at the end... It's fairly hard to find gallon sized glass jugs that can be used in this process. The rule is always 300ml of solvent per 100g of leaf material, so try to find your containers that can accommodate at least a liter of liquid.
2) Cover the leaf with acetone. You may choose to chill the acetone first in the fridge. Chilling is not required, but can produce a purer extract, at the expense of overall efficiency (more Salvinorin A is left behind). Let this mixture sit for about five minutes, stirring with your metal fork/spoon every minute. You should use about 300ml of acetone per 100g of leaf material.
3) Pour off the acetone into another glass container, and immediately put it in the freezer. This helps reduce evaporation of the solvent. The acetone should be a dark green/brown (and sometimes red) colour. Don't worry about getting the odd leaf piece in the mixture at this point.
4) Repeat the above two steps with the leaf again. Add the second batch of acetone (again, 300ml per 100 of leaf) to the first batch, and place it in the freezer again.
Make sure you save the leaf! We'll need it in a later section!
5) After you've finished collecting all the solvent, we need to strain out the fine particles and leaf pieces that may have gotten into the mixture. Place a coffee filter in your stainless steel (no plastic!) strainer, and proceed to slowly pour the acetone mixture though it. Make sure you catch it in a glass container ;). When the liquid takes too long to get through the filter (due to clogging), squeeze any solvent out of the clogged filter, and replace it. Repeat this until all the liquid is strained.
6) Pour the liquid into either the optional tall glass container, or the flat glass pan. Place it in the freezer and leave it overnight. The deeper the liquid, the longer you should leave it. You should cover your pan/jar with tinfoil to help reduce evaporation. This lets all the finest particles sink down to the bottom of the glass jar.
7) At this point, you may wash all your glassware out. Acetone evaporates very rapidly, so you should avoid letting it contact hot water... It will boil violently and possibly send water everywhere (actually, this is pretty cool... Go for it if you like). Using the heavy setting on your dish-washer, lots of soap (add pre-wash soap) and the hottest setting should get it clean. If you don't have a dishwasher, a soak in very hot soapy water should do.
7) Now, after the liquid has been sitting overnight, you must pour it (I know, there's so much pouring) into another glass container... This must be done carefully. You'll notice the liquid is very green, but totally clear. If it's still cloudy, let it sit overnight in the freezer again. You'll notice as you pour it, that there are some solids in the bottom of the jar. These are all the particles that fell out of the mixture overnight.
8) You may now let the liquid sit overnight again (produces a purer extract) or move onto step 9 (cruder extract, but takes less time...) If you're working with less than 200g of leaf, I recommend skipping a second sitting. Either way, the rest of the process should be done in the darkest possible condition.
Light can destroy salvinorin A if it contains UV rays. Sunlight is an absolute no-no! Be careful!9) Now you must begin evaporating the acetone down. You can do this by immersing your glass container into stove-heated water (no hotter than about 65c, so the "low" setting on your stove-top) or by using the evaporator I designed
Here.
Avoid gas stoves as the mixture can easily set aflame with little to no warning! Acetone vapors are noxious and hazardous to your health, always perform evaporation in a well ventilated room or under your vent-hood in the kitchen. I chose to immerse the large glass collector in a sink full of very hot water. The entire liter of acetone evaporated in less than 30 minutes! Wow!
10) After you're left with about 10% of the original volume (about 100ml of solvent, down from 1L) you should transfer it into your small glass or stainless steel bowl. It should then be evaporated down to a solid. If you chose to split up your leaf into a couple of smaller extractions (explained in step 1) you may pour the condensed evaporate from each additional extraction into the small bowl, after the previous extraction's solvent has dried completely.
11) You should be left with lots of black/green waxy residue, and often glistens under light. Be careful. This stuff is loaded with your salvinorin A. Many steps must be taken to prevent as much loss of this substance as possible!
You're now ready to purify your extraction if you wish. If you don't mind a very harsh smoke, this waxy substrate can be reconstituted onto the leaf... it can be balled up and rested under the tongue for sublingual use, or it can be dissolved into ethanol alcohol for a very weak tincture (about 0.6mg of salvinorin A per ml of alcohol). Just be careful with the waxy product, as it can contain as much as 3% salvinorin, which makes it roughly 12000% more potent than a plain leaf product (it's anywhere from 1-5% salvinorin A, where the plain leaf is less than 0.3% salvinorin A).
2.1 - The Process of Extract Purification If you wish to purify your extraction further (I recommend doing this for any use really, especially smoking) you must have your naphtha ready to be used. Please freeze the naphtha to prevent excess evaporation... This stuff is damn volatile and will evaporate almost instantly if you spill it.
1) Pour 100ml of naphtha into your waxy substrate, and stir it with a steel fork for at least a minute. Pour this waxy-liquid into your small, tall glass jar. If all the waxy products are not dissolved, you may let your jarred mixture evaporate down, add more naphtha to the original waxes, adding this new mixture to the previous jarred mixture.
2) Once all your waxes are dissolved in the naphtha, cover your jar with tinfoil, and place it in the freezer for 5-6 hours. The longer the wait the better, but remember, we'll be doing this many times.
3) The next morning, *carefully* take the concoction out of your freezer, and rest it on a flat surface. Using the medicine dropper, remove the top half of the dark coloured naphtha, and discard it.
4) Once again, fill the tall jar with naphtha, mix it up, and let it sit for another 5-6 hours. Like the first time, after sitting, remove the top portion of the naphtha. By now you should see a grainy product developing in the bottom of the jar. This is almost pure salvinorin A, as this chemical is not soluble in naphtha.
5) Repeat this "naphtha washing" a few times (between 5-7 washes) or until the naphtha no longer retains any green colour after the wash. When it becomes yellow, rather than green or brown, your extract is sufficiently pure. The grainy product should be white, or light green/brown. This crude substance is approximately 50% salvinorin, and you should have about 250-300mg of it per 100g of leaf material used. If your goal is to make a tincture, reduce the total amount of washings to 1-3, as the chlorophyll content has been (anecdotally) proven to increase salvinorin A dissolution into ethanol.
6) You may choose to wash the salvinorin in a tiny bit of isopropyl alcohol, but I do not recommend this, as it reduces overall efficiency.
If you recall, I spoke earlier about benzene. This chemical is fairly bad for your health, and can be removed by a simple water wash. All petroleum ether has a benzene content of three parts per million (about 0.0003%) and therefore, for every liter of naphtha, we can estimate that (at maximum) 0.3ml of benzene has been added to the solution. Benzene evaporates readily, so the residual content of a thoroughly dried salvinorin precipitate should be (theoretically) 0, but my personal philosophy is expect the worst, and hope for the best, so we'll employ a simple water wash to remove any residual content. 1L of water will dissolve approximately 1.9ml of benzene, so 175ml of water should be sufficient to remove even a heavy concentration of this harmful substance.
7) To water wash, just fill the tall jar with water, mix it up once again using your metal utensil, and let it sit in the dark overnight. It should take on a slightly yellow colour, and you should clearly see your salvinorin in the bottom of the container. Remove as much water as you can with the medicine dropper, without removing any salvinorin.
8) To evaporate the water, I suggest you place the jar in the oven (on a baking tray to collect the mixture if the jar tips over) at it's lowest setting, for a couple of hours. No higher than 170f. Make sure you keep the door cracked.
Your extract is now sufficiently pure for almost any application. Congratulations! We'll now discuss leaf purification and reconstitution.
3.0 - Leaf Purification If you've ever smoked a cheap salvia standardized extract, you'll notice it's fairly harsh, gummy, and even resinous. This waxy substance is very hard to burn properly, and is even harder to keep inhaled. I'll explain to you how to remove a substantial portion of this harshness, for a cleaner easier smoke. To accomplish this, you'll need:
- Some leaf material, the stuff we saved from earlier is ideal, since lots of the waxes have already been removed.
- A cheap metal pot you don't really care about.
- Some distilled water.
- Between 1 and 3L of isopropyl alcohol. Purchase the 99% pure stuff for about 6$ a liter at your local drug store. Nothing less than 91% should be used!
- A metal strainer.
1) First off, make sure your leaf is fairly acetone free by letting it sit in the open for awhile. Collect at least five times the amount of leaf you wish to enhance, as this process wastes a lot of leaf. If you're making a gram of 10x leaf, collect 5 grams of leaf material from your saved leaf material from earlier. Place this leaf in a glass jar
2) For every gram of leaf you select, add in 10ml of isopropyl alcohol (15ml if you selected the 91% pure stuff). Top it off with an extra 50ml of alcohol.
3) Swirl the leaf around, stir it, shake it, whatever. But leave it in the alcohol for a good 5 minutes.
4) Pour off the alcohol, preserving as much leaf as possible (you may use the strainer to aid this process).
5) Repeat the above three steps as many times as you have patience for. Just note that, after the third wash, your efforts go increasingly unrewarded (diminishing returns and all).
6) After the alcohol washes, place the leaf material in your cheap pot, and fill it with distilled water. I said to use a cheap pot, as the pot might need to be discarded afterwards... The one I originally experimented with has been dyed somewhat green, and smells/tastes like salvia.
7) Bring this mixture to a rolling boil for 30 minutes. The liquid should be a dark brown colour. Drain out the water, and return the leaf back to the pot. repeat this boiling process, again, as many times as you can stand. I've gone up to 10 successive boils over the course of a single night before no more colour would come out.
8) Place the leaf on a cookie tray, and put it in the oven at about 200f. You may leave the door cracked if you wish.
9) Remove the tray and scrape up the leaf. You should notice that it's colour is different from the original, untreated leaf... but this colour is not indicative of purity. I've had leaf come up darker than the original product, and others that have come up practically white. The best way to test for leaf purity is by checking the colour of the water it was boiled in.
This leaf is now almost tannin free, and can be used readily to create powerful extracts.
A note of caution, however: Since this leaf is easier to smoke, you'll find it easier to take larger doses. As always, be careful with how much you take.
4.0 - Leaf Reconstitution: So, you have some salvinorin A, and some purified leaf... What's next? Well, if you want to make some standardized leaf of a given concentration, follow this equation:
Salvinorin Required = (Desired Concentration) * 2.5This means, that a 5x extract requires: 5 * 2.5 = 12.5mg of salvinorin per gram of leaf material.
Or that a 50x extract requires: 50 * 2.5 = 125mg of Salvinorin per gram of leaf material.
If you don't have a scale that can measure in the double digits of a milligram properly, you can follow the following approximation:
Total extracted Salvinorin (in mg) = Extraction Plant Material(in g) * 2.5 Therefore, for every 1g of dry S.
divinorum used in the extraction process, you have about 2.5mg of salvinorin in your end product. An extract from 200g of plant material yields 500mg of salvinorin A. This can then be used to figure out how much leaf you require, retroactively.
1) Now, cover your extracted solid in acetone and mix it until the chemical is totally dissolved. Leaving any grains behind is bad news. Acetone can hold a lot of salvinorin (about 20mg per ml of acetone) so using this much is purely for ease of operation.
2) Pour this solution onto your leaf in a small glass jar or container. A metal "quarter cup" measuring cup is perfect for most extracts.
3) let this evaporate, mixing it often with your metal skewer.
4) After the solution has evaporated completely, make sure to smell it. Any hints of acetone are bad, and therefore I recommend letting the mixture dry out, in the air, overnight.
And there you have it. This pretty much concludes my guide. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to post them in the originating thread, or by sending me a personal message on Salviasource.org. Be careful, and enjoy.
4.0 - Change Log:January 1st - 2009: Updated some solvent ratios - 300ml of Acetone per 100g of leaf is now the preferred solvent:leaf ratio in my testing.
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