CIELO

Introduction

CIELO stands for Crystals In Ethyl-acetate Leisurely Over-the-counter.

In this technique (TEK), aqueous alkaline cactus paste is extracted with chilled ethyl acetate (sometimes sold as "MEK Substitute" in hardware stores). Citric acid is used to precipitate mescaline citrate crystals directly in the extract.

This TEK was developed in a loving collaboration at the DMT nexus. Deep thanks and gratitude go to everyone who contributed: someblackguy, Benzyme, shroombee, Metta-Morpheus, Downwardsfromzero, Kash, grollum, Mindlusion, Doubledog, Loveall, and others.

Safety

Review ethyl acetate's safety information. Verify MSDS, plastic compatibility, and clean evaporation.

Following this advice does not guarantee safety. It is up to each adult individual to make their own decision.

Materials

• 300g water
• 25g lime
• 100g dry cactus powder (outer skin or whole cactus)
• ~1200g ethyl acetate
• Coffee filters
• 5g of citric acid if using outer skin (20g if using whole cactus)
• Non-consumables: Quart jar or french press, large jar (~64 oz), funnel, coffee filter support, shallow baking dish with ethyl acetate resistant lid.

Fig. 1: Materials used (french press option shown).

Process

Make Alkaline Paste

Mix water and lime in a quart jar or preferably in a french press. Incorporate cactus while stirring and continue stirring for at least 10 minutes to a smooth paste. Allow paste to react for 24 hours and mix again for a few minutes.

Fig. 2: Reacted alkali cactus paste thoroughly stirred.

Pull Alkaline Paste

Add ~ 300g of freezer chilled ethyl acetate (~0 F) to the paste, mix thoroughly for for 60 seconds, and decant/filter to a large jar (~64 oz). If using a french press squeeze very gently or not at all to avoid pulling water. Immediately pull 5 more times with ~150g of ethyl acetate stirring thoroughly for 60 seconds each time.

Inspect extract for droplets or particles. If any are present, decant/filter to remove them. Final extract needs to be clean (see Fig. 3).

Fig. 3: Clean ethyl acetate extract from cactus alkaline paste.

Crystalize Extract

Let extract reach room temperature and pour it into a shallow baking dish. Gently drop in 5g of citric acid (20g if using whole cactus). Cover with ethyl acetate resistant lid (or if lid is not resistant add a protective layer of aluminum foil).

Citric acid will diffuse into solution forming clouds which crash as mescaline citrate crystals (Fig. 4). Allow enough time to complete crystallization (24h should be plenty).

Fig. 4: Citric acid granules diffusing into extract in shallow baking dish making clouds (top image taken from the top). Over time, clouds precipitate as mescaline citrate crystals (bottom image taken from the side). The bottom image was taken after ~ 5 hours of crystallization and a cloud band is visible covering about 1/3 of the side (indicating ~2.5 more hours until crystallization is complete).

Collect Crystals

Decant and rinse baking dish with a small amount of fresh ethyl acetate. Repeat until green color is removed (2-3 times). Allow crystals to dry and collect them. This is the final product (Fig. 5).

Mass spectrometry (MS) results from solaris analytical indicate the product is very clean mescaline (Fig. 6). Yield is highly dependent on cactus material, usually between 0.2% to 2% .

Fig. 5: Final product.

Fig. 6: Mass spectrometry result. Peak near 210.5 is mescaline. Peaks at and 193.6, 178.4, and 162.0 are mescaline with cleaved functional groups. The peak at 239.5 is not attributed to mescaline.

Appendix: Development Notes

Paste

No improvements were seen with microwaving, partially drying with heat or a drying agent, adding NaCl to change ethe ionic strength, or extending the reaction time beyond 24h. Completely drying the paste made the process not work.

Pull

It also possible to obtain good results with 3 minute room temperature pulls (30s of stirring and 150s of rest), but the results may not be as consistent compared to chilled ethyl acetate (60s of stirring). This is thought to be because of increased plant contaminants in the warmer pull at room temperature.

Long room temperature pulls made the paste congeal and resulted in lower yield. Heating during the pull did not improve yields. Generally, longer times or higher temperatures make the crystalization more difficult without yield improvements. Also, a persistent tan color can contaminate the product.

Extract

Chemically drying the extract with a drying agent such as anhydrous MgSO4 before salting had no yield benefit. In one example, drying the extract with CaCl2 resulted in a more difficult crystalization and a 40% yield loss. In general, any water content in ethyl acetate directly from the pulls is already in a good range experimentally.

Droplets or debris not decanted/filtered before adding citric acid will result in crystalization issues. It is very important to verify the extract is clean as mentioned in the main TEK.

Crystalization

During crystallization, every 10mg of citric acid (H3Cit) reacts with free base mescaline (Mes) to form to 43mg of mescaline citrate (or slightly more if a hydrate is precipitating):

3Mes_(↑) + H3Cit_(↑) ⇒ 3(MesH)Cit_(↓)

The TEK calls for a lot more citric acid than would be needed for titration. The reason is that excess citric acid induces crystalization to overcome any water or plant material that would otherwise keep mescaline citrate in solution. This is a simple but very important lab observation, compatible with Le Chatelier's principle. There is a lot room for excess citric acid in ethyl acetate since its solubility is 50mg/g (and water in the solvent from the pulls may increase this solubility further). The TEK recommends 5mg/g for outer skin cactus powder and 20mg/g for whole cactus powder based on early experiments.

Other dry organic acids could work. Fumaric, Malic, Tartaric, Ascorbic, Succinic, etc can be tested in future investigations.

Disclaimer

It is possible that some of the assumptions and conclusions in these lab notes are incorrect or incomplete. The process was tested in several ways, but the search was not exhaustive. There could be ways to improve this process.