Chilled Acetone with IPA and Naphtha
Contents
Introduction
CIELO stands for Crystals In Ethyl-acetate Leisurely OTC (Over The Counter).
In this TEK, aqueous cactus paste is broken down by microwave radiation, made alakaline with lime, partially dried with CaCl2, and extracted with ethyl acetate. The extract is chemically dried and salted with citric acid to precipitate mescaline citrate crystals.
Materials
- Quart jars with lids*
- Food scale
- 300g water
- 100g powdered dry cacti
- Microwave
- 25g Ca(OH)2 (lime)
- 25g anhydrous CaCl2
- ~ 1000g Ethyl acetate ("MEK substitute")
- pH paper (optional)
- Anhydrous CaCl2 or MgSO4
- Citric acid
*If lids are plastic, use ethyl acetate resistant LDPE or PP.
Safety
Review ethyl acetate's safety information[1] and check the manufacture's MSDS to verify you have pure ethyl acetate.
Each adult individual needs to find and review any other relevant safety information throughly and make their own personal decision on proceeding.
Process
Paste
Mix water and cactus powder. Microwave in short bursts without allowing swelling outside the jar. Stir frequently. Paste color will change from green to tan. Continue microwaving until ~50g of water evaporate. Mix in lime and CaCl2 until paste breaks up into small soft homogeneous chunks.
Pull
Add ~ 300g of ethyl acetate to the paste making the jar ~3/4 full and seal with proper lid. Shake thoroughly for several minutes and let rest for a few hours.
Decant solvent into a second jar. A little extra solvent can be recovered by for example squeezing chunks with the backside of a spoon. About ~50g of solvent will remain in the paste.
Pull three more times with ~200g of ethyl acetate, making the jar ~3/4 full each time. Pulls can be monitored with pH paper (green color possibly indicates free base presence). Paste will consistency during the pulls. If solvent is trapped in a gunky paste, adding CaCl2 should free it up.
Combined pulls will give ~a quart of clear yellow extract. Optionally, more pulls can be done into a different jar for a modest yield improvement.
Salt
Add ~250mg (~1/16 tsp) of citric acid into the extract and place in fridge. Clouds form and after a few hours settle as beautiful mescaline citrate xtals. If xtals have difficulty forming, move extract to freezer. If xtals do not form even in the freezer, there was an issue with the TEK. It should still be possible to recover any product in the solvent with water pulls as is done in other TEKs.
Every 10mg of citric acid (CitH3) reacts with enough free base mescaline (Mes) to precipitate up to 43mg of mescaline citrate:
Salting is complete if no clouds form after adding more citric acid (e.g. ~ 50mg), or optionally if pH paper is neutral/acidic. A 250mg of citric acid should be more than enough for the typical cactus (0.5% to 1% yield). However, and outlier like the legendary Ogun would need ~1100mg of citric acid for a 4.7% yield.
Over acidifying is not a big concern. There is room for a lot of excess citric acid in solution since several grams can dissolve in a quart of ethyl acetate.
Dry
Dry extract with anhydrous CaCl2 or MgSO4 (~3g per 100g) by swirling and settling[2]. Decant clear solution to a 3rd jar.
MgSO4 drying can be fussy. Settling time is very long or decanting is difficult, using more coarse MgSO4 and/or filtering with a fine filter may be helpful.
Finish
Pour off ethyl acetate into a storage container for reuse. A filter can help catch any crystals that accidentally pour out if needed. Rinse xtals with fresh anhydrous ethyl acetate (dried over anhydrous CaCl2) at least once. Optionally, continue rinsing until yellow color is removed to personal cosmetic satisfaction. Leave xtals uncovered to evaporate all residual solvent, this is the final product. If desired, the product can be dissolved in minimal warm water and passively evaporated undisturbed to obtain long crystal needles.
Mass spectrometry results indicate the product is very clean mescaline. See image below, peaks near 210 and 194 are from mescaline (second peak is from amime cleavage during measurement).