Ipomoea muelleri

[Guest electro]

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[This message has been edited by electro (edited 14 October 2002).]

[Guest electro]

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[This message has been edited by electro (edited 13 October 2002).]

[Guest reville]

http://www.shaman-australis.com/~coin/revspics/

this is what Ipomoea muelleri looks like

[Torsten]

leaves & stems??? why??

[Guest electro]

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[This message has been edited by electro (edited 13 October 2002).]

[Guest mandragora]

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Edited April 17, 2007 by mandragora

[Guest electro]

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[This message has been edited by electro (edited 14 October 2002).]

[John_Barleycorn]

Originally posted by electro:

Ie: he's pretty sure that the "goodies" are all polar, and should be soluble in slightly acidic ethanol(prob vodka + food grade citric acid).

He's also read though, that many of the chemicals that cause gastrointestinal upset etc are non polar (butane will probably be used as the FIRST step of extraction)

Is he right or will he loose some sought after ingredients in the butane oil extraction ?

Technically, what you're proposing here is a butane wash of the plant material (dried?)followed by the extraction of the goodies. One problem, as your question suggests, is that if you have alkaloid free base (non-polar) in the plant material, you could lose some of it in the wash. It is also more conventional to wash extracts rather than the source plant, partly because of the ease of working with a reduced volume.

And I wouldn't make too much of the food grade nature of your acid if you're also proposing to wash with lighter fluid It might just as well be toluene from the hardware store. I'm actually no purist when it comes to these sort of solvents because I assume the nasties (like benzene) will eventually evaporate off, but just thought I'd throw that one in for information.

I would personally be sceptical of the notion that the nauseating substances are exclusively non-polar. You have a list of alkaloids there as long as your arm, and my uninformed guess is that some of them are psychoactive, some of them are upsetting, and some of them are both. So you probably can't expect to separate the good stuff from the bad stuff in the kitchen.

You might just be better to go for an extract, followed by a degrease of the evaporated goo with something like acetone. Another consideration is that dilute lemon juice may not necessarily be acidic enough to convert all the free base alkaloids to salts, and so you encounter the problem of losing goodies in your non-polar wash once again. So either forget the wash, or maybe extract into white vinegar instead.

[Guest electro]

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[This message has been edited by electro (edited 14 October 2002).]

[Torsten]

the butane wash is pretty well on the right track. even though the goodies are in the freebase form, they are not actually all that non-polar. These are not amines, but rather amides. Amides are generally much more polar.

In the case of LSA's the proposed method is quite accurate. Including the non-polar pre-wash - it is standard to apply it this way roudn for this material rather than to try and separate after extraction. The main reason for this is the defatting. Without the defatting, the fats would most likely cause nasty and persisting emulsion layers.

[theobromos]

Have you worked out what your yield is going to be for 0.0015%? One kilo of dried leaves will yield 15mg of alkaloid. That is a mixture of many non-active plus a few active alkaloids. What price are you paying for your solvents? Ten times the weight is worth buying your little sister a coffee grinder for her birthday.

Considering that freshness is important as well perhaps a baby food processor is better?

[John_Barleycorn]

Originally posted by electro:

- was talking about the 200g packets of acid you get from the spice rack (it's quite strong - 100g in 500 ml water reads ph5(or lower

Sounds good then. With this procedure, a lot depends whether you are just wanting to drink an alcoholic tincture, or isolate some goo for further washing or extraction. If the former, you can probably dispense with the acid altogether.

[John_Barleycorn]

A further thought. If the amides are actually the most desirable extract of the plant, then there is a chance that using acid (or, for that matter, alkali) will result in hydrolysis, which effectively means cleavage of the amides. I say "a chance" because it could take extreme pH conditions and heat, but then again it could not.

[Fractalhead]

yeah, that's what i've been thinking about. acid and base catalysed amide hydrolysis. I'm pretty sure that even the freebase ergine and isoergine are quite soluble in neutral water (just like caffeine). The acid probably isn't neccessary. I'm not going to say any more until i get a reference that has a tried and true method. i'll post it next week.

[Torsten]

golly, I missed that acid bit completely. No, don't use any acid. This will kill your goodies in no time. The amides are very soluble in alcohols and can be extracted simply with ethanol. No acid needed or desired.

I don't think water would be very efficient, and you would also leach out a whole array of other stuff you don't really want to have to deal with.

[Smiling Cloud]

Has anyone's gnomes had a taste of this plant yet? I think I found some muelleri vines while walking today and planted them in the garden. I hope they are the right ones.

[Guest electro]

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[Torsten]

I am intrigued as to what alkaloids this would have been, cos basified LSA is not soluble in naptha.

[Guest electro]

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[This message has been edited by electro (edited 14 October 2002).]

[theobromos]

Exactly what effects were felt. There are other actives in convolvulaceae that could be active. Simple tropanes and kaurenoids are likely candidates for some sort of activity. The kaurenoids (which would certainly be soluble in naphtha) may be stimulant/euphoric.

[Guest electro]

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[This message has been edited by electro (edited 14 October 2002).]

[John_Barleycorn]

Sometimes it takes more than a little while for some practical common sense to kick in If you were extracting the LSA amides as feedstock, then a likely first step in the processing would be to perform a hydrolysis. Similarly, one of the first things that will most likely occur on ingestion of said amides is a hydrolysis.