Growing Salvinorin Crystals from Salvia Divinorum

[Northern Gnome]

WARNING: Don't smoke Salvia Divinorum extract or Salvinorin, don't stick it in your mouth, don't stick it in your nose, or any other place with or without Alcohol or by burning it! You might hit your head or something! See: http://www.sagewisdom.org/caution.html

I know there are a few of you out there who like to read on this, even if you don't post. I want to put this somewhere so it can be found by others if they are looking for this information, so please forgive me for continuing to post without responses. When I first started out trying to find a way to process leaf and grow Salvinorin crystals it wasn't available anywhere on the net and no one seemed to have a simple process for extracting and refining Salvinorin without an organic lab, if they did, they weren't sharing. I had to learn how to do this from trial and error taking me many months of part time experimenting to understand how to extract Salvinorin as a light powder of high purity and grow crystals reliably.

Growing crystals isn't always easy. There are two ways that I have done it.

1. The best way I have found to grow crystals is to completely saturate hot 151 proof Alcohol with as much salvinorin as it will hold just below or at boiling and dissolve as much as the Salvinorin as you can continuing to dissolve Salvinorin to the Alcohol until it will no longer dissolve additional amounts of powder. I add the Salvinorin to the hot Alcohol and then closing the container and shaking it for two or three minutes. When the Alcohol is completely saturated I will find Salvinorin particles in the bottom of the container which will no longer dissolve, as much as 10% of the amount added, just to be sure the fluid is completely saturated. You don't want all of it to dissolve because if it does then that means you have not completely saturated the Alcohol. All you need to do next is let the fluid cool to room temperature for an hour or two, what ever it takes, and then re-heat the fluid again. Keep reheating the Alcohol to just under or barely at boiling, shaking each time to redissolve everything inside again. After the second or third heating and cooling to room temperature you will see a cloud form inside the container.

Once the cloud as formed you know that you are getting close to having big crystals. Heat it again so that you dissolve all of the microcrystals that appear as a cloud and let it cool an hour or two to room temperature again and check for crystals. On the third or forth attempt I usually have large crystals show within an hour after the last heating. I use a microwave oven, be careful about vapors, in some microwave ovens you could have an explosion. Heat it to where bubbles just start to show in the Alcohol so that vapors or fluid doesn't boil off. Using a special pyrex container which has a lid that can be lightly fastened so that pressure can escape if you heat it too much which could save the container shattering from internal pressure if you heat it too long. This method has been the most reliable for me, never failing. Although I have not been able to find a way to dry the crystals and have them remain as whole discrete specimens. When ever I separate the crystals from the fluid and then try to dry them they always bunch together and break into thousands of smaller pieces when I try to scrape them up, so although this is a reliable method to grow crystals for the purpose of obtaining high purity Salvinorin, it isn't a good method to try to obtain whole specimens.

2. Method two; evaporating Salvinorin dissolved into an ounce of Acetone at normal room temperature without any air blowing on the solvent so that it evaporates very slowly will also produce crystals, but not always. The nice thing about crystals grown from evaporation is that when they do form you can scrape them up as whole specimens! I have also grown crystals by evaporating Acetone fairly quickly in an oven at 120 degrees F. (just an ounce of solvent, careful! Fire risk or worse). Crystals usually do not form this way as large as they do when the evaporation occurs slowly. If you have not removed enough of the chlorophyll waxes the crystals will be hard to see or will not form at all, so try to remove as much of it as you reasonably can if your going to try to grow crystals.

I just grew these crystals today by dissolving 1 gram of refined Salvinorin powder (light green color) into 90 ml of 151 proof Everclear drinking Alcohol (Ethanol). I had to re-heat this glass four times just to boiling in a microwave oven (top off) and then allowed the fluid to cool at room temperature for at least two hours each time to see if crystals appeared. The first three times only a cloud appeared which was extremely small crystals, not visible to the eye except as a cloud. On the fourth try these fine large crystals formed after two hours. When heating your Alcohol thoroughly shake or mix the Salvinorin powder into the Alcohol to dissolve as much as possible. When heated 90 ml of 151 proof Ethanol ought to dissolve at least 95% of the powder or more but have a few specks of solid Salvinorin in the bottom, this indicates that you have fully saturated the fluid at a hot temperature because you can't dissolve any more Salvinorin into it. When the Ethanol cools back down to 20 degrees C. sometimes Salvinorin crystals will precipitate out of the fuild because the Alcohol cannot hold nearly as much Salvinorin when cooled down to room temperature. Just leave it alone and let it cool down to room temperature setting on a shelf, nothing special needed.

I have used 99% Isopropanol to grow crystals this way too, but they are always much smaller than when using Ethanol. Acetone won't form crystals at all, Methanol will sometimes form larger crystals than Ethanol, but hasn't been as reliable for me compared to 151 proof Everclear Alcohol which usually takes three or four cycles of re-heating the vial before nice crystals form. You can pour the Alcohol off (saving the fluid of course, its full of Salvinorin even if you can't see it) and dry the crystals on a Teflon cookie sheet in an oven set to 120-150 degrees F., but when you scrape them up from the sheet they always break into smaller pieces, never nice individual crystals as I would like. Handling them with Naphtha has been suggested to me because they won't dissolve in it and might remain separate, but it has never worked out that way, Naphtha causes them to bunch together even worse and stick to the glass more than 99% IPA. Maybe I will try water next time! Since the wax is gone they ought to be easier to separate out that way.

What good are Salvinorin crystals? Well, you know that you have a fairly high purity if crystals will form. Other than that, not much use for me other than to look at. I just enjoy seeing them, that's enough reason for me. As far as I know you can't buy Salvinorin crystals like these without going to Daniel S. and spending hundreds of dollars for a half gram of them (at several dollars a milligram) and he will only sell them to qualified scientists. These probably aren't as pure as his, but not far from it either. Once the liquid is poured off (which appears red due to halogen lighting, actually green) the crystals themselves are a very light color.

I don't know of anyone else doing this, growing Salvinorin crystals other than myself and Daniel, if there is someone else out there doing this please share your data!

[ 05. March 2004, 12:13: Message edited by: Salvinorin ]

[waterdragon]

you can't hear me but i'm making 'wow' sounds here. couldn't you put up a crap post occasionally just to let me know you're a humanoid?

[Guest electro]

i agree, that is beautiful !

[Northern Gnome]

Thanks for the feed back, so seldom does anyone say much. I make crap posts, I just don't do them here because this is such a nice place.

Edit: I'm thinking of a crap post I just made here a couple of weeks ago about another forum, but if you missed it I won't say anything more

[ 06. February 2004, 06:47: Message edited by: Salvinorin ]

[theobromos]

You have the ability to equal or better Daniel Siebert.

What you have done is not simply growing some crystals, you have performed a Fractional Crystallisation (fanfare). You will lose a little of the product each time you do this but you lose loads of the impurities that stay in the mother liquor. I won't try to estimate the purity but you will have pharmaceutical purity in one or two repeats of this process, if you don't have already.

Have you tried putting the acetone solutions in the freezer? Do you wash the crystals before you dry them?

It used to be said that chemists with beards were better at crystallisations.

[Northern Gnome]

That's interesting, I didn't know that it was a process, just kept trying things until something worked.

I haven't worked very hard at saving the crystals as whole specimins, I have just been drying them in an electric oven set to 120 degrees F. on a Teflon covered cookie sheet and then scrape them up with a flat edge which always breaks them into thousands of smaller pieces, unless they are very small to begin with.

I'm considering just pouring off the Alcohol next time I work with them and then pouring in some water to keep them from sticking together, maybe I can collect them without breaking them up that way. Pouring out the water and xtals together onto the cookie sheet for drying, since salvinorin isn't suppose to be soluble to water.

Yes, I seem to loose some Salvinorin each time I do this, reheat the vial three or four times in a microwave oven, which probably isn't a good way to go for even heating. Starting with a full gram maybe having 850 mg when I am done, half of that weight in crystals and the other half I recover from the Alcohol I pour off and evaporate separately. When ever I dissolve Salvinorin into Acetone and let it evaporate it ALWAYS results in crystaline formations, sometimes flat and difficult to see as crystaline, but if you pick off the top layer there are always crystal formations within. Although, sometimes you need a stereo scope or microscope to see them, they are always crystaline if the purity of the extract is high enough to begin with, meaning if you remove most of the chlorophyll waxes first.

I have tried heating 100 ml of Acetone several times with 1 gram of Salvinorin powder in it, but nothing ever shows, not even a hint of cloudyness or crystals, but I never tried freezing it to see if something would come out. I assumed that Acetone is just too difficult to saturate because it can hold something close to 20+ mg of Salvinorin per ml, from what I have been told.

I have only tried washing the crystals once when I tried using Naphtha to remove some chlorophyll wax that had deposited on a portion of the dried crystal structures which luckily formed from just the evaporation of some Acetone with Salvinorin dissolved into it (as seen in these photographs: Salvinorin Photos) Trying to remove wax that had caked onto the crystals with Naphtha didn't work for me at all. Since Naphtha won't dissolve the crystals and will dissolve the chlorophylls I was sure it would work, but it didn't. Perhaps if I had let them soak a few hours it might have done the job, but I poured in some 99% IPA and that took the green off in a hurry, but also dissolved some of the crystals too. Fortunately, I don't have much contamination from wax when crystals form from evaporating Acetone, the wax, if there is any typically ends up drying on the upper edges of the bowl as the fluid level is evaporating down leaving almost wax free crystal formations in the bottom of the bowl. You can see this at that Salvinorin Photo's link, if you look at the evaporation bowls there are green rings of chlorophyll waxes up high on the glass and almost pure crystal structures in the bottom every time.

Thanks for posting that info, good to know what is going on and that my beard is helping

edit: typos and added a few more words

[ 07. February 2004, 12:53: Message edited by: Salvinorin ]

[theobromos]

The boiling point of acetone is, officially, 56 degrees C but it would be difficult to reach if there is the slightest breeze evaporating it first. So the drop in temperature to room temperature isn't much. Putting it in the freezer is obviously much better.

However you might still find that crystals don't form. This will be because it is a supersaturated solution. You can seed with crystals from another source (or one crystal if you want a lump of crystals). The crystals want to form but can't quite work out how, but given the pattern will attach themselves willingly. You don't need the beard when using seed crystals

You could heat the solutions in a water bath and take some time to sit and relax. If you are into that sort of thing

[Northern Gnome]

I will give it a try with Acetone again a small 25 ml vial in a few days when I have some time off work.

I want to try with Methanol again too, someone responded to a post I made in the SalviaD group on google that he grows crystals in Methanol that are much larger than what you can get with Alcohol.

I had a chemist friend tell me that he had grown crystals in Methanol too, but it wouldn't work for me when I tried it about two years ago. I'm better at it now, so maybe it will work for me this time.

Thanks for the correspondence via post on this, hardly anyone seems to have much interest in conversing on this subject.

[waterdragon]

the reason for the lack of outright enthusiasm may have something to do with the way that salvia is scheduled in this country, not many people will want to share their extraction tips i'm guessing.

[Northern Gnome]

Your right, but I was thinking of all of the entheo boards in many different countries too.

[theobromos]

The trouble with the crystals from methanol is that some of the solvent can remain in the crystals, as with water of crystallisation. This may be why they crumble after drying.

I am not and have only once been a Salvia divinorum user so I don't tend to look at these threads often. I had one rollup of the leaf and got the distinct impression (communication) that she was not for me. But if you have anything that you think I can help with, PM me.

Ave Maria

[theobromos]

Have you seen:

http://yarchive.net/chem/crystal_grow.html

The "nucleating agents" are lumps of anything that start off a crystals. The fewer nuclei the bigger your crystals are going to be. So covering your beard may help, as well as ultrafiltration.

[Alchemist]

Someone ought to try extracting and purifying other common salvia species such as splendens. Ok it may not be active smoked, but perhaps a large dose of the pure compound is.

Can you do it mr salvinorin!

[Northern Gnome]

Yes, but to find some of those plants in a quantity to play with. If your a real chemist small quantities are easy to extract and refine, but being a non-chem type I make up for my lack of skill by using more leaf.

Anyone have suggestions? Maybe just grow some of the plants this summer and give it a try. If it was active, that is one I would keep to myself so that it wouldn't get added to the list of evil natures.

Edit: Thanks for the link bromos, and suggestions. I took a look at it tonight. I gotta get a bottle of Methanol too, fortunately it's something I can buy right off the shelf at a local shop that is a clean ACS technical grade.

[ 09. February 2004, 18:46: Message edited by: Salvinorin ]

[waterdragon]

splendens can definately be active when smoked! tried some melissodora in a big scoob today and didn't get effects until about five minutes after i butted it. would describe the meliss effects as 'a moment of clarity'.

[Northern Gnome]

I have heard that it has effects before, but I was wondering if you see anything with your eyes either open or closed. That is what I meant, if the pure compound was as strong as Salvinorin it would be something to keep quiet so that it isn't added to the list of evil substances at the same time they do that to Salvia Divinorum here, I expect, some day in the not too distant future.

Edit: I mean, its fine if someone else brings it out, but I don't want to do it because I would feel responsible for adding it to the list of evil natures, according to some. I have taken enough heat from some individuals for propagating extraction techniques for SalviaD as it is. Although, only from those who were selling it.

[ 10. February 2004, 08:22: Message edited by: Salvinorin ]

[waterdragon]

have yet to find another salvia that's in the same league as divinorum. maybe thelemas thread will have something to add.

[theobromos]

Tried sclarea?

[waterdragon]

haven't tried plenty of varieties. did try guaranitica and got a div entry style effect then nothing, a stronger extract could be useful as i was just using leaf.

[Northern Gnome]

I just made a link public on my yahoo site which was private before. It shows a way to remove tannins from dried extract obtained from a chilled Acetone extraction with cold water prior to removing chlorophyll waxes with Naphtha or Isopropanol.

This method worked very well and might be a good step to incorporate into an extraction, but I don't know if much Salvinorin is removed with cold water washes of dried extract. Because that question wasn't answered I kept this technique private but am putting it out now anyway. I doubt that cold water washes of a extract from a cold Acetone extraction will cause much loss, but I didn't confirm it. Although, warm water washes of the leaf itself can cause as much as 30% of the Salvinorin to be removed so don't do that. I don't even like the idea of water washing leaf with cold water. If you want to try to remove tannins from your leaf I think it would be best to do it this way rather than washing the actual leaf, much less water is needed and less potential loss:

http://f1.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/salvinori...ren%3as,1%3af,0

This method won't work out with the extract from a room temperature extraction because there is far too much wax in it for the water to cut to the tannin. However, if you washed your extract with Naphtha until a christmas tree green and then dried it, you could remove tannins with cold water washes of that extract, once all of the Naphtha has been removed and the extract is completely dry. This would help purify the extract a great deal if you didn't let the extract solvent set still long enough for most of the tannin sediments to fall out of the fluid after the initial extraction.

If you take a look at the photo's you will see that the water wash of the dried extract was so effective at removing tannins that a few washes with Isopropanol (after the water was completely dried out of the extract) turned the extract a very nice white color very easily, although the extraction efficiency is reduced when you use Isopropanol to get down to white Salvinorin, even further reducing the efficiency of a chilled Acetone extraction which I no longer recommend.

If you want to do a water wash of the extract from a couple of 5 minute or longer room temperature Acetone extractions (which increases efficiency far beyond a single chilled Acetone extraction) just wash the dried extract with Naphtha then once all of the green Naphtha is removed from the extract and completely dry without a hint of Naphtha smell you can do a water wash to remove tannins. Then dry the extract again and use to enhance leaf or make tincture as is, no need to remove all of the chlorophylls with IPA which will make a tincture weak and ineffective without some of the chlorophyll compounds anyway.

Edit: added more info

[ 17. February 2004, 08:38: Message edited by: Salvinorin ]

[Northern Gnome]

I had the crystals tested for purity using a HPLC and the results were better than expected, over 99.5% pure! Just got the word today.

Another batch of crystals grown today:

925 mg dissolved (not all of it though) into 120 ml of boiling 151 proof drinking Alcohol; Everclear.

[ 03. March 2004, 19:41: Message edited by: Salvinorin ]

[theobromos]

-

[Northern Gnome]

If you want to download the photographs of crystals and extractions you can find zipped files at http://www.entheogen.com/articles/2004/sph...phere_pics.html - They have links to the files stored on their site all winzipped together.

Here is a link to a page that someone anonymously wrote about the extraction process I use. I have no idea who wrote it, but I did proof read it. http://www.entheogen.com/articles/2004/salvinorin.html

THE FIRST POST IN THIS THREAD HAS BEEN HIGHLY EDITED MAKING IT EASIER TO UNDERSTAND.

[ 05. March 2004, 12:49: Message edited by: Salvinorin ]