Sciencemadness Discussion Board - Extraction of the "good stuff" from herbal highs (Salvia etc)

Extraction of the "good stuff" from herbal highs (Salvia etc)

Mafoon - 29-10-2009 at 13:00

I grow salvia (which is legal where i am in U.K.) and i was wondering what sort of lab equipment would be best for obtaining extract (salvinorin A.) and refining it from the leaves; also what's the most efficient way to go about it to get the highest yeild from my leaves.

BTW this is my first post and if this is inappropriate for this site i'll take it down.

hissingnoise - 29-10-2009 at 13:50

Quote: Originally posted by Mafoon

(which is legal where i am in U.K.)

http://www.salviasource.org/forum/methods-of-use/the-penulti...

A temporary situation, I can assure you.
When it reaches a certain specified level of popularity, they'll do what they always do to nature's exquisite little thrills.
You may unwittingly hasten that day by drawing the bastards attention.
Welcome to SciMad. . .

Mafoon - 29-10-2009 at 13:56

TY that's exatly what i was looking for

entropy51 - 29-10-2009 at 14:52

Quote: Originally posted by Mafoon

I grow salvia (which is legal where i am in U.K.) and i was wondering what sort of lab equipment would be best for obtaining extract (salvinorin A.) and refining it from the leaves; also what's the most efficient way to go about it to get the highest yeild from my leaves.

BTW this is my first post and if this is inappropriate for this site i'll take it down.

Somehow I suspect that people who can't spell yield aren't very interested in chemistry. Neither are those who use "highs" in the title of their first post serious pharmacologists.

Quote: Originally posted by hissingnoise

Someone who fastens on a single misspelling to prove some spurious point is deeply pathetic!
This board is littered with just such misspellings and you well know it, yet you seem to think this particular one is significant?
You're a medical man, or so you would have us believe, yet you come out with this stuff more redolent of an ignorant, reactionary bigot!

Yes, I think it significant since the post is not rife with mispellings and it leads me to believe this poster doesn't read much chemistry.
Believe what you will, but I wasn't name calling, now was I?

Even the drug cooking threads usually have some chemistry content, some even interesting. I don't see this thread going toward any chemistry, but I respect your opinion and won't stoop to name calling because it differs from mine.

[Edited on 30-10-2009 by entropy51]

hissingnoise - 29-10-2009 at 16:14

Someone who fastens on a single misspelling to prove some spurious point is deeply pathetic!
This board is littered with just such misspellings and you well know it, yet you seem to think this particular one is significant?
You're a medical man, or so you would have us believe, yet you come out with this stuff more redolent of an ignorant, reactionary bigot!

[Edited on 30-10-2009 by hissingnoise]

User - 29-10-2009 at 19:19

Well that could be , i can imagine both points of view.
I can see entropy's response as in : here we have another someone who's only intrested in getting wasted and has no patience to consider the chemistry what so ever.
On the other hand salvia is quite innocent and some tips for this fellow wouldn't really hurt deeply.

Anyhow.

These are somewhat educated guesses, but you could try plain steam destillation.
Another quick and dirty way would be using a copper pipe to put the plant in and letting butane right from the bottle flow through it to extract the oils.
Last one is a method more often used by "cooks".
Not that iam really supporting that.

Off to bed.

[Edited on 30-10-2009 by User]

Sedit - 29-10-2009 at 20:56

Quote:

Another quick and dirty way would be using a copper pipe to put the plant in and letting butane right from the bottle flow through it to extract the oils.
Last one is a method more often used by "cooks".

It may be quick but it is anything but dirty. On the contrary people use it for its selectability and solvating power. It works very well for essential oils and I have used it for quite a few such as lavender oil, oil of bay and sassafrass(local high yeilding plants). It produces a quality you just can not find in commercial oils that provides all the subtile hints that higher temperatures destroys.

But.... is there really any need to specify that the method is used by cooks?You know what happens to any thread when that kind of profanity is brought up. Besides, potheads are the main ones to use supercritical butane and they are far from cooks most of the time and the majority despise many of the "cook chemicals". As well, if you are going to mention to someone methods of super critical butane extraction last thing you want to do is just suggest it and leave them hanging to later blow them selfs up thru improper and or lack of knowledge.

@Mafoon
You will get a much better response in the future if you ask for the solubility data on salvinorin A, other then asking how to get the best high out of your material, and then do the further research yourself reporting back to us when you got it worked out.

[Edited on 30-10-2009 by Sedit]

not_important - 30-10-2009 at 00:53

Butane, or if you want to mess with the needed pressures propane, is indeed a good extraction solvent for non-polars; stuff like chlorophyll gets left behind.

However I doubt there are many, especial the ignorant, using supercritical butane as I belive the critical point is something like 150 C and 38 bar. Doable at home, using heavy walled pipe perhaps, but hardly a simple matter.

User - 30-10-2009 at 03:30

I didnt mean to insult this kind of extraction, it is rathet high-tech.
Ive heard it being used a lot in the extraction of 'certain' substances from roots of 'certain' trees'
This also proofs that it is a good method for these kinda things.
And so what they also use filtration.
Bored of people always keeping the same discussion up when the"c" word is used.

On a windy cold winter day i once did such an extraction outside.
using a 2 meter long copper pipe.
Using the valve on the bottle it was easy to control the flow rate.
Quite straighforward.
it wasn't drugs related.

[Edited on 30-10-2009 by User]

entropy51 - 30-10-2009 at 05:39

Quote:

It produces a quality you just can not find in commercial oils that provides all the subtile hints that higher temperatures destroys

Now that's what I consider a quality post for a drug thread! Sedit is the ultimate connoisseur of naughty oils!

hissingnoise - 30-10-2009 at 06:46

Quote: Originally posted by entropy51

Believe what you will, but I wasn't name calling, now was I?

The suggestion seems to be that my questioning your intolerant attitude to others personal freedoms amounts to namecalling. . .
How does the fact that the poster has an interest in a particular plant-extract have a bearing on anything?
And just how do you know that his use of a chemical technique will not awaken a latent interest?
My problem is that I just find the seemingly prevalent 'belief' that any one person anywhere should have any say over what substances another person ingests for 'kicks' to be beneath contempt.
OABTW, I wish you'd post attempted rebuttals where they'll be more easily seen!

Rich_Insane - 30-10-2009 at 10:26

This is more extraction than a drug-cooking question. I'm pretty sure Merck index has an entry for Salvinorin A (unfortuantely, I do not posses a copy). The molecule looks as though it can be extracted via ethanol, but be careful that it is not dEtOH. If you can't find anhydrous or clean 95% EtOH, use Everclear. Even better would be acetone. Salvinorin itself does not look very volatile (its melting point is ~280 C). This gives you an advantage. You could just do a water extraction of the chlorophyll-like junk, dissolve away lipids with an NP solvent, leaving you with polysaccharide matter, and some left over proteins. Then you could wash what you have with water again, and use a little acetone/ethanol to collect what's left.

crazyboy - 30-10-2009 at 14:35

Why don't you search? :mad:

There is already a thread addressing EXACTLY this question.

http://www.sciencemadness.org/talk/viewthread.php?tid=5038#p...

Sedit - 30-10-2009 at 14:48

Quote: Originally posted by entropy51

Now that's what I consider a quality post for a drug thread! Sedit is the ultimate connoisseur of naughty oils!

Im not picky, I love all the oils not just the naughty ones. Lavender oil for instance has some amazing healing abilitys that saved my middle finger tip about a year or so ago which I got it stuck in a bench grinder lossing it all the way to the bone eventialy loosing conscienceness from loss of blood. The application of lavender oil which proved its healing properties in the past to me was able to regrow my finger tip all the way to the point where it is just a faint scar with a little lump where the vain was cut. Still numb so it didn't regrow the nerves but im damn lucky I knew about Lavender.

Quote:

Then you could wash what you have with water again,

If you are left with nothing but insolubles coating small amounts of material soluble in water then you will not achieve much attempting to wash with water as the oils and what not will repell the water and prevent solvation of the polar substances. You could get around this by "dry" grinding the material with salt giving the surface area you would need for the water wash to be of any effect at all.

JohnWW - 30-10-2009 at 19:20

There is a long thread about growing salvia species, and extracting their essential oils, in the archive of the site www.roguesci.org. Links to it are in a couple of threads here about the site.

argyrium - 1-11-2009 at 12:03

Slightly off topic.

JohnWW, The roguesci.org link (above) is dead/suspended. I vaguely remember reading something about this suspension earlier.

Sedit, may I ask whether the Lavender oil you extracted was from commercial dry material or some you actually picked. If commercial was it from a health-food store, perhaps? The healing properties sound intriguing.

Thanks.

Sedit - 1-11-2009 at 12:55

I normaly just buy lavender oil as its dirt cheep but I have extracted small amounts in the past using butane from the flowering tops of Lavender that I grew myself. Sassafrass and Lavender are high yeilding plant that produces a high quality oil with ease.

Given the time next summer I may just detail the method here on the board which involves nothing more then a couple valves and Large pipe fittings. The butane goes in and the valves are shut off to allow it to stay a liquid for a little while solvating the oils and then the bottom valve is slowly opened dropping the oils/butane into a bowl where the butane evaporates leaving your oils behind.... far away from ignition sources. Not the smartest or most efficent means but fun non the lest.

The butane extraction produces and oil that has a much sweeter lighter note on top of the normal smell of lavender which you just don't get from commercial products. The smell is reminisent of honey suckles.

argyrium - 1-11-2009 at 14:42

Sedit, thank you for the clarification w/ the lavender. It is unfortunately too warm here (Honolulu) to grow it - BUT, we have tons of other lovely flowers that would yield nice fragrances.

The only butane available here without the purchase of a large cylinder, comes in ~ .5L cans meant for small table stoves. There is an odorant (a mercaptan??) added which I would assume would persist if dissolved in a NP "oil".

Will be interested in the extraction write-up when you have time.

Best

hissingnoise - 1-11-2009 at 15:00

Quote: Originally posted by argyrium

It is unfortunately too warm here (Honolulu) to grow it - BUT, we have tons of other lovely flowers that would yield nice fragrances.

Like Maui-wowie---to name but one?

JohnWW - 1-11-2009 at 15:28

Quote: Originally posted by argyrium

Sedit, thank you for the clarification w/ the lavender. It is unfortunately too warm here (Honolulu) to grow it - BUT, we have tons of other lovely flowers that would yield nice fragrances.(cut)

If it is too warm at sea level to grow it in Hawaii, e.g. because of a dormant season being required, it could still be grown up in the mountains. I understand that the highest mountains in Hawaii are about 14,000 feet, which provides ample scope for different climatic zones.

JohnWW - 1-11-2009 at 15:33

Quote: Originally posted by argyrium

JohnWW, The roguesci.org link (above) is dead/suspended. I vaguely remember reading something about this suspension earlier.

In that case, I shall upload it to rapidshare.com on my "premium" account, although the Torrent download should still be working.

BTW Quite a large range of essential oils are now grown and extracted in New Zealand, including the oils of lavender, peppermint, pine needles, thyme, rosemary, culinary sage, oreganum, manuka (NZ teatree), and eucalyptus.

Vogelzang - 16-11-2009 at 02:35

See http://www.sagewisdom.org/valdes86.html

User - 16-11-2009 at 04:25

Soxhlet , why didnt I think of that

Hehe I can imagine the guy who started this topic thinking " mhh, what the hell is that"

Wondering how much better the product would be compared to critical extraction.
Well Salvinorin A (one of the main components) has a surprisingly high boiling point.
This should be the " good stuff " then.
So using such a extraction as suggested would not really damage it.

Btw Salvinorin A has been made syntheticly with a 4.5% yield.
Considering the complexity of the molecule thats quite nice

Mafoon - 17-11-2009 at 12:53

Made syntheticly you say, where did you see this, are there any published papers on it because i'd like to see how they did that. It will probally be beyond what i can do atm, but i'm up for a good read.

Nicodem - 17-11-2009 at 12:57

Ever heard about search engines?

http://www.sciencemadness.org/talk/viewthread.php?tid=8780