So I wanted to extract caffeine from some pills to give to a friend as a joke, but I am having a hard time finding any products that would contain DCM
in the EU.
Do you have any ideas what I could extract it from and if it is even still available in any commercial products, since it was banned in paint
removers?
Or could I maybe use any more commonly available alternatives? B(a)P - 6-12-2022 at 17:00
Welcome to the forum.
You might get more of a responce if you indicate what the joke is/what you are trying to achieve.
Hopefully you know what you are doing and no harm will come to the jokee.
Do you just want the caffeine in solution?
Do you want to isolate pure caffeine?
Do you want the pills intact, but with all caffeine removed?
Nile Red has a video on youtube about extracting caffeine from pills, which may be a useful start. Dolincek - 7-12-2022 at 01:09
Yes you are right, sorry.
So my plan was to give him pure caffeine in powder form, not for consumption, or add a bit of it to some protein bars I plan to make for him, since he
is a gymbro and loves energy drinks, but after some thought I came to the conclusion that this wouldn't be a smart idea.
My plan was firstly dissolve the organic compounds with sodium carbonate and then to wash the solution in DCM to dissolve the caffeine, like I saw in
the NileRed video.
I can make sodium carbonate with ease from baking powder, but I can't find any cleaners or comercial products from which I could isolate the
dichloromethane. I am located in the EU and the use of DCM in paint remover is banned.
So I'm wondering if you guys know any products for comercial use that still contain DCM or any other solvent I could use to substitute the DCM?
If not I will probably just buy a small ammount, but I would rather extract it or replace it because this is one of my first experiments and a but of
practice with distillation wouldn't hurt.Fery - 7-12-2022 at 02:28
Exactly! Clever idea. Buy pharma / food grade caffeine. Cheaper and quality granted.
But I understand the beauty of chemistry. You should use solvent which dissolves caffeine but does not dissolve additives in pills. Maybe concentrated
ethanol, acetone, medicinal petrol ether (mixture of isohexanes) could do the job, but you should check it at small scale first with e.g. 1 crushed
pill into dust. The problem arises when the pill additives start to soak solvent and expand in volume (1 g could easily bind more than 100 ml of
solvent into gel). Also the caffeine could be 10 fold less soluble of in these alternative solvents than in dichloromethane.
If you want really only dichloromethane you can ask few guys in this forum. I have very good experience with this one: https://www.sciencemadness.org/whisper/viewthread.php?tid=15...
Wait, I've just got another idea... maybe you still could buy OTC perchlorethylene? But it would be technical grade and I don't suggest to eat
caffeine extracted with it. Herr Haber - 7-12-2022 at 07:12
I know it may seem a bit too much for just a joke but what about supercritical CO2 ?
The industry moved from DCM to supercritical CO2. Would that work on ground pills ? I truly dont know.Mateo_swe - 7-12-2022 at 07:59
[Edited on 2022-12-7 by Mateo_swe]Fery - 7-12-2022 at 11:11
Mateo_swe - Chemland is great supplier of glass, equipment, reagents. For reagents they ask you for business ID or VAT ID. The 25 L drum of DCM costed
me 55 EUR more than 1 year ago (without VAT), the price seems now too high (or maybe I was lucky and it was a sale?). Also minimal order from them is
150 EUR. After reaching some threshold (every order adds) they offer you permanent discount. Shipping cost of goods on wooden pallet (cca 100 kg and 1
m3) from Poland to Czech rep is now about 80 EUR, I do not know how much for small parcel of few kg and few L, but they reply to email very quickly.
Herr Haber - CO2 would be certainly the cleanest extraction possible. Dolincek seems to want to perform the extraction at home (otherwise he wouldn't
ask where to obtain DCM). We can help him in finding the solvent he wants or some analogy which is easy to use, easy to obtain and which works for his
extraction.Dolincek - 7-12-2022 at 14:22
Maybe concentrated ethanol, acetone, medicinal petrol ether (mixture of isohexanes) could do the job, but you should check it at small scale first
with e.g. 1 crushed pill into dust.
Thanks for the recommendations, I'll try with acetone or ethanol, or maybe even ethyl acetate, since they are quite easy to obtain and purify. I'll do
some small scale tests to try it out as soon as I get my hands on some products.
If that doesn't work I'll just buy DCM and do the extraction normally.
Thanks for the help, I'll post the results when I'm done. :DBert - 8-12-2022 at 19:41
I know it may seem a bit too much for just a joke but what about supercritical CO2 ?
The industry moved from DCM to supercritical CO2. Would that work on ground pills ? I truly dont know.
Herr Haber beat me to it...
It's not that technically challenging to use CO2 to extract caffeine if you have a clue about physics of gaseous/liquid conditions of CO2 and how to
spec a pressurized vessel. Food (beverage) grade CO2 is stupid easy to come by anywhere they sell beer or Coca Cola, plus CO2 will quickly be GONE
from an extract after exposing the solutes extracted by this solvent to atmospheric conditions.
DCM isn't often sold as an explicitly "food grade" or "pharmaceutical grade" purity chemical AFAIK.
[Edited on 12-9-2022 by Bert]Dolincek - 9-12-2022 at 06:01
It's not that technically challenging to use CO2 to extract caffeine if you have a clue about physics of gaseous/liquid conditions of CO2 and how to
spec a pressurized vessel.
[Edited on 12-9-2022 by Bert]
I definitely want to try something with supercritical fluids one day, but regarding that my skills and knowledge of the subject are really low and
that this is one of my first chem "projects" I'll rather stick to easier methods.
Although in the future I will definitely do some research on the subject for a later project or something. Bedlasky - 9-12-2022 at 08:56
Ethyl acetate can be used instead of DCM. Ethyl acetate is pretty common organic solvent.Lionel Spanner - 10-12-2022 at 11:28
