Sciencemadness Discussion Board - Have organic molecule base in Ethyl acetate, precipitate with tartaric acid in methanol?

Have organic molecule base in Ethyl acetate, precipitate with tartaric acid in methanol?

beerwiz - 7-10-2018 at 05:36

I have the basic organic molecule in ethyl acetate, someone suggested I use tartaric acid dissolved in methanol to precipitate it out. Will that work or will mostly tartaric acid precipitate out since it's not soluble in the ethyl acetate (or DCM)?

Tsjerk - 7-10-2018 at 06:11

Depends on how much methanol you use

beerwiz - 7-10-2018 at 06:25

Quote: Originally posted by Tsjerk

Depends on how much methanol you use

Should I use a minimal amount of methanol just enough to dissolve the tartaric acid? Or must I use a lot of methanol to dillute the ethyl acetate and spread the tartaric acid throughout the ethyl acetate?

fusso - 7-10-2018 at 06:41

Quote: Originally posted by beerwiz

Quote: Originally posted by Tsjerk

Depends on how much methanol you use

Use minimum amount of both tartaric and MeOH. Precipitate out the salt. Filter the mixture. Wash precipitate with MeOH.

[Edited on 07/10/18 by fusso]

morganbw - 7-10-2018 at 09:57

I am somewhat lost in understanding this thread. Is this a specific organic molecule base or is this general for all of them.

If this is for all organic molecule bases then tartaric acid seems to be the SHIT!

If it is for particular bases then there should be a comment pointing toward this direction. Other threads were not included thus far in this thread.

Tsjerk - 7-10-2018 at 11:20

Without knowing the "organic molecule" nothing really can be said.

beerwiz - 7-10-2018 at 11:20

I'm talking about alkaloid bases.

Tsjerk - 7-10-2018 at 11:24

I already was pretty sure it was an amine. For some reason... Just name the molecule, we already know it is likely psychoactive. That is not forbidden on this forum. A long as you stay scientific and stay far from cookery

beerwiz - 7-10-2018 at 11:39

It's dimethyltryptamine.

[Edited on 7-10-2018 by beerwiz]

morganbw - 7-10-2018 at 11:46

Quote: Originally posted by Tsjerk

Without knowing the "organic molecule" nothing really can be said.

That, sir, was the reason for my post. Thank you for your post to clarify this.

happyfooddance - 7-10-2018 at 11:53

Putting it in the freezer will precipitate it in the freebase form, which is pretty stable and also the preferred form, as long as it is there is enough product in your ethyl acetate. You might have to evaporate or distill some ethyl acetate to make your solution more concentrated.

beerwiz - 7-10-2018 at 11:56

So will this method precipitate DMT tartrate or will it mostly be tartaric acid.
I'm thinking of using a 1:5 ratio of methanol with 5% tartaric acid:ethyl acetate.

Quote: Originally posted by happyfooddance

Putting it in the freezer will precipitate it in the freebase form, which is pretty stable and also the preferred form, as long as it is there is enough product in your ethyl acetate. You might have to evaporate or distill some ethyl acetate to make your solution more concentrated.

I prefer the tartrate salt so that's why I want to know if this will work.

[Edited on 8-10-2018 by beerwiz]

Tsjerk - 7-10-2018 at 12:32

You can only find the right ratio by finding it in literature, or determine it by trail and error. I would go for a literature research first.

happyfooddance - 7-10-2018 at 12:36

The problem you have is that you need to be certain that adding your MeOH/tartaric acid solution to plain ethyl acetate doesn't just precipitate tartrate, otherwise it will be hard to tell how much of what you get is your product, and it wil be more work to separate it. I don't know how soluble n, n-dimethyltryptamine is in methanol, or its salt, but if it isn't soluble at least cold, then you could do it how you described and just wash or recrystallize from methanol.

Try it out on a small scale first.

Tsjerk - 7-10-2018 at 21:43

You can do the precipitation without any product to see if the tartaric acid precipitates.