ephedrine and meth extractions using only water

[Bissle55]

Im sorry i didnt put this into the chemistry forum, but for some reason it wont let me post there.

This system has been beating around in SWIMs head for quite some time. Steam distillation has been used for thousands of years to obtain the essential oils of plants and substances. I know that swim can effectivly steam distill the ephedrine out of the ma huang plant, but not the pseudo, this is ok, because there is (to my understanding) much more ephedrine in the plant than pseudo, and the other two amines (I can remember thier names).

after obtaining the distillate, just adjust ph with dilute hcl and evaporate. theres the ephedrine. put the ephedrine in with your HI/rp reaction flask and continue reaction as usual. after filtering RP out of reaction solution, put your meth freebase/ reaction mixture into the steam distiller, adjust ph to above 12 and steam distill reaction mixture. collect distillate adjust ph to slightly acidic, and evaporate.

Theoreticaly one should have just made meth without using any nasty solvents that stink and cost money.

What does everyone think of this, any ideas/critisism are accepted.

[beentheredonethatagain]

I thinking there is no Pse in that plant.

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[Bissle55]

ma huang ephedra is supposed to have 1-2% ephedra alkaloids that include ephedrine and pseudoephedrine, what makes you think that "that plants doesnt have any pse in it"

[I>A\/I>]

yes, MaHuang frequently has more than that, % wise,
and the alkaloids include pseudo, ephedrine, nor pseudo,
and phenypropanolamine. there's acouple others, too.

[Bissle55]

I guess what im trying to ask, is everyones opinion on using steam distillation as an alternative to using lots of solvents. Some solvents are dangerous to work with and make a lot of toxic waste. Ive heard that some labs produce 5 pounds of toxic waste solvents for every pound of chilli. Steam distilling seems like the best way to do it safely without blowing yourself up and buying expensive solvents.

[I>A\/I>]

There are several ways to obtain the alkaloids, and they have been covered quite well hereabouts.

The nasty materials you are rightfully concerned about arise typically in subsequent operations.

Pseudo can be distilled (steamed over), although not quite so readily.

[Bissle55]

Would SWIM be able to just be able to add hcl to the water/oil mix until neutral or slightly acidic and evaporate for relatively clean crystals, or would further cleaning be necessary?

[Chefko]

the product ll be not clean,swim need to wash the destilate.add solvent and make a water wash then on ph 7,seperate and evaporize

[?LORD WORM?]

there you would also have to seperate the different ephedrines by either their corresponding salt properties(some salts are soluable in different solvent, water.)

[combe93]

does anyone have a step by step procedure for how to do this steam distillation?

[Aminator]

Come on now boys and girls, get a fu&%ing chemistry textbook (ebook), those are the absolute basics of the trade.

People who want step-by-step recipes but have no clue what the f$#ck they're doing will blow up the house, endanger others, sell dirty shit and give all cooks a bad name. Hell, even the word 'cook' is a bad name in its own right on normal chemistry boards.

And why would one *have to* separate the alkaloids? One of the two chiral centers goes down the drain on reduction anyway. Using E, PSE, norE + norPSE will give you modified biker dope worst case (i.e. d/l but not 50/50). Or am I missing something here?