Extraction - Ethanol Extraction Of Poppy Pods.

[fnord]

I understand that opiates are fully soluble in h20 but im wondering if a extract could be done with ethanol to speed up evap time,and then after a generic extract has been done water could have its PH adjusted to be used to further clean up the product.

The only thing im wondering is if ALL the active opiods will be soluble in ethanol.

[ncsponger]

Yes, opiate alkaloids are soluble in ethanol. It is also likely that ethanol will pull a lot of unwanted gunk from the seeds leaving a very resiny end product. After the alcohol extraction one could perform an acid/base extraction on the alcoholic extraction to yeild a salt form of the alkaloids. But then one would still have to evaporate a large amount of water to recover the alkaloids, unless one elected to gas the non-polar pull while the alkaloid is in the freebase form. However, gassing with Hydrogen chloride gas is only recommended for very pure anhydrous solutions usually containing only one active compound. Either way, a huge amount of poppy seed would be required to make the process worthwhile.


EDIT: sorry, swim thought the thread title said extraction from seeds.

ncsponger added 9 Minutes and 36 Seconds later...

Ok, let's try again. SWIM has also been interested in extracting pods without having to evaporate all that water. As SWIM stated above, it seems that a swimmer would still eventually have to evaporate a large amount of water if he wanted to obtain a relatively pure, stable salt form of the active alkaloids. If SWIF is satisfied with an impure residue of alkaloids and vegetative material, than the simple ethanol extraction would work.

After extracting the pods, one could warm the ethanol and filter it through a couple of coffee filters to remove some of the plant material, tannins, etc. possibly yielding a more pure product.

[Mammon]

While browsing old threads in the opiate chemistry forum I came across one which claimed that using ethanol extracts more of the alkaloids.

Does anyone know if this is correct?

If so why?

How much more would be extracted?

My interest is, of course, purely theoretical.

[fnord]

Grandma did a basified ethanol extract followed by a water extract that was then cleaned up with a slightly acidic water extract.

Results from 30 home grown well cared for P. somni pods was minimal when split oraly between 3 people.

[Mammon]

Has grandma done a tea (using water) to get an idea of the "normal" strength?

Could grandma give more details about the extraction (steeping time, ph levels, base and acid used, etc)? Sorry, this stuff really interests this weird guy I know.

[fnord]

Originally Posted by Jamal

Has grandma done a tea (using water) to get an idea of the "normal" strength?

Could grandma give more details about the extraction (steeping time, ph levels, base and acid used, etc)? Sorry, this stuff really interests this weird guy I know.

Originally Posted by United States Patent 6054584

A process for extracting morphine from opium is described. In the process, opium is extracted with a basic alcoholic solution. The basic alcoholic solution is filtered and the alcohol removed from the filtrate to leave a residue. The residue is then extracted with a basic aqueous solution having a pH of at least 11. The basic aqueous solution may be filtered to remove any solid matter remaining after the aqueous extraction step, and then be stirred with a sufficient amount of a salt to avoid emulsion formation. The basic aqueous solution or filtrate is then extracted with benzene or toluene. Next, adjusting the pH of the basic aqueous filtrate to pH 8.5 to 9.5 allows the morphine to precipitate and be recovered.

Ph values are unknown,ph testing equipment was availible but not used. they were gussetameted at being higher/lower then the required ones thus leaving much more then just the morphine as mentioend in the patent. Grandma was hopeing for a clean tasty smokeable ethanol/water extract with little impuritys. soaking times were only 6 hours due to the end product being required for the nights opium margeritta party. The extract was smoakble but lacked a tasty flavor and desired effect. The remaining straw was saved and is being throw in once the rest of the poppys have dried and grandma is ready for hte next extract. Soaking times shall be much longer next time and more care will be used to record the experiment.

[Mammon]

One of the old posts in the opiate chemistry section said to leave the straw in ethanol for 6 weeks! That guy Bogumil, I think.

Does Grandma live somewhere where she can get 96% ethanol OTC? If so, tell her she's a very lucky old girl.

[fnord]

6 weeks? Pfft! cant be that long,most things only call for 24-48.

Yes a gallon of denatured ethanol can be bought at the hardware store for very little of our worthless american money.

[Mammon]

Denatured ethanol - someone on here once told me that if some nutter was going to use that in an extraction, that nutter would be poisoned. Is this incorrect? What alcohols are safe in an extraction?

U.K. denatured alcohol is this delightful coctail:

"with every 90 parts by volume of alcohol mix 9.5 parts by volume of wood naphtha or a substitute for wood naphtha and 0.5 parts by volume of crude pyridine, and to the resulting mixture add mineral naphtha (petroleum oil) in the proportion of 3.75 litres to every 1000 litres of the mixture and synthetic organic dyestuff (methyl violet) in the proportion of 1.5 grams to every 1000 litres of the mixture."

Again the weird guy I know is on my case. He says he wants to know if using this as a solvent in a poppy straw extraction would poison him.

Any ideas?

[fnord]

Section II - HAZARDOUS INGREDIENTS
COMPOSITION % CAS # TLV HAZARD
Ethyl alcohol 82.9 000064175 1000 ppm Flammable
Ethyl acetate 0.2 141-78-6 400 ppm Flammable
Methyl alcohol 16.4 000067561 200 ppm Flammable, poisonous
Methyl ethyl ketone 0.5 000078933 200 ppm Flammable

I believe all of these evaporate off at low temps.