Alrighty then, its almost dawn on saturday morning, and I am finally starting this damn thing.
First Ill go over the prepatory work I had to do to start:
Anhydrous magnesium sulfate was prepared using the following method: Drug store epsom salts were purchased, my oven pre-heated to 300 degrees farenheight(spelling?). I covered a CLEAN/DRY cookie sheet with about 1, to 1 and a half centimeters of epsom salts(exact amounts are not critical here,just dont pile on so much that it is more than 3/4 of an inch high,or it wont dry very well). Bake the MgSO4 for 2-3 hours(3 is a better number since its always dry by then), remove and let cool for 10 or 15 minutes. Once cooled, pick up a clump and grind it in your fingers, it should crumble to fine/dry/bright white dust(it looks like plaster dust at this point, bright but still flat white, not twinkilie or sparklelie like it is fresh from the carton), this dust should kick up into the air easily, with little wind, just the act of pouring it into a storage container should kick up a good little bit. If your MgSO4 dust behaves like I just described, its good to go. Oh yeah, he MgSO4 will usually bake into semi good sized plates(1-4 inches in diameter), it crumbles very easily, you dont even need a mortar and pestil(Iuse a DRY! blender for mine, but I have also just putthem into thick zip-lock bags and hit it with a rolling pin,ect). Just make sure its pretty well ground-up, so you expose as much surface area as possibleto the solvent. There you have it guys, a cheap, safe and easy way to produce your own dry extraction solvents, from non-watched/suspicious items(hope someone uses this **** because, its really useful for the home/kitchen chemist).
Preperation of dry solvent: I decided to use acetone for my first solvent extraction. I bought a gallon on the way home this morning at wall-mart, only ran me about ten bucks. A gallon is 8-10 times more than you will ever need but, compared to the quart for 6 bucks you cant beat the price break. Plus, Acetone is also a good the solvent for cleaning lab glass,some plastics,metal parts,and almost everything else in you lab. Acetone(and distilled water for that matter) has always had a corner stone in professional labs as well as colleges, you just cant beat it. Pour what ever amount of solvent you need, plus an extra 30% into a container(plastic,glass,metal, its all the same at this stage)of suitable size,do try to leave yourself some head room though. Dump in 2-3 grams(if you dont have a scale just add MgSO4 to the point where its volume is about1/6-1/5 the size of the total volume of solvent being used) of dry MgSO4 for every 50mls of solvent in the beaker. Agitate it real good for a minute or two(a water bottle with a screw cap is an old ghetto favorite,very reliable,and you can shake your *** off and not worry about spilling,sloshing,and re-absorbing atmospheric moisture), set the beaker aside and let the MgSO4 settle to the bottom(mine usually takes an hour or so to settle completely. After settling, decant(pour off) the solvent from the MgSO4, you cant get all of it without getting some of the salts so dont bother. Pour off as much as you can easily,when you see the salts rushing towards the lip of the beaker, just stop(remember we added that extra 30% to acount for losses along the way). Whatever anybody does never try to just filter them out, they are to fine of particles, and go right through coffee filters,and most lab grade filters as well(except the really fine ones).We now have solvent thats dry enough for our purposes. This process can be applied to most common organic solvents(and all of the ones we use except Ethanol, all other alcohols are okay though). Just remember. store what you dont use(dry solvents and dry epsom salt) in an airtight container, so as not to re-absorb moisture from the air.
I had never made a Dewar condenser before, but it was pretty easy. I bought a stainless steel thermos from wall-mart, its maybe a little taller than a foot and it holds about a quart of liquid, more than big enough for me. Two holes were drilled into the thermos,both through the side of it, into the vaccuum wall(to be clear: one at top, one at bottom, through the outer wall,NOT BOTH WALLS!). Drilling these two holes is not easy to do, the first was done with a diamond tipped hand drill. I eventually got it through but man, it kept slipping when you apply pressure to the drill to start the hole. Looking back, securing it in a vise would have made it alot easier than trying to fight it out with the damn thing. My second hole was done on a drill press at work and worked marvelously. The Thermos should now have two holes in any position that allows the space between the inner and outer wall(what use to be the vaccuum) to fill with liquid when submereged upto within a few inches of the top. At this point its easy to figure out how this fancy sounding piece of equipment works to condense and store liquid Butane for a little while. Only thing that sucks is that this is really all you can do with this piece of equipment. Its kinda worthless if your not making hash.
Well thats all the prep, lets get to the fun stuff.
THE FIRST EXTRACT: Into a one-liter, round, flat-bottomed flask(24/40) was placed 14 grams of kind bud trimmings and leaf trimmings(ground in the blender),500mls of dry acetone,a magnetic stir bar,and fitted with an 18 inch allihn condensor, and placed on a mag stirrer/hotplate combo, the rig was also secured in a ring stand. Stirring has been started,and is upto the highest setting possible without it missing. I started the reflux maybe an hour ago so, we got some time to wait till my next post on my progress. I want to boil for at least 24 hours,since I feel this extraction is the most important(wanna get all those goodies out). Once its done, Ill sepperate out the solvent and extract the plant matter again with 250mls of Acetone this time, I will then combine all extracts and strip-em together.
Well guys, thats all I got for now, till Im done refluxing anyway. If theres any questions anybody needs answered or clarified, Ill be happy to try to help and explain.
I could not have done this without MPs help, thanks for keeping me motivated guys(especially you Stoney), now I need a nap pretty damn bad.
Good morning guys, Ill catch ya'll later tonight.
Prometheus
