Drunkguy - 25-2-2008 at 14:15
Cant you do small-scale extractions of mimosa hostilis wood bark by Soxhlet extraction?
I've noticed the people extracting the product arent exactly renowned for their rich assortment of glassware.
contrived - 25-2-2008 at 15:45
Why not use a soxhlet? What's the solvent? What's the quantity? If its really a small amount you could do something we've tried; put your bark and
solvent in a flask in an ultra-sound cleaner. Another method is critical fluid extraction with (in this case) CO2. You are after an alkaloid? Yes?
CO2.
jokull - 26-2-2008 at 06:41
As contrived said, the ultrasound is a good choice, if you don't have such an apparatus you can use a conventional microwave oven, just have to
experiment with power levels and "irradiation" time. I think there is a thread which inclludes a paper on microwave extraction of natural products.
syntelman - 26-2-2008 at 08:13
Yes, but considering that the alkaloid content of Mimosa is rather low (although high compared to many other plants) most people are not interested in
small-scale extractions. You'll need a pretty large Soxhlet to put 1-2 kg of dry root bark in. Standard A/B extraction works very well, and can yield
DMT of pretty decent purity if done correctly.
chemrox - 26-2-2008 at 23:08
I'm confused. You say standard a/b extraction works pretty well. Bt first you have to get from the solid material to the extractable liquid so there
you have some sort of transfer technique. Large volume soxhlets have been made to handle 500g-1kg amounts. I reasd of people making infusions and
soaking material in solvents but I think these are wasteful compared with soxhlet or critical fluid.
syntelman - 27-2-2008 at 04:04
Pulverised root bark defatted by non-polar solvent followed by multiple extractions with dilute hydrochloric acid will soak out a lot of the good
stuff. Sure, soxhlet may work better but how much do you pay for a Soxhlet extractor capable of handling 1kg of root bark, compared to a 5L HDPE can?
If you have the possibility (which most people interested in DMT hasn't) do it, else just do a standard A/B.
My point is just that A/B works perfectly fine, and most people are not interested in the chemistry or optimization of the extraction techniques by
buying lots of expensive glassware. They just go to the hardware store and buy some dirty solvents and follow some tutorial found on Shroomery. And I
have seen beautiful DMT crystals produced by that method (and with good yields compared to literature values of alkaloid percentages) 
Nick F - 27-2-2008 at 04:35
Yeah, lit. values seem way too low. I'm a member of the nook because I'm a bit of a cactus nut, and some people there seem to be consistenty getting
2-3x what the lit. says.
Drunkguy - 27-2-2008 at 07:59
Hmm, I dont even have a Soxhlet extractor btw, they arent that important I dont think, other than I recall Shulgin mentioning it in the chemical
synthesis of mescaline. Plus, I used it once when we were doing aldol self-condensation of acetone in undergraduate organic practical, to hold the
catalyst (BaSO4?).
My question was just concerning the actual principle of doing a plant extraction like this, more so than actually attemtping to do it.
Ofcourse, dmt extraction has been covered numerous times in other places so there is no need to discuss that further here, it is cheeky to have it in
the organic chemistry section since it doesnt involve forming covalent bonds.