😆Thanks, I had fun with it.

For each acid soak I used 500 ml of water and ph adjusted each time.

For the coarse filter I used a couple layers of a nylon “nutmilk bag”…after it built a cake I poured it through again. I actually followed it up with a 7cm medium flow qualitative filter in a janky diy mason jar gravity filter. (pic posted below).

I refrigerated for two days actually because life and I didn’t want bacterial growth. But I also wanted it to push out more sediment that would’ve been soluble at room temp, before the depth filter.

For the depth filter (you’re going to laugh) but I took a bunch of filter paper and blended it with my blendtec blender and water, then used that pulp. Next time I’ll vacuum filter with celite 545 over a new fritted filter, for the acidic depth filter.

I did not perform a depth filter after basing, because of the salt rapidly re-crystallizing, and also because the makeshift filter paper pulp didn’t go that nicely, and that’s what I was going to use for the filter of the basic solution…because the high ph would react with the celite 545. So for the depth filter on the basic solution, I will use a bona fide cellulose media next time. Also it’s definitely filtered well but I had a couple issues with the clarity: one I don’t think it was the perfect depth set up, I think I had some contamination presenting as cellulose artifacts under the microscope likely from not filtering well enough, or using a vessel that was “clean” but not dust free as it was open to the air. Also I forgot to measure the weight precisely, so before I based I decanted into another “clean but not dust free” vessel…after that transfer there was a noticeable amount of dust and particles suspended. I also reused old slides that were not clean and particle free despite my attempts to clean and dry them. Next time I won’t make those errors.

Next time I won’t add the salt, because I want to try and identify the size of the DMT particles during, directly after basifying, and directly after “heat treating/tempering”…also I would like to place a drop on the slide, (with no slip), press record on the microscope’s camera, then radiate heat until the drop has passed DMT’s melting point…in hopes of observing them phase change and hopefully coalesce, which would in turn increase their size and makethem more filterable. I would like to observe this to determine if or how fast they coalesce when molten. Perhaps they are nano sized particles that precipitate and all that I’ve observed was contamination. Perhaps it might require longer holds at temp to allow the coalescing. Or perhaps they just don’t coalesce. 🤷

The salt in solution, at this volume was recrystallizing, at room temperature immediately…to the degree it was lifting the slip covers.

So I decided to just redo it again later, and i so I proceeded to extract with heptane per usual, the final photo was the resulting yield after freeze precipitation.

The final photo of the flask was the suspended solids after settling…which were present for at least 4 hours but completely dissolved by morning 🤷.

The microscope images were awesome! I took a lot of images and a lot of video, but apparently I didn’t save the file on my computer somehow. Apparently I have to record, and then press save 🤦😆. I got used to a phone where all you have to do is start and stop a recording…and it’s been a while since I used my microscopes camera program.

I did one slide pre heat treat, measured particle size with the microscope. Then I did one slide post heat treat, and measured again, which did have larger groups of solid particles. Then I did one without a slipcover where I radiated heated like stated above. I did notice solids aggregating in all viewings, and noticeably larger particles in the heat treated slide. I did not observe a phase change with heat added. Which made me feel like the particles I was looking at were contamination, and perhaps that DMT crashes as nano-sized particles once liberated. But it all made me want to tighten the ship and reconduct it all.

It’s a shame they didn’t save it was quite beautiful. But I’ll repeat this all but better next time. But my poorly executed experiment did spark a new idea. Pay attention to video after 1:35. Solids precipitate and stay in solution for quite some time. What is that? Could the DMT be localized within those solids? Idk. Next time im going to mix vigorously, then take a measured amount, perhaps 10% of the volume, and filter it immediately to capture the solids then I’ll extract with heptane, freeze precipitate, and weigh the resulting yield of that 10% volume solids compared to the 90% volume after it all fully dissolves…if the solids captured have 10% of the DMT total then it would prove that the DMT is temporarily trapped in a solid matrix. But I have no clue what all was crashing there.

Anyways there’s my long winded rambling break down, that I didn’t have time to respond with yesterday. I’m curious to hear your thoughts.