I really cannot tell you how happy I am I got this done, from having NO scientific knowledge - other than basic high school chem (of which I paid NO ATTENTION and was in the ‘dumb kids group - couldn’t possibly be we were just not interested!) AND more relevantly information from having done bark extractions a lot BUT I found that I HAD to think of it as completely different and even at parts where I thought at first I could compare, I really couldn’t - THE closest thing to the extraction is the second last step where the synthesis told me to simply evaporate away all the hexane but I altered it to do a freeze precipitation as I had the knowledge it was a hydrocarbon, I knew that naptha is a bunch of different non specific hydrocarbons and I put 2+2 together.
It really was easier for me to just know it’s a TOTALLY seperate process…
If I were to go back in time - or if you are reading this thinking oh it’ll be cheaper to setup a whole lab and synthesise DMT from scratch to sell - or even to ingest, I can assure you it’s not. Iv said the whole way through this isn’t why I am doing this…it’s a personal quest for knowledge.
I would also imagine that most folks who would be attempting to do this would be doing so in spare time, maybe at a lab you are working at or are an undergrad chem student or even post grad and are doing a little extra ‘work’ on the side - THAT may well be cheaper, but starting from scratch? Nah…don’t bother, not for a first synthesis anyway.
If I had ACTUALLY bothered to compare the structures of DMT with something like mescaline - I probably would have seen that mescaline is a simpler molecule, some of the psychedelic amphetamines as well would be an interesting one - which is why I’m hesitant to use the small amount of nitroEthane I have, making standard r-amphet.
Aaaanyway - I do intend to try this on a larger scale but I want to see if I can get some more out of the original oil from the step before this…
This isn’t as elegant chemistry as the indole route, I would say BUT much easier and I would be interested to see if doing it with STAB obviously under acidic conditions would make it easier to crystalise at the end coz that bit has been an ABSOLUTE ball ache!
Mind you, not having a suitable lab grade desiccator probably did slow me down some as well as not knowing the difference between a vacuum desiccator and a vacuum chamber! So I did bodge the last bit a little by not pulling AS strong of a vacuum as I’d have liked BUT sitting it on top of my mantle at 50c….it did work and as you can see this morning I was FINALLY left with the waxy scrapable substance at the bottom and the crystals that formed from the freezer around the edge.
Next time I would also try to use a crystalising dish instead of a beaker and I would also make sure I do it from a warm oil bath as well, just really slow down that cooling process as much as possible.
Oh and more bloomin heptane!! I used n-heptane as it was all I could find but learning more about heptane today I can now see why some other syntheses iv seen of this nature use like 1,2-hexane which is actually a type of heptane.
Gah -
![Persevering face :persevere: 😣](https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/6.5/png/unicode/64/1f623.png)
it really is, the more I learn, the less I seem to know!!!