Conflicts in Extraction Techniques

[pharmboy]

Ok this is for you chemist types out there. Lately I have been
reading alot of various extraction techniques and I'm confused.
Alot are directly couterdictory, such as one says that the acid
solution must not go over PH 9 or all is lost, the other one says
nothing will happen when you add the ammonia
untill the PH reaches 12. Another case is where you mix the ether
and water one says save the ether, toss the water the other says
toss the ether save the water, morphine is water soluble ? Right?
Anybody have some direction or clairification? Thanks in advance.

[ProdigalSon]

Used it. It worked. Nuff said....



http://forum.opiophile.org/showthread.php?t=45

[robojunkie]

OK, so not knowing your chem background I'll try to answer this both ways, science geek and straight to the point, well sort of, I'm not really capable of that. Morphine is an amphoteric alkaloid (think amphibian, means like both air and water, amphoteric means acidic and basic at the same time) and because of this it has some interesting properties. Like a traditional alkaloid you'd expect that you could "drop out" or precipitate an organic solution by bubbling HCl (or just extracting with acidic water). And, if you could get it into solution in the neutral just plain morphine, you could. But morphine is virtually insoluble in just about everything, for all practical purposes at least. However if you go basic enough it will go into solution but not where you'd expect: it goes back where it would have came from, ie the water, this time as a metal phenolate salt. phenols, of which morphine is a member, are rather acidic alcohols and they also have a strong tendency to be virtually insoluble in virtually everything in their neutral state.

So in short this is what happens...The morphine HCl or HSO4 or whatever salt has a pKa around something like 5 or so and the base morphine has a second pKa around 11 or 12. pKa's are just numbers that refer to acidity, and they're exponential like the Richter scale in earthquakes. So pH~9 puts you right in the middle of these to the acid salt is in minute amounts and the metal salt is as well. Go too basic and you strip off the phenol (3-OH) proton. This is how it is separated from all the other gunk in opium and even the other alkaloids. Only thing is though, morphine doesn't usually just crash out when going from pH~12 to pH~9 say, which is where you'd go from say calcium morphinate to morphine base. It'll take anywhere from a few minutes (if pills) to 24 hours or several days (if raw opium or really well cleaned tea)*

Hope this helps, I can't tell when I'm rambling or making sense.




*Yeah fuckers I'll get around to that one...wrong forum though, but I haven't forgotten...

[mrklean]

*Yeah fuckers I'll get around to that one...wrong forum though, but I haven't forgotten...


You suck at splaining chemistry but you are great at reading minds :p

[pharmboy]

Thanks Robo I think that helped but let me bounce this synth. of you
Would this work?

1) Grind up 5 pods inc. seeds

2) Add 200-300ml water add muratic acid till PH 12

3) Stir and let sit for a day and then run thru a coffee filter.

4) Add ammonia hydroxide one drop at a time untill precipitation

, siphon of water on top and dry whats left.

Would that give you an extraction of morphine hcl, codeine, thebane
Etc. ? ? I have very little chemistry experiance. Thanks.

[SurfRat]

2) Add 200-300ml water add muratic acid till PH 12
muriatic acid (HCL) that's going to take you the other way, acidic, lower ph.
I think you want to go strong base (ph12) to weaker base (ph8 -9)

[SurfRat]

oops my bad. I get what you are saying. that might work for all of the alkaloids. but I don't know.

[CSiiSEQ]

No, surfrat, you're right. If he wants to get the pH up to 12, it's not going to happen with an acid. Need a strong base, NaOH, Ca(OH)2 etc.

[IceCold]

Better extraction is to do it the way they do for opium add calcium hydroxide so that the morphine becomes water soluble. vaccuum filter out the insolubles. Then precipitate crude morphine base with ammonium chloride.Vaccuum filter again wash with ether or other solents the morphine base is insoluble in while still in the filter.