Salvinorin Extraction and Refinement FAQ v7.6

Salvinorin Extraction and Refinement FAQ v7.6 (Sep. 13, 2004) - [www.rhodium.ws]

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S A L V I N O R I N E X T R A C T I O N A N D R E F I N E M E N T F A Q V 7 . 6

W R I T T E N B Y ' S A L V I A _D I V I N O R U M '

Posted at The Lycaeum Forums September 13, 2004

HTML by Rhodium

Introduction

Although written as an instructional document the following is offered for informational purposes only. Thisextraction and refinement FAQ was written by a non-professional, I'm not an organic chemist and don't work in afield related to botany or chemistry. The solvents mentioned in this document are very flammable and can be easilyignited by red hot surfaces, open flame, electric or static spark! Avoid risking sparks from metallic utensils, desktopor computer fans, and don't try to evaporate solvents in closed areas. This document does not contain informationrelated to the safe handling of solvents or their proper use for the manufacture of human consumable products. Theuse of either crude or refined salvinorin should never be attempted, it is far too potent to eye ball a sub-milligramdose of salvinorin which can only be accurately done if using a analytical balance with an accuracy within a tenth ofa milligram or better costing many hundreds of dollars or more. See http://www.sagewisdom.org/caution.html forcautions against the use of crude to pure salvinorin which has very real dangers created from becoming heavilyintoxicated when attempting to dose with salvinorin itself.

The following extraction information comes from many hundreds of hours of extractions to find better ways toextract salvinorin without the need of an organic laboratory or expensive glassware. Much of what I have foundwas through trial and error extractions until I found techniques leading to a method which works very well. I amhappy to offer this information to anyone who wants it for their own personal use or business as many have, theonly thing I ask in return is that you keep Salvia divinorum away from adolescents, use it in a safe responsiblemanner and please don't equate Salvia Divinorum with illicit plants or drugs. Although Salvia divinorum is known asthe most potent "natural" psychedelic it is far less potent and shorter acting than synthesized man madehallucinogens. For most individuals the psychedelic effects of smoking moderate to relatively large amounts ofSalvia divinorum or enhanced leaf are very fleeting lasting only a very few minutes and when used as a tincturecan be difficult to induce at all. Although I have never heard of anyone being harmed by any kind of toxicologicaleffect from the use of Salvia divinorum, I do not casually recommend its use to anyone as this requires your ownresearch to know if it is right for you. Personally, although I have been intensely interested in Salvia divinorum Ihave not used this entheogen but twice in a period of close to two years and even then in very moderate amountsbecause even though the visions it can induce are often awesome and extremely interesting, I now find that I haveno desire to do so on a regular basis and take my time between journeys to fully integrate each experience. Manyindividuals who try Salvia divinorum find it to be far too much to handle and won't do so twice (especially if havingused too much the first time), but a few find this plant to be their ally and are fascinated to the point where theyuse Salvia divinorum many times in a period of a few months, but almost all taper off to weeks and then monthsbetween uses as I have, now waiting close to a year between journeys.

Salvia divinorum is not something you can use to get "high" with and doesn't produce that kind of effect and shouldonly be used for introspective meditation or for spiritual pursuits to widen the doors of your inner perception, neveras a joy ride for the psychedelic effects or shared with anyone who might profane this sacred shamanic plant assome kind of substitute for illicit street drugs. Although this plant is not currently regulated or controlled by the USfederal government my firm belief is that it should be restricted from individuals under the age of 21 in the sameway that tobacco and Alcohol are restricted to minors because when Salvia divinorum is taken in large amounts itcan be a very strong intoxicant, a sacred intoxicant yes, but intoxicating in much the same way that Alcohol cancause reduction of fine motor skills and should never be used in a public place or prior to operating machinery ordriving unless three or more hours have passed since use. Salvia divinorum should only be used while under thesupervision of a responsible, experienced and sober adult, especially if you are new to Salvia divinorum andinexperienced in the possible effects. Don't assume an amount suitable for someone else is the right amount foryou or vice versa. Some individuals are extremely sensitive to Salvia divinorum while others will have no effectfrom it at all and require the use of enhanced leaf to obtain marginal effect. Never offer Salvia divinorum toindividuals who have not been completely informed of the the possible effects. Never attempt to smoke Salviadivinorum products enhanced with large amounts of salvinorin or even tincture unless you have slowly worked yourway up to that level and know your own sensitivity and what to expect. This document does not containinformation regarding possible effects and must be researched from other sources to make an informed choicethrough knowing the potential risks of being light to strongly intoxicated by this plant and whether Salvia divinorumis right for you.

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http://www.sagewisdom.org/caution.html



How do I extract Salvia divinorum leaf, should it be whole, crushed or powdered?

When I first started extracting Salvia divinorum leaf with Acetone I found that it didn't seem to make anydifference whether the leaf was whole, crushed or even finely powdered, regardless I found that salvinorin wasextracted from leaf from whole to finely powdered with the same efficiency. Since Acetone worked so well withwhole or crushed leaf my assumption was that most, if not all of the salvinorin was coating the outside of the leafinstead of inside the leaf, either that, or Acetone was somehow able to efficiently draw the salvinorin out of theinterior leaf membranes. Daniel Siebert recently published a paper confirming my belief that salvinorin isconcentrated on the outside of the leaf, because of this it isn't necessary to powder the leaf to be able to efficientlyextract salvinorin using any solvent which salvinorin can be dissolved into, but I like to either finely crush the leafor powder it to reduce the volume of solvent needed to completely cover the leaf with an extra amount of fluidvolume to make it easy to stir the leaf in it.

Is there a simple way to make enhanced leaf?

The following is as simple as it gets to make a gram of 5X enhanced leaf:

1. Pour Acetone into a container of 6 grams of leaf and stir for ten minutes2. Pour Acetone off of the extracted leaf onto one gram of unextracted leaf and evaporate all Acetone while leaf is

present in it.

Wha-la! Enhanced leaf.

Note: Due to extraction inefficiencies of only washing the leaf through one time an extra amount of leaf is requiredto make up for losses when using this super simple method. Do not extract from a larger ratio of leaf to enhancedleaf or you will end up with a very gummy leaf which produces too much smoke for most people.

I want to make my own standardized leaf, how can I do that?

The following was written for 100 to 250 gram extraction of dried Salvia divinorum leaf to make high qualityStandardized leaf:

Warning:Do not attempt to use crude or refined Salvinorin as a drug. It is far too potent, especially when in crystal form. 5XEnhanced leaf is less than 1.5% Salvinorin by weight.

This process will work with any amount of leaf if you scale the amount of solvent used to refine the extract tosmaller amounts. For example; if extracting from 25 grams of leaf and you want to purify your extract to whitecolored salvinorin, use no more than 1/4 to 1/8 the amount of 99% IPA when removing Chlorophyll impurities. Thefollowing process can be used to extract and refine salvinorin into a purity that is in the high 90 percentiles. It isn'tnecessary to go to these extremes to remove tannin impurity to make enhanced leaf but for the purists it's adelight to do it right which results in a very high purity extract which previous to this tek required the use oflaboratory glass and column chromatography to approach this purity and efficiency:

S T E P 1

Extract finely crushed leaf in a glass, ceramic or stainless steel (no plastic or plastic utensils) container using roomtemperature Acetone completely covering the leaf with fluid in a ratio of at least ½ crushed leaf to ½ Acetone threeseparate times for at least three minutes each time, longer if desired to assure maximum efficiency but in myopinion unnecessary when using Acetone. If using 99% Isopropanol/IPA or 98% Ethanol Alcohol extract finelycrushed leaf at least five times over for no less than five minutes each time with a ratio of 1/3 fine crushed leaf to2/3 Isopropanol or Ethanol. Whether extracting with Acetone, Isopropanol or high proof Ethanol shake orthoroughly stir the leaf into the solvent the entire time.

Note: This will work with whole unbroken leaf just as well, crushing or powdering reduces the amount of solventneeded to cover the leaf. When extracting whole or broken leaf use only as much solvent as is necessary tocompletely cover the leaf. These figures are approximates, a somewhat smaller ratio of solvent to leaf or shorteningthe amount of time extracting the leaf by a minute each time shouldn't significantly impact the extraction efficiencywhether using Acetone or Alcohol, but longer extraction periods will assure maximum extraction efficiency. If using99% Isopropanol or high proof Ethanol warming them to 100-120°F will make these two Alcohols more efficient forextracting salvinorin compared to when at room temperature but produce far more vapors with added danger dueto any kind of static or electric spark etc. which can ignite vapors. Salvinorin has been reported to remain nearly assolvent to pure Ethanol when chilled as when at room temperature, but when heated will increase solubility enough



to be well worth it.

S T E P 2

After completing the outlined number of extractions to the same batch of leaf thoroughly wash the wet leaf throughtwice more with fresh Acetone (or what ever extraction solvent your using) to further remove residuals. This isdone to dilute out all of the old solvent remaining in the wetted leaf which could still contain some of the salvinorin.At this point your done with the leaf might want to place all of your previously extracted leaf into a jar with solventfor a long term extraction to get what ever amount of salvinorin that might have remained behind in the leaf whichshould be very little if any, especially if having used Acetone. Re-extract the leaf as long as you like, but keep it inthe dark to prevent any loss of salvinorin from long term exposure to UV light which can destroy a portion of thesalvinorin while in solvents.

S T E P 3

Combine the solvent from all extractions and last washes, remove all leaf and fine leaf particles, filter tanninsediments from solvent or let the solvent stand undisturbed for 12 to 24 hours to allow enough time for most ofthese sediments to settle out of the fluid. While waiting for the ultra-fine tannin particles to settle cover yourcontainer and store in a cool dark place to both reduce evaporation and to prevent possible losses due tointeraction of light. Once you have waited at least twelve hours for the tannin to settle out of the fluid slowly pourthe extraction solvent off of the fine brown tannin sediments which have settled to the bottom of the container,being careful to handle the container very slowly without jarring or sloshing the fluid to prevent the fine particlesfrom being stirred up into the fluid. I don't recommend trying to pour out the last ounce or two of solvent becausea portion of the tannin will usually flow out with the last of the fluid. Although, when leaving a small portion of thefluid behind a dilute portion of the salvinorin is still in it you can recover it by adding a few more ounces of freshsolvent to the fluid and vigorously swirling the tannin into the solvent for a couple of minutes to make sure to getany that might be left in it too, then waiting another 12-24 hours to settle again before pouring the fluid off again.Of course, you will have to leave the last bit of fluid behind the second time too.

Note: I have tried using paper coffee filters to remove tannin from the extraction solvent, but even after pouringthe extraction solvent through paper filters stacked three ply several times a fair amount of the tannin particleswere still able to get through the papers. A filter made of cotton balls in a glass tube might work better than paperfilters, but I haven't tried it to know. Because the amount of solvent used will completely dissolve and hold farmore than the amount of salvinorin extracted there is no fear of salvinorin falling out of the fluid, only the tanninimpurity will fall to the bottom of the container, but these tannins should be saved for further processing later byswirling the sediments into fresh solvent and let to settle out once more be be sure that none of the salvinorin wasleft behind in them.

S T E P 4

After the extraction fluid is poured off of and separated from the brown tannin sediments, completely evaporate theextraction solvent. This is best done using a large flat pan so that the fluid volume will spread out much furtherthan when using a bowl because the shallower the pan the larger the surface area of the fluid, speeding the rate ofevaporation requiring far less time than if using a deep bowl. You can increase the evaporation rate even further byusing a fan to blow air across the solvent with enough force to cause ripples on the surface of the fluid, but not somuch airflow that droplets start taking to the air carrying away any amount of your precious extract. If you live in abuggy part of the world covering the evaporation container with a fine mesh screen which will both allow air to flowthrough and keep bugs out might be necessary. A full gallon of 99% Isopropanol can be evaporated in under eighthours with this method and a gallon of Acetone in four hours or less. Due to rapid evaporation of Acetone,condensation from the air can cause an ounce or more of water to remain in the container which won't evaporatequickly. Also, if you have extracted leaf using 99% IPA or 98% Ethanol in addition to water from condensation youwill have a percent or more of water remaining after the solvent spirits are completely gone. This water is usually ayellow color due to tannins dissolved into it which is something you don't want in your extract, so once you haveevaporated all of the solvent off and are left with only water pour it off, being careful that none of the greenparticles of extract go out with it. Leave the extract in the evaporation container and completely dry by placing inan oven set to 150°F. (as long as not hint of solvent remains, otherwise the vapors could cause a fire).

Note: Although a large flat glass cassarole cooking pan works very well to evaporate the extract into, I like to usea non-stick Teflon(r) coated cooking pan over any other kind because once all of the solvent is has beenevaporated off and your left with a waxy extract in the bottom of the container it's easier to scrape it all into a pileusing a thin piece of plastic (not metal which will gouge the Teflon coating). It isn't necessary to use teflon coatedcontainers, any kind of container (not plastic) is fine. Also, when the fluid level is being reduced by evaporation thinfilms of relatively high purity salvinorin are always deposited on the sides of the container which are more easilyremoved when using Teflon(r) coated evaporation containers. Test non-stick pans with clean Acetone beforepouring you extraction solvent into the container to make sure that the solvent won't affect the coating, depending



upon the manufacturer the non-stick coating of some pans might not be up to the job and rather than riskcontaminating your extract it is best to test. Acetone should not be used in jars using tops with rubber seals unlessmanufactured for such use as Acetone will melt many rubbers and plastics. Using either Isopropanol or EthanolAlcohol shouldn't be a problem for any kind of non-stick pan and most food container seals.

S T E P 4 . 5 ( O P T I O N A L )

This step is optional and can be skipped, or used to replace step six. If you want to go to extremes incorporateboth this step and step six together to assure a maximum purity extract. At this point you could remove more ofthe tannin from the extract if all hint of solvent has been evaporated off but the extract is still water wet fromeither condensation of water due to rapid evaporation of solvent, or wet from the 1% of water contained in 99%Isopropanol if that solvent was used to extract the leaf. This extra step will only work if the extract is still wet rightafter all of the solvent has been evaporated from the extract but is still moist and has not dried yet. Scrape up allof your water wetted extract and place it into a cup of room temperature water and stir for a few minutes,breaking the particles up by hand as best you can into small particles by working all of the clumps out of the extractsolids using your fingers. Depending upon how much water is used it can take on a light yellow to dark browncolor. Once your done working the extract into the water let it set still undisturbed for an hour or for however longit takes for the particles to all settle to the bottom of the container and then pour the water off, add more waterand stir the extract into it again. Keep doing this until the water no longer takes on any color and then completelydry the extract in an oven set to 150°F. until no hint of mosture remains.

Note: This step will not work once the extract has dried into a waxy consistency because water will not cut throughthe wax once dry and cannot be reconstituted with water to produce the same consistency which will allow thewater to get to the tannin after drying. The extract that has dried on the sides of the evaporation container that iseither a fine crust of high purity salvinorin, or waxy deposits cannot be washed with water and should be scrapedoff and saved for step 5., if necessary using Naphtha to remove these residuals from the sides of the container. Itis important to remove all of the extract from the evaporation container so that it is completely clean as these filmscan contain a substantial portion of your yield. Save all of the water used to remove tannin and check it in a fewhours to see if more salvinorin has settled out of the fluid.

S T E P 5

Once every hint of solvent has been evaporated out and the extract is completely dry of moisture pour in four ormore ounces of pure Naphtha directly into the evaporation container (or if having already scraped it out of a largeevaporation container transfer all of the extract into a smaller container so that you can work with it better).Completely dissolve all clumps of extract or wax into the Naphtha so that only fine granules remain in the fluid.Next, pour all of the Naphtha and every bit of the extract into a pint sized or smaller glass jar, setting it asideundisturbed for an hour or more. What your waiting for is for the ultra-fine salvinorin particles that are stirred up inthe Naphtha to settle to the bottom of the glass which can take as much a hour or more for most of them to fallout of the fluid, this works with Naphtha because salvinorin is insoluble to this solvent. After waiting for thesalvinorin particles to settle then slowly, taking great care not to let any of the particles flow out with the fluid pouroff the dark green Naphtha leaving the crude salvinorin extract in the bottom of the glass. Next add more cleanNaphtha to the jar and mix the extract into the fluid for five minutes and set aside for another hour or more beforepouring off the Naphtha again. Continue using Naphtha to remove Chlorophyll waxes from the extract until the fluidbecomes a light translucent green color, at this point it has become ineffective for removing additional Chlorophyll.When done completely pour off every last drop of Naphtha and completely dry the extract so that no hint ofNaphtha remains.

Note: Since salvinorin is insoluble to Naphtha you don't need to worry about using too much, use as much as youlike but take care to wait long enough for the ultra fine crystalline salvinorin particles to fall to the bottom of thecontainer before pouring the fluid off. Using several ounces of Naphtha at a time might require waiting severalhours for the majority of the salvinorin particles to settle to the bottom of the container, but when using a smallone ounce glass most of them should settle in the first hour or so. Do not use Naphtha to remove Chlorophyll fromyour extract unless you know for sure that the Naphtha your using will evaporate completely clean without leavingany amount of residue. Although, if continuing to clean the extract with 99% Isopropanol these contaminatesshould be washed away I do not recommend using questionable purity solvents, especially when makingcommercial products. 99 percent Isopropanol or 98% Ethanol can be used in place of Naphtha. These two Alcoholswill do the job even better than Naphtha. The only draw back to using Isopropanol to remove Chlorophyll is thatsalvinorin is weakly soluble to this solvent at room temperature, it will remove more of the salvinorin but no somuch to be a problem if you use it very sparingly. The same with Ethanol, but it removes more than twice as muchsalvinorin per ml as Isopropanol. Salvinorin has been reported to be insoluble to Xylene or Hexane and if trueeither can be used in place of Naphtha.

S T E P 6



Although you won't see it the extract, it still contains an amount of tannin. Once you have removed all of the waxyChlorophyll compounds that you can with Naphtha and the extract is dry, completely crush all of your extract intoas fine a powder as you can in a bowl with a spoon and then pour in a few ounces or more of room temperaturewater, stirring the extract into the water for a few minutes and then set aside for an hour or for however long ittakes for the particles to all settle to the bottom of the container. After the particles of crude salvinorin have settledpour all of the water off being careful not to pour any of the extract solids out with it and then add more water andstir again. As long as the water continues to take on a slightly yellow or brown color continue washing with morewater. If using a cup or more of water at a time to dissolve small amounts of tannin contained in the extract youmight not see any change of water color, but it will be doing the job. Once you are satisfied that the water is nolonger taking on any more color, completely dry the powder in an oven set to 120-150°F.

Note: Water washes of the extract will not remove tannin until you have removed as much of the Chlorophyll asyou can using Naphtha first, and have then evaporated all hint of the Naphtha out of the extract otherwise thewater will not cut through a barrier of waxy Chlorophyll or Naphtha wetted extract enough to be able to dissolvethe tannin. If you have done a good job removing tannin from the extraction solvent and then removed as muchChlorophyll as you can using Naphtha followed up by water washes of the extract to remove most of the remainingtannin, the amount of dried extract from a 250 gram extraction of average potency leaf should weigh close to onegram and be well over 50% pure. Save all of the water used to remove tannin and check it in a few hours to see ifmore salvinorin has settled out of the fluid.

S T E P 6 . 5 ( M A K I N G T I N C T U R E )

Skip this step if your not making tincture.

Dried extract which has had this amount of Chorophyll and tannin removed by pure Naphtha (without anycontaminate to leave any kind of residual and evaporated completely out first) is perfect for making tincture, justdissolve as much of the extract as you can into 151 to 191 or higher proof Ethanol drinking Alcohol of any kindwhile at room temperature and you will have an effective tincture, the higher the proof, the more effective.Removing more of the Chlorophyll than Naphtha can remove by continuing to wash the solids with 99%Isopropanol, at some point, will make the extract too pure for making an effective tincture if using 151 proofdrinking Alcohol. When making a low Chlorophyll content tincture this should only be done when using extremelyhigh proof Ethanol such as 98%, but even then an amount of the dark compounds from the leaf seem to helpsublingual absorption of salvinorin. (which will be removed if continuing to clean the extract to a white purity asshown in step 7, below). When dissolving the extract in Ethanol to make tincture, decide on the amount of tincturewhich can be made out of the amount of salvinorin contained in the amount of leaf extracted from and dissolve allof your extract into that amount of Ethanol. If having extracted from 100 grams of dried leaf you should be able tomake at least 5 to 6 ounces of 151-191 proof Ethanol tincture from that amount of extract. If you have extractedfrom enough leaf to make six ounces of tincture dissolve all of the extract into six ounces of Ethanol all at onceinstead of making each one separately, otherwise if using too much extract to make a single ounce of Ethanol theexcess salvinorin which won't fully dissolve into the Alcohol will end up in the bottom of the tincture bottle as asolid, making a dose of tincture far too potent if a large portion of the solids are accidentally sucked up into adosing dropper. Although, there is one positive way to look at it if you find Salvinorin solids in the bottom of yourAlcohol, you can be assured that the Alcohol contains as much salvinorin as can be dissolved into it. This would bea good way to make sure the tincture is strong enough by using only half as much Ethanol as you believe is neededto completely dissolve all of the salvinorin extracted from your leaf, and then continuing to add more of thedrinking Alcohol a little at a time until all of the extract completely dissolves into the fluid.

Note: If using 191 proof Ethanol this Alcohol probably won't hold much more than 1.2 mg of salvinorin per ml offluid when at room temperature, 98% Ethanol should hold close to 1.3 mg per ml of fluid. A moderate amount ofChlorophyll compounds from the leaf dissolved into Ethanol have been reported to allow tincture to hold moresalvinorin per ml, approaching 1.5 mg or more per ml if using very high proof Ethanol. I have found when makingmy own tincture using 151 proof Ethanol and dissolving near pure salvinorin into this relatively low proof Alcoholthat the tincture was not at all effective without also having Chlorophyll compounds from the leaf present in thetincture too. If you have removed every bit of Chlorophyll that can be removed from your extract using pureNaphtha you don't need to be concerned, there will still be enough in the extract to make tincture out of any 151proof drinking Alcohol of your choice. Whether tincture made from 151 proof drinking Alcohol needs some of theChlrophyll compounds in it to make an effective tincture because without it, salvinorin can't be efficiently dissolvedinto 151 proof Alcohol which is nearly 25% water, or whether the Chlorophyll compounds actually help increasesublingual absorption of salvinorin is unknown to me at the time of this writing. Perhaps it does both.

S T E P 7

To further purify your extract begin washing the solids with very small amounts of 99% Isopropanol in a ratio of nomore than 1/3 dried extract to 2/3 Isopropanol in a small 20-30 milliliter vial or shot glass until the extract is alight colored salvinorin. This is done by pouring in IPA and mixing the extract into it for a couple of minutes untilthe fluid becomes a dark color and then setting the small glass aside to wait for the fine crystalline salvinorin



particles to settle to the bottom of the glass which can take an hour or more the first time. During the first wash ofthe extract with 99% IPA the fluid will likely become so darkly colored that once the majority of the salvinorinparticles have settled it can be difficult to tell where the fluid and solids separate in the glass, because of thisremove no more than half of the volume of fluid off the top before adding more Isopropanol. This can be done byeither using an eye dropper to remove half of the volume of fluid from the top (don't dip too deep), or by carefullypouring half of the fluid out of the glass while closely watching under a strong light to make sure none of the solidsstart to flow out with the fluid, although when pouring the fluid off you probably won't be able to get the last thirdor more of the fluid out without also pouring some of the solids off to, so using an eye dropper is my preferredmethod to reduce losses. To continue washing your extract to a lighter color higher purity extract re-fill the glasswith fresh Isopropanol and stir it in again for a minute or two and then set the glass aside for two hours to giveenough time for all of the salvinorin particles to settle to the bottom of the glass. As the salvinorin becomes cleanerwith each wash of the solids, the micron sized crystalline particles of salvinorin will take longer and longer to settleout of the fluid, taking as long as three hours or more to completely settle after each wash when using a singleounce sized glass, longer for larger capacity containers due to the increased amount of fluid. Don't pour the fluid offof the cleaned salvinorin in the bottom of the glass if the fluid has a cloudy look (assuming you don't have lots oftannin contaminate in it) because this means that you still have lots of fine salvinorin particles floating orsuspended in the fluid and you should wait for however long it takes for them to settle before removing the fluid oryou will be loosing too high a percentage of your yield. You can continue washing the extract until it is a light greencolor or all the way to white if you like, however this will increase your losses, up to 25% going as high as 50% ifyou don't wait long enough for all of the fine particles to settle which sometimes takes hours. Cleaning the solids toa white color isn't necessary because once it's a light green tint the extract is a high enough purity to consider itover 90% salvinorin for use to enhance leaf, just use 10-15% more extract when lightly colored to make up forbeing less than completely pure. Be sure to save all of your Isopropanol from the first wash plus as it can contain aquarter or more of your salvinorin, depending upon how much was used, how far you cleaned the extract andwhether you waited for all of the salvinorin A particles to settle before pouring off. If having extracted from 100-250 grams of leaf, use no more than 25 ml of 99% Isopropanol per wash, if extracting from one ounce of leaf nomore than 8-10 ml per wash. Although salvinorin is weakly soluble to 99% Isopropanol take great care to use aslittle as possible or you will loose too much salvinorin with each wash to the point of removing most of your yield iftoo much is used.

Note: Small amounts of Isopropanol can hold far more chlorophyll impurities than salvinorin on a milliliter basisand due to this when the extract is washed through several times with a few milliliters of this solvent at a timemore and more of the green is removed while the bulk of the salvinorin will remain behind. However, in an inverseof the technique of waiting for the tannin sediments to fall out of the Isopropanol or Acetone used to extract leafwhich on a ml basis will hold far more salvinorin than the amount which was dissolved into it, this time you will bewaiting for the salvinorin to fall out of the Isopropanol because the limited amount of solvent used it cannot hold allof the salvinorin being washed. Half of the salvinorin particles will be relatively large and will fall out of the fluid injust 20 minutes and smaller particulates will continue to fall out of the fluid for three hours or more. To preventlarge losses of your yield to the Isopropanol washes of the extract you must wait for all of the extra fine salvinorinparticulates to fall out of the solvent, waiting for the fluid to become completely clear. The Isopropanol can be darkto lightly colored from white through shades of yellow all the way to dark almost black looking green, but nevercloudy before you remove the fluid or you can loose a significant portion of your yield. However, you don't have towait as long for the salvinorin particles to fall out of the fluid as you did for the tannin sediments because salvinorinis a relatively heavy compared to the tannin particulates and will fall out much faster.

When washing the extract with small amounts of Isopropanol in a one ounce or smaller glass container Irecommend waiting an hour or more for the finer salvinorin particles to settle to the bottom of the glass beforeremoving the IPA, but if after shaking the glass or stirring the glass for two minutes so the solvent will dissolvechlorophyll into it, if you place the glass in a microwave oven for just a few seconds, less than 10 seconds in mymachine (top off), the extremely small bubbles which form in the solvent as it starts to boil will cause most of thesalvinorin particles to almost immediately settle to the bottom of the glass. Only thing is you have to be verycareful not to allow the fluid to go into a rolling boil which will cause the fluid to spill out of the glass and raise thealready present danger of fire from vapors igniting in a microwave oven. I don't recommend anyone use amicrowave oven for this technique, it would be better to find another way to heat the fluid to just under a rollingboil without flame or red hot surfaces etc. than to use a microwave oven. I have used a microwave oven to heatsmall one once containers of Alcohol to just under a rolling boil at least a hundred times in my machine, but whathappens on attempt 101?

Using this tweak to the extraction tek you only have to wait as little as 5 minutes after heating the fluid for most ofthe particles to settle, although it would be best to place the glass in a freezer to cool the fluid to at least roomtemperature so that the solubility of the fluid is much lower prior to removing the IPA, because some of theparticles will have just dissolved into the warm IPA which can hold much more salvinorin in the dissolved statewhich can make the fluid appear clearer than when at room temperature which was not warm enough for all of thefiner particles to dissolve into, some of them taking several hours to completely settle if this technique isn't used.Regardless, the amount of the particles which dissolve are minor compared to the amount which will have fallen outof the fluid to the bottom of the glass. As soon as the IPA cools to 20°C. or less, which won't take long for a smallamount of fluid if placed in a freezer, you can then remove the IPA from the small glass using an eye dropper orcarefully pour the fluid off watching to make sure that the larger particles of salvinorin don't pour out with the fluid.



Of course, you will then want to set the fluid you removed aside for an hour or even hours and recover the finerparticles which will take longer to fall out of the fluid, but far less than you would have had otherwise.

Sometimes I just evaporate all of the IPA I have used to wash the extract completely down once more to dryextract and then start all over again removing impurities with more IPA, but in far smaller amounts because therewill be less material to work with. I measured the amount of salvinorin lost to the IPA in a 30 ml capacity vial of99% Isopropanol cleaning 430 mg of salvinorin and then heating the fluid to boiling to get the fine particles todrop, then allowing the fluid to cool to 60°F. in a freezer before pouring the clear green tinted fluid off and theamount of salvinorin removed from the extract was almost 20% or about 70 milligrams when doing a single IPAwash of fairly clean salvinorin which had already been washed twice before. As you can see, the losses frommultiple washes of extract can add up quick and only two washes with 30 ml's of IPA can cause a loss of nearly40% your salvinorin. A high price to pay to purify the extract, but not a real loss as you can recover most of it laterby evaporating the IPA all the way out and starting over again. Theoretically, since 27°C. Isopropanol only holds0.74 mg per ml of fluid I would not expect to loose as much as 70 mg of salvinorin to 30 ml of fluid, so I don'tknow why that much was removed when cleaning 430 mg of light green colored salvinorin, but that is the amount Imeasured even after letting the fluid cool back down to 60°F. before pouring it off of the salvinorin in the bottom ofthe glass. Perhaps I should have let the fluid cool much further down, to near 40°F. to be sure that the salvinorinfully precipitated out of the fluid before removing it.

If you have extracted from less than 10 grams of dried leaf I don't recommend removing Chlorophyll compoundsfrom the extract using Isopropanol if having extracted from that small an amount of leaf, it can be done if you usesmall enough vials only using a couple of milliliters of 99% IPA per wash, but smaller amounts of leaf require ahigher amount of skill obtained through practice. Only use 99% Isopropanol to purify extract, 70% will not work,94% might not work either. 98% Ethanol can be used but salvinorin is almost twice as soluble to high proofEthanol and will remove close to twice as much Salvinorin per ml of fluid. When refining salvinorin with 99%Isopropanol or high proof Ethanol all the way the extract will not be pure white, it will be a off white. Salvinorin canbe refined to a bright white powder using limited amounts of Acetone, but this cannot be easily accomplished whenworking with small amouts of salvinorin. However, Acetone can be reasonable to use if refining the extract fromfrom several kilos of leaf as a follow up process after first having removed as much of the chlorophyll as can beaccomplished using 99% IPA. The reason to use 99% IPA first is because you will have far less losses of salvinorinin a solvent which salvinorin is weakly soluble to compared to the almighty king of solvents for salvinorin which isAcetone. If you have several grams of IPA cleaned salvinorin which is an off white color Acetone can be used tofurther purify the extract to produce an absolutely brilliantly white salvinorin powder, but at a fairly high cost oftotal yield due to the amount of salvinorin this solvent can hold per ml of fluid so use this solvent extremelysparingly. Of course, these losses are not real losses because you can save all of your salvinorin containing solventsused to purify your extract because they can be re-worked again to get most of the salvinorin out of them usingsmaller quanties of solvent via the same purification process.

S T E P 8

Once your extract has been cleaned to the color desired and completely dry and free of any other solvent, you cancheck to make sure it does not contain any tannin impurity by dissolving all of your extract into 100 ml of warmAcetone and waiting 12 or more hours to see if tannin particles fall to the bottom of the glass. You don't need toworry about trying to dissolve too much salvinorin in 100 ml of Acetone from a 250 gram extraction of leaf becausethat amount of Acetone should easily hold close to four times the amount of Salvinorin in the dissolved state whichwould be contained from that amount of average potency leaf, being able to hold approximately 2300 milligrams ofsalvinorin when at room temperature. If the fluid appears at all cloudy after dissolving salvinorin into it this meansthat either you didn't dissolve the salvinorin into the fluid thoroughly enough, or there is lots of fine tannin present.Unless tannin is present and stirred up into the Acetone it should be clear, it can be colored from a light yellow to adark green tint if you didn't remove all of the Chlorophyll, but never cloudy before you pour the fluid off orsomething is wrong. If after a few hours the Acetone is still cloudy continue to wait, the tannin will fall out of thefluid eventually, taking as long as 24 hours in one case when I did it. When your ready to pour the Acetone out forevaporation to net your tannin free salvinorin don't try to get the last few milliliters of fluid out of the glass becausesome of the tannin will come along with them, better to add more Acetone and shake it up to dissolve what everremaining Salvinorin there might be in the remaining fluid or mixed into the tannin sediments than to try to pourout every last drop of fluid. Of course, you will have to wait for the tannin to settle out again.

Here is a standardization procedure so that you can add salvinorin back to leaf.This came from a well known Salvia divinorum researcher explaining how to make 6X enhanced leaf:

The method is simple: Dissolve a measured quantity of salvinorin A in a solvent, and then absorb it onto ameasured quantity of crumbled salvia leaves. Evaporate off the solvent, and Wha-la!

Here is a more detailed explanation: To make salvinorin A enhanced leaf that contains 15 mg salvinorin A per gramof leaf, dissolve 12.5 mg* pure salvinorin A in 1 ml of warm acetone, and then add 1 gram of crumbled salvialeaves and stir. The leaves will absorb the salvinorin A-containing acetone. Place the container in a well-ventilated



location and wait for the acetone to evaporate off. Stir the leaves occasionally during the evaporation period. Makesure that the acetone has evaporated completely--there should be absolutely no smell of acetone left on the leaves.

* The amount of salvinorin A to use will vary depending on the salvinorin A content of the leaves that it is beingabsorbed onto. If the leaves are of average potency, containing 2.5 mg salvinorin A per gram, then you woulddeposit 12.5 mg salvinorin A onto them to bring the concentration to 15 mg per gram (as in the above example).Of course, one can standardize the leaves to other concentrations as well. The more precisely you know thesalvinorin A content of the leaves, the more accurately you can standardize them. I use very pure salvinorin A forthis procedure. If you are using material that is impure, you will need to take into consideration the percentage ofimpurities when calculating the amount of material to use. Obviously, the same technique can be used to depositsalvinorin A onto other types of leaf.

I strongly advise against smoking leaf that contains more than 15 mg salvinorin A per gram unless the individualdoses can be accurately weighed. At this concentration, the amount of smoke produced provides a certain amountof safety because it makes it difficult for a person to accidentally inhale too large a dose in a single inhalation. Ifyou have a precision balance that can accurately weigh small doses, then stronger concentrations are preferablesince the amount of smoke can be minimized without compromising safety.

Note: Acetone is the best solvent to use for enhancing leaf because so little fluid is required to completely dissolverelatively large amounts of salvinorin, and evaporates fairly rapidly compared to Alcohol.

Is there a way to make a less harsh smoking enhanced Salvia divinorum leaf?

Yes, although this might actually make the leaf too easy to smoke. I have found that Salvia divinorum leaf is mucheasier to smoke when most of the Chlorophyll and tannin has been removed from it. Here is how I make my ownhigh quality standardized Salvia divinorum leaf:

The first thing I do is hand select each leaf for quality, setting aside the stiff dark to almost black colored leaf infavor of the lighter colored soft green leaves. Once I have my pile of leaf to be made into incense I carefully handde-vein the stem running through the center of each leaf being careful to keep the leaf in as few pieces as possible.When I have a full bowl of de-stemmed and de-veined broken leaf I then extract the leaf with a room temperaturesolvent such as Acetone or 99% Isopropanol several times to remove as much of the Chlorophyll from the leaf as Ican. Of course, I save the extract to be processed later, but because of the extra work required selecting the bestleaf and de-veining them this process isn't meant to obtain Salvinorin, but rather to condition the leaf to ready itfor salvinorin enhancement.

After your done extracting your leaf to remove as much Chlorophyll as you can with solvent, evaporate all of thesolvent out of it so that it is completely dry without a hint of solvent smell in the leaf and then boil all of the leaftogether in a pot of hot water for a half hour or more, once the water turns brown pour it off and add more waterto boil the leaf again. Keep doing this over and over until the water will no longer take on a brown color. Whendone pour all of the water off of the leaf and spread it out on a cookie sheet and dry in an oven set to between 125and 150°F. for however long it takes to completely dry, usually several hours in a convection oven. After the leaf iscompletely dry you can use it to make your own standardized enhanced leaf at what ever X factor you desire. WhenSalvia divinorum leaf is conditioned this way by removing most of the Chlorophyll and tannin first the leaf will thenreadily absorb salvinorin dissolved into Acetone when making standardized leaf.

If you have finely crushed leaf instead of large pieces you can process the leaf just the same, but I like to keep theleaf in as large and few pieces as possible because when drying in an oven they will shrink quite a bit. Also, Ibelieve that large pieces of enhanced leaf are better than smaller pieces because it provides far more options forhow it can be burned. The only thing is, when you have such nice big pieces of enhanced leaf you won't want topackage it in small plastic bags which can easily allow the leaf to be crushed or broken further. For this kind ofspecial standardized leaf I like to package the leaf in a small round tin so that it can't get smashed or broken intosmaller pieces. These little tins can be purchased in large lots fairly cheaply from a company calledSpecialityBottle.com

Is there still room in the market for more Salvia vendors?

Prior to this process being made available on the net the price of high purity salvinorin was from $5000.00 to$8,000.00 USD for a single gram. Most vendors who sell high purity salvinorin are getting from $750.00 to$1,000.00 a gram, costing them only $100.0 dollars for both leaf and solvent but the time invested to efficientlyextract and refine a salvinorin into a gram of white purity crystalline powder can take up a whole weekend ormore. If working with large batches of leaf the amount of time required per gram can be reduced because the samesteps and amount of time are required whether working with large or small amounts of leaf. I do not sell salvinorinor enhanced leaf myself but several vendors using this same process are making hundreds of thousands of dollars ayear selling standardized Salvia divinorum leaf and due to the increasing popularity of Salvia divinorum there is



plenty of room in the market for new vendors.

E X T R A C T I O N N O T E S , I N S I G H T S T O T H E P R O C E S S :

Extraction solvents and fluid volume

The solubility of pure salvinorin at 27°C. in Acetone is approximately 23 mg per ml of fluid, for 98% Ethanol 1.28mg per ml and for 99% IPA .74 mg per ml of fluid. For Acetone extractions I like to use enough solvent so that itsvolume is at least the same as the volume of the powdered or crushed leaf being extracted and when using 98%Ethanol or 99% IPA at least two thirds or more times of solvent volume to the amount of crushed or powdered leafwhich is in reality is more than required on a solubility basis, but due to these solvents being less effective atdissolving the salvinorin out of the leaf than Acetone I prefer to use more as an added measure just to make sure.Also, increasing the amount of fluid allows the leaf to be easily and thoroughly mixed within the solvent whenstirring. The amount of time the leaf is soaked in either solvent can be extended for as long as you wish, this willonly help increase the extraction efficiency, however I have found that when extracting Salvia divinorum leaf fivetimes over for five minutes each time with 99% Isopropanol that it won't get all of the salvinorin out, usuallyleaving 10 to 20% of the salvinorin behind which requires an additional long term soaking of the leaf to get the lastof it out. When using Acetone to extract leaf I have found that it will remove the salvinorin so efficiently that whenre-extracting the leaf a fourth time over to check and see if any was left behind I have not been able to get enoughadditional salvinorin to be able to tell. If using Isopropanol I do not recommend using anything less than 99% forthis quick extraction method as IPA with large amounts of water in it will dramatically increase the amount of timerequired to efficiently extract the salvinorin. 91% to 94% IPA found on some store shelves might work for shortextractions, but I haven't tried it to know.

Tannin Removal

This extraction process has three separate steps incorporated into it to remove tannin impurities, the first step willget most of it, the second step another portion and the last step every bit of it if you are careful. Waiting 24 hoursfor the tannin to fall out is better than 12 hours but be sure to keep the extraction solvent in the dark the wholetime while waiting because if it is left out in bright sunshine you can loose some of your yield due to the interactionof ultra-violet light which can destroy salvinorin while in solvent. Almost everyone has the same problem withtannin the first few times they try this extraction technique, ending up with far more of it in their extract than theybelieved possible thinking that all of it must have certainly settled out of the fluid when waiting as many as 24hours for it to come out of the fluid, but it's still in there to some extent, especially if having used a solvent withany amount of water in it. To deal with this common problem I have worked an additional step into the process towash out tannin that remains in the extract after cleaning with Naphtha (drying first) using water and then onemore tannin removal step at the end of the process by dissolving the cleaned extract into Acetone and waiting 12-24 hours to see if more drops out of the fluid because at that point regardless of your best efforts you will likely stillhave some of it in the extract. Be careful not to touch your face or other sensitive areas of skin when working withSalvia divinorum wetted by solvent or when having residues from the extract on your hands. Something in the leafcan cause an allergic reaction which I believe is caused by the tannin in the leaf which is a acidic astringent causingsensitive areas of skin to become reddened along with an amount of swelling and later flaking of skin which can lastseveral days. I have never had a problem with the skin on my hands or arms but my face always has this reactionif I scratch my nose or rub my eyes when slight amounts of extraction residues or are present on my fingers thishappens every time.

Using Solvents to Remove Chlorophyll

The reason I use Naphtha to remove Chlorophyll from extract first, before switching to Isopropanol, is becausesalvinorin isn't soluble to Naphtha but the Chlorophyll is. Unfortunately, after a few washes of the extract withNaphtha it becomes ineffective for removing the last of the Chlorophyll requiring the use of another solvent such as99% Isopropanol to get the last of it. Although 99% Isopropanol does an excellent job of removing the remainingChlorophyll, this solvent removes at least three quarters of a milligram of the salvinorin per ml of fluid when at20°C., more when IPA is warmer, less when cooler. Also, the solubility of salvinorin has been reported by anexperimenter to be much higher in 99% IPA when large amounts of Chlorophyll compounds from the leaf arepresent which can result in a significant portion of your yield being removed with each wash of your extract if youuse too much, so use it very sparingly. You can recover a large portion of the salvinorin lost to the Isopropanolwashes by completely evaporating the solvent and removing the Chlorophyll waxes using the same process overagain with Naphtha and IPA in much smaller amounts. Save all of your Naphtha used for the washes becausealthough salvinorin is insoluble to Naphtha there are usually extremely small particles of salvinorin in the fluid whichtake much longer than an hour fall out of the fluid and can be found in the bottom of the container after a fewhours netting another 10% of salvinorin. Save all of the IPA used to wash your extract because it can beevaporated onto leaf to make 5X enhanced leaf or after evaporation reconstituted into drinking Alcohol to maketincture, depending on how much salvinorin was removed through the washes. Be sure to scrape every bit of filmfrom the sides of your evaporation container because high purity salvinorin films stick to the surfaces ofevaporation containers whether stainless steel, ceramic or glass. This is one way to know you have salvinorin,



because it sticks to these surfaces so well. To see photographs of a room temperature 99% IPA extraction of Salviadivinorum leaf and Chlorophyll being removed from extract using Naphtha and 99% Isopropanol, go to:http://www.erowid.org/plants/salvia/salvia_extraction4.shtml

Reduced Chlorophyll Extractions Using Chilled Acetone

Although I don't believe it's necessary to go to the extent to use chilled Acetone to reduce the amount ofChlorophyll extracted from leaf when most of the dark compounds can be later removed from the extract usingwashes of pure Naphtha, Acetone chilled to between zero and +20°F. is an effective method of initially obtaining acleaner extract which is somewhat easier to refine into white salvinorin. A chilled Acetone extraction is done usingexactly the same steps as shown above for room temperature solvents, except to reduce the amount of Chlorophyllextracted the amount of time the leaf is in the cold Acetone should be limited to between three to four minutes atthe most for each of the three extractions, extracting the same leaf three times over to maintain a fairly highextraction efficiency. When working in a room temperature environment pre-chilling both the leaf and theextraction container with the Acetone together to a temperature no higher than 20°F. will help keep thetemperature below 40°F. throughout the extraction. You want to start out cold and keep the solvent coldthroughout the extraction, but when working in a warm room the temperature of the fluid can increase by 20°F. tobe as high 40°F. while finishing up the last of the three extractions. This amount of temperature increase is ok, butno warmer than that and only during the last couple of minutes the leaf is in the solvent or you will begin to pullover additional Chlorophyll in a hurry. When working in a warm room and extracting with Acetone chilled to closezero°F. this should keep the temperature of the leaf in the solvent at or below +20°F. the whole time which resultsin a cleaner extract, so if you can chill it that far down it's a good way to reduce the amount of Chlorophyllextracted even further without impacting your extraction efficiency because of the high solubility of salvinorin inAcetone, even when chilled to zero°F. cold Acetone is still far more effective for dissolving salvinorin from the leafthan high proof room temperature Ethanol Alcohol, so don't worry about chilling the Acetone that far down, yourextraction efficiency will still remain very high when using zero degree F. Acetone. If you are considering the idea ofusing chilled Isopropanol to extract leaf it won't work, I tried 99% IPA and found that it required four times theamount of time in solvent for one quarter the extraction efficiency of Acetone! However, salvinorin has beenreported to remain solvent in pure Ethanol Alcohol (grain Alcohol) when chilled to low temperatures and might beworth trying, but I have not done so to confirm this myself. Regardless, chilled Ethanol will not be as effective aschilled Acetone which has a much higher solubility to salvinorin than room temperature Ethanol.

Extremely brief extractions of Salvia divinorum leaf of one minute or less with Acetone chilled to between zero and+20°F., with exception of an amount of tannin extracted, will yield an almost wax free extract of high puritysalvinorin. When extracting Salvia leaf for just one minute you won't get all of the salvinorin out but you should getclose to a third or more of it. The amount of reduced solubility of salvinorin to chilled Acetone is completely madeup for when doing multiple extractions to the same leaf, even when the Acetone is chilled to as far down as zero°F.At one time I had reported that chilled Acetone extractions were far less efficient than room temperature Acetonebecause when using 99% IPA to remove Chlorophyll from the extract I did not wait long enough for the salvinorinparticles to all settle out of the fluid and wasn't due to the Acetone being chilled, so if you see any of my old reportsthat chilled Acetone extractions are less efficient than room temperature you can disregard that report. If yourworried that you are leaving salvinorin A behind when using chilled Acetone extract the leaf a fourth time over, butkeep that portion of the solvent separate from the rest as it will have more Chlorophyll in it than the previous threeextractions. I have done forth extractions to leaf previously extracted three times over for three minutes using bothchilled and room temperature Acetone to be sure I didn't leave any salvinorin behind, and after removing tanninand Chlorophyll contaminates found so little salvinorin that I couldn't isolate it through washes with Naphtha andIPA because when finished there was nothing left to be seen in the bottom of the vial. I have also taken the leaffrom room temperature and chilled Acetone extractions (after it dried) and powdered the leaf in a small high RPMcoffee grinder to a flour-like consistency and when re-extracting it with Acetone was unable to get any amount ofsalvinorin that I could see out of it.

The photograph below shows a chilled Acetone extraction that started at +5°F. which warmed up to +15°F. by thetime it was completed which is fairly typical when working in a warm room, even if you have pre-chilled both yourleaf and extraction containers together with the Acetone at the same time. Shown in the photograph is the firstwash of the extract with Naphtha, two washes with water and then four washes with 99% IPA to further removeimpurities yielding white salvinorin. The weight of salvinorin shown in the photograph of the scale is NOTrepresentative of the extraction efficiency because when I did this extraction I did not wait long enough for thesuper fine salvinorin particles to fall to the bottom of the glass and unknowingly removed lots of salvinorin whenusing the IPA to remove Chlorophyll waxes. I later recovered the salvinorin from the last two washes by completelyevaporating the IPA and cleaning it once more using Naphtha and more IPA which netted another 200 mg ofsalvinorin making a total of 525 mg of cleaned salvinorin from the 250 gram extraction, which is very good foraverage potency leaf. This doesn't include the salvinorin lost from the first two 99% IPA washes. When removingChlorophyll waxes with 99% IPA the cleaner the salvinorin gets the longer it takes to settle to the bottom, takingan hour or longer to all settle to the bottom of the glass. If you have removed most of the dark green from yoursalvinorin and are left with a cloudy yellow fluid this means that you still have lots of super fine salvinorin particlesfloating in the IPA (as seen in the photograph below, the IPA was still cloudy) and must wait until the fluid iscompletely clear before pouring off the IPA. The fluid can be colored, but not so cloudy that you can't see through it

http://www.erowid.org/plants/salvia/salvia_extraction4.shtml



as solvents which are fully saturated with salvinorin are never that cloudy and should be clear unless salvinorinparticles are still floating in it (unless fine tannin particles are still present). Even if you have waited long enough forall cloudiness to settle out of IPA used to remove Chlorophyll impurities from your extract be sure to save thissolvent because something in the dark Chlorophyll compounds from the leaf appears to increase the solubility ofsalvinorin to Isopropanol to be able to hold well over 1 mg per ml of salvinorin per ml of fluid, reported to sometimes be as high as 5 mg per ml by a chemist who had the use of an HPLC to test the solubility of salvinorin in afew different solvents. Whether the ability of IPA to hold that much salvinorin per milliliter was due to an actualincrease of a solubility to IPA or whether it was caused by fine particles of salvinorin that were still floating in thesolvent is something to consider.

The following image shows a chilled Acetone extraction which yielded a total of 525 milligrams of cleaned salvinorinfrom 250 grams of finely crushed leaf. The photograph showing 324 mg of cleaned salvinorin did not include thesalvinorin recovered from the IPA used to remove chlorophyll. The extraction efficiency was close to 100% but theyield of cleaned salvinorin was close to 85% after recovering the salvinorin lost to only the last two of the fourwashes of the extract with 99% Isopropanol. The losses of salvinorin to IPA washes was far greater with thecleaning of the extract from this extraction than it should have been because I did not wait long enough for all ofthe ultra-fine salvinorin particles to settle out of the fluid prior to pouring the IPA off of the amount of salvinorinwhich had settled to the bottom in the first hour. I should have waited up to three hours for the fluid to completelyclear so that all of the ultra-fine particles had time to settle to the bottom of the glass before removing the IPA. Ihave left the pictures in showing what Isopropanol clouded with salvinorin particles looks like to show you what notto do. In each of the photographs of IPA with salvinorin in the bottom of the glass you can see these particlesmaking the fluid very cloudy, but once they settle you can see through the colored fluid (except the first wash withIPA which is too dark due to chlorophyll). I did not try to recover the salvinorin from the first two 25 ml washes ofIPA due to the amount of chlorophyll, but could have done so making the total amount of cleaned salvinorinapproach 600 mg. Not bad, considering 250 grams of average potency leaf contains about 2.5 mg per gram of leaffor a total of 625 mg of salvinorin.



Note: The manufacturer's web site for the small balance in the photos is http://www.gramprecision.com They no longer appear to make that model and have replaced it with a model named the Diagem II CT 50 with alist price of US$ 229. It's accuracy is ±2 mg which is accurate enough for weighing salvinorin to make severalgrams of enhanced leaf at a time, especially if over measured by 2-4 mg.

How can I grow Salvinorin crystals or isolate them from extract?

Growing crystals isn't always easy or guaranteed to be produced each time, but here are two ways that I havedone it. The first two methods were taught to me, the third method I developed myself:

M E T H O D S F O R S A L V I N O R I N C R Y S T A L L I Z A T I O N :

1. Crystalline precipitation in cooling solvents: Dissolve as much near pure salvinorin powder as you can into151 proof Everclear Ethanol Alcohol (25% water) warmed to 130-140°F. and then wait for it to cool to see ifcrystals appear (191 proof Ethanol containing only 5% water might work better). Sometimes I have to re-heata vial of Salvinorin and Ethanol several times to at or just below boiling before they might grow when cooling. Ifthey are going to appear they should be there within an hour or two. Each time I re-heat a vial containing

http://www.gramprecision.com/



salvinorin dissolved into 151 proof Everclear Alcohol I loose some of the Salvinorin and crystals don't alwaysgrow, but they usually show up on the fourth try.

2. Crystalline deposits from solvent evaporation: Dissolving high purity salvinorin into Acetone and allowingthe solvent to slowly evaporate at room temperature so that it evaporates very slowly will sometimes producelarge crystal formations over a period of a few days to a week, but not always. I have grown crystals byevaporating Acetone fairly quickly in either an oven at 120 degrees f (just an ounce of solvent) or by having afan blow air across an ounce of salvinorin saturated Acetone, but the crystals usually do not form as large asthey do when the evaporation occurs slowly. Also, if you have not removed enough of the chlorophyll waxes thecrystals will be hard to see, so try to remove as much of it as you reasonably can if your going to try to growcrystals. The extract should be better than 90-95% free of Chlorophyll impurity if trying to grow crystalsotherwise the waxy impurities will hide them from view or stick to the surfaces of the crystalline structures,although if the evaporation container is both small and deep enough like some spice bowls are the Chlorophyll inthe solvent usually deposits high up on the sides of the glass as the fluid level evaporates down, by the time thesolvent level gets near the bottom of the glass where crystals start to precipitate out of the fluid, most of theChlorophyll is already out of the solvent.

3. Isolation of crystals from dried extract using Naphtha: Through trial and error extraction research I wassurprised to find that the dark waxy extract from a 99% Isopropanol extraction of Salvia divinorum is loadedwith small crystals which are formed within the dark waxy Chlorophyll compounds as the solvent evaporates.The following explains how to isolate them out of dried extract but will only work if you have removed as muchof the tannin contaminate as you can from the extraction solvent first. The way I do this is by letting theextraction solvent sit undisturbed for 12-24 hours to allow enough time for the tannin to settle out of the fluidas a fine sediment. Once the tannin has settled pour the extraction fluid into another container for evaporation,leaving the tannin behind. Next, the extraction solvent is completely evaporated leaving a dry waxy extractbehind. Once free of any hint of extraction solvent and completely dry, pour in a few ounces of pure Naphthaand scrape every bit of the extract into the Naphtha, including all flims which may have formed on the sides ofthe evaporation container. Completely dissolve every bit of the extract into the fluid until all of the clumps areworked out of it. Once your finished working all of the clumps out of the extract it is very important to leave thecontainer of Naphtha alone to sit still for at least a half hour or more to allow enough time for the fine salvinorinparticulates stirred up into the Naphtha to settle to the bottom of the container. After the extraction solids havesettled you can then pour the Naphtha off of the extract in the bottom and then add more clean Naphtha backto the container to wash the extract through again, waiting a half hour or more each time. Keep washing theextract with Naphtha until it will no longer take on much more color and has become a light tinted translucentgreen.

After it's obvious that Naphtha has become ineffective removing additional Chlorophyll and unable to take on morecolor with each additional wash of the extract, pour off all of the Naphtha and completely dry the extract of any hintof Naphtha. Next, pour in an ounce or more of water into your container of extract and stir for a couple of minutes,allow time for the particles to settle to the bottom of the glass and pour the water off, adding more water to theextract and stirring again. If tannin is present in the extract the water will become a yellow to brown tint, but ifusing a cup or more of water at a time small amounts of tannin being dissolved out of the extract might be sodiluted by that large of an amount of water to be unable to see any change of color to know if its being removed,because of this I like to work with only an ounce of water at a time to be able to know when all of the tannin hasbeen completely removed and I can stop washing with water. Once your done removing tannin with watercompletely dry the extract of all moisture and place all of the dried extract into a small two inch diameter spicebowl, or even a small shot glass or something of similar size. Next, pour in enough fresh Naphtha into the glass ofextract so that there is about a half inch of Naphtha on top of the extract and briskly stir for about a minute with aspoon, then place the glass or bowl into an electric oven set to about 120°F. with its door cracked open a couple ofinches and evaporate all of the Naphtha out of the glass. Keep the small container of Naphtha as far away from theheating elements as possible because there is potential for fire. When using this technique by leaving the glass orbowl completely undisturbed in a warm oven while the Naphtha is evaporating off the extract, the heavier salvinorincrystals will all fall to the bottom of the glass while the lighter Chlorophyll impurity forms an upper crust on top.Once all of the Naphtha has been completely evaporated out of your extract you can freeze the glass to cause thetop layer of wax to stiffen up enough to be able to easily peel the crust off of the top to expose nothing but goldencolored to light green high purity sand-like salvinorin crystals in the bottom of your glass. They might not seem likecrystals unless seen under magnification, but they are.

Note: I stumbled upon method three as a complete surprise when I was experimenting with water extractions ofleaf for an hour in boiling hot water, then removing the leaf and evaporating the water off all the way down to drytannin which was then extracted using 99% IPA to recover the salvinorin lost to the water, about 50%. I thenremoved the tannin from the IPA through settling and after evaporation cleaned the extract with Naphtha as well asI could. After drying the Naphtha cleaned extract I then did a water of the powder just to be sure I had removedall of the tannin contaminates and then after pouring the water off dried the extract. As an added measure, just tomake sure the extract was clean enough I added about an ounce of Naphtha to it and stirred the powder into thesolvent to see if it would take on any more color, which it didn't, so instead of pouring the Naphtha off I just put itinto an oven set to 120°F. to evaporate and was later surprised to find nothing but crystals under a thin crust of



Chlrophyll. These crystals could not have formed within the Naphtha itself because salvinorin is insoluble toNaphtha, so the crystals had to have come strait out of the extract itself, having formed when the 99%Isopropanol was being evaporated down to a dry extract. Prior seeing this, I didn't know that the dark Chorophyllwax deposited upon evaporation of the extraction solvent had crystals in it and as far as I know neither did anyoneelse. No one seems to be very interested in using this new method yet, but in my opinion it is the easiest and mostefficient way of obtaining high purity salvinorin that there is.

Warning!The above method of evaporating any amount of Naphtha in an electric oven could cause a fire or worse. I onlypost this for informational purposes. It worked for me without problems but it might not work for you withoutcausing a fire!

P I C T U R E S F R O M M E T H O D O N E :

I grew the crystals in the pictures below by dissolving 900 milligrams of refined salvinorin powder (light greencolor) into 100 ml of hot 140°F. 151 proof Everclear drinking Alcohol (Ethanol) and then set aside for two hours atroom temperature each time to see if crystals formed. I had to go through three cycles of heating and coolingbefore these beautiful crystals appeared. The first three times only a cloud appeared which was extremely smallcrystals, not visible to the eye except as a cloud. On the fourth heating I came back two hours later and foundthese beautiful large crystals had formed. When heating your Alcohol thoroughly shake or mix the salvinorinpowder into the Alcohol to dissolve as much as possible. Keep adding salvinorin to the hot fluid until I will no longerdissolve any more and has a few specks of solid salvinorin in the bottom which won't completely dissolve toindicate that you have fully saturated the hot Alcohol. When the Ethanol cools back down to 20°C. sometimessalvinorin crystals will precipitate out of the fuild because the Alcohol cannot hold nearly as much salvinorin whencooled down to room temperature. Just leave it alone and let it cool down to room temperature setting on a shelf,nothing special needed. I have used 99% Isopropanol to grow crystals this way too, but they are always muchsmaller than when using Ethanol. Acetone won't form crystals at all, Methanol will sometimes form larger crystalsthan Ethanol, but hasn't been as reliable for me compared to 151 proof Everclear Alcohol which usually takes threeor four cycles of re-heating the 100 ml jar before nice crystals form. I have been able to grow crystals in 151 proofEthanol the same way using a much smaller 30 ml vial of hot Alcohol with as little as 100 mg of Salvinorinproducing the same size of crystals.

P I C T U R E S F R O M M E T H O D T W O

The following two pictures are of some very nice white salvinorin crystals which formed through slow evaporation ofAcetone at room temperature. These crystals were produce by adding white salvinorin powder into a small bowl fullof Acetone warmed to a temperature of about 130°F. then stirring in as much salvinorin-A powder that could bedissolved into it and setting it aside for a week. When I came back I found these crystals. Sometimes crystals willgrow, other times none will form at all. The second picture was taken close up using a zoom stereoscope set to45X magnification. The light brown colored material at the base of the crystals is tannin sediment that was not



removed from the salvinorin powder like I should have done by mixing water into the extract to dissolve anyremaining tannin contaminate into it and then pouring the water off to remove it. Of course dried before adding tothe hot Acetone.

P I C T U R E S F R O M M E T H O D T H R E E :

The following pictures are salvinorin crystals obtained strait out of dried Chlorophyll waxes from a 99% IPAextraction. The photograph on the left was taken on macro within about three inches of the bottom of a regulardrinking glass used to evaporate Naphtha cleaned extract that had about a half inch of clean Naphtha stirred in justbefore placing the glass into an oven for evaporation. The smooth layer you see is a waxy crust of Chlorophyllwaxes which formed on top of the salvinorin crystals below it. I tore a portion of the wax off the top to show thecrystals underneath. The photograph on the right was taken with a zoom stereoscope set to 30X magnification.

If you're interested in more images, download this zipped file containing over 100 images of Salvinorin crystals.

Can handling pure salvinorin be absorbed through your skin when either dry or when dissolved into extractionsolvents?

In my experience Salvinorin in the pure crystalline or powdered form is very safe to handle. I have worked withpure salvinorin both dry and dissolved into various solvents and have never had the slightest effect when handlingthis compound or solvents containing large amounts of it. salvinorin isn't easily absorbed through the skin, evenwhen dissolved into Alcohol and held in the mouth salvinorin is poorly absorbed. I have tried using powderedcrystalline salvinorin under my tongue from 5 milligrams working in small increments all the way up to 25milligrams (which is 25 times the amount some individuals smoke) sublingually without Alcohol with absolutely noeffect and when swallowed had no effect either. I have also tried up to 25 mg of the powder sublingually togetherwith a few ml of 151 Proof Ethanol drinking Alcohol under my tongue with no effect. It appears that for salvinorin tobe absorbed sublingually that it must be thoroughly dissolved into Alcohol, just having pure crystalline salvinorin

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powder in your mouth with an amount of 151 Proof Ethanol didn't work for me at all. The only caution I have whenhandling salvinorin is that if you are a smoker and have transferred salvinorin residues on your hands from anextraction onto a cigarette this could cause an unexpected journey, other than that pure salvinorin appears to bealmost inert for effect unless absorbed through the use of a properly prepared tincture or smoked.

What are the relative solubilities of Salvinorin in the different solvents used toextract it? (How much of these solvents does it take to dissolve 1000mg (one gram) ofsalvinorin?)

Salvinorin Solubilities (@ 27°C)

Acetone23 mg/mL (43.5 mL/g)

Methyl Alcohol (Methanol)3.15 mg/mL (317 mL/g)

Ethyl Alcohol (Ethanol)1.28 mg/mL (780 mL/g)

Isopropyl Alcohol (Isopropanol)0.74 mg/mL (1350 mL/g)

Which solvents can I use to extract leaf and how much is required?

Many solvents can be used to extract Salvinorin from leaf but in my experience there is nothing better than Acetonedue to the extremely high solubility of salvinorin to this solvent which is far above all of the Alcohol solvents.However, the Alcohols will do the job if you take the extra time and effort to needed to efficiently extract leaf whenusing them. I have stayed away from using Ethyl Alcohol (Methanol) for extractions because it is so toxic you don'twant to be breathing the vapors from it or have it absorbed into your skin. Although my clear preference for Salviadivinorum extractions is reagent or technical grade Acetone, if you cannot find or afford clean technical gradeAcetone you can use high proof 98% Ethanol which as a great second choice to Acetone, or medical grade 99%Isopropanol as a great third choice which will also do the job as long as you extract the leaf when using 99%Isopropanol longer and several times over what is required when using Acetone. Although some individuals usehardware store Acetone I don't recommend it, especially any kind of Acetone labeled "extra strength" as theseusually contain large amounts of Benzene, a known cancer causing agent. However, it can be done with some ofthe store bought Acetone products if you know what to do. I'll explain how, when I first started experimenting withsalvinorin extractions I couldn't afford to continue purchasing the amount of technical grade Acetone that I neededfor my extraction experiments, so started using cheap hardware store Acetone for extractions to extract leaf fromwhich the salvinorin obtained was never going to be used by myself or anyone else. I testing several brands ofAcetone, of the ones I tested the one which evaporated most cleanly is made by Klean-Strip, but even this brandhad a small amount of very light colored contaminate left in the bottom of a glass bowl when evaporating a 1000ml of it in a test. I sought the advice of a chemist regarding this contaminate and his advice was that althoughhardware store solvents can have an amount of contaminate, none of them are produced by a manufacturingprocess which would contaminate the solvent with heavy metals and his advice regarding the slight amount ofcontaminate that I found was that it wasn't any more dangerous than the large amounts of waxy compoundsextracted from Salvia divinorum leaf itself, making the very slight amount of light film deposited in a small lightspot of film in the bottom of my bowl insignificant. When I say a light film I mean it was almost not even there, sothere wasn't much to it at all. Regardless, the idea of using hardware store Acetone for Salvia extractions whichsomeone might use for tincture or to smoke enhanced leaf made from it is a very unappealing thought to me and Ihope for you too. However, that being said, there is one technique worth considering if using Acetone such asKlean-strip which evaporates very cleanly when I tested my batch of it; if your extracting Salvia leaf with storebought Acetone and after evaporation use Naphtha to remove Chlorophyll wax from the dried extract and thenfollow up with more washes with small amounts of 99% medical grade IPA, the slight amount of contaminate whichmight have come over from the Acetone or Naphtha will be washed out of the extract with the dark greenChlorophyll when using Isopropanol to clean the extract to a very light green tint or all the way to white colored,but only if you have cleaned your extract to that extent which is a lossy process because portions of the salvinorinwill be dissolved into the IPA and washed out with each wash of the extract. Crystallization of the extract in hotEthanol will further purify the salvinorin to a very high purity. I have been able to purify salvinorin extracted withhardware store Acetone and the crystals tested using an HPLC to be higher than 99.5% purity without showingevidence of anything else being present. While I have mentioned the above as a possible work around when usingrelatively clean hardware store Acetone, I would never use it for extractions intended for the commercialmanufacture of salvinorin products and don't recommend anyone else do so.

Alcohols can be fairly effective extracting salvinorin out of leaf in a short amount of time but to be able to do socannot have much water in them, this includes drinking Alcohols such as 151 proof Everclear Alcohol which is closeto 25% water and thus a poor choice, but will work if you extract the leaf long enough for many hours and severaltimes over, but how much salvinorin might be left behind is a question when using solvents with that much water



in them, even if extracting for days on end. A gallon of Acetone, high proof Ethanol, or 99% Isopropanol should beenough to extract a full kilo of finely crushed to powdered leaf several times over as outlined above, but if yourextracting from a full kilo of whole to coarsely crushed leaf then it requires about twice as much solvent due to thelarger volume of the leaf and the amount of solvent needed to completely cover it compared to the much smallervolume when finely crushed or powdered, because of this I always finely crush my leaf to reduce the amount offluid needed. When using Acetone to extract a kilo of leaf three times over far less solvent is really needed on asolubility basis compared to 99% Isopropanol/IPA, but use generous amounts of Acetone when working with eitherpowdered or crushed leaf to be sure to get everything you can get out of the leaf. My recommendations whenextracting finely crushed to powdered leaf is to use a ratio of 1/2 leaf to 1/2 Acetone, if using 99% Isopropanol Iuse a ratio of 1/3 leaf to 2/3 IPA, extracting the leaf several times over with fresh solvent each time whether usingAcetone or 99% IPA to progressively remove more and more salvinorin from the leaf and also to dilute thesalvinorn contained in the solvent that might be left behind in the wetted leaf. This is especially important whenusing Acetone because it can hold large amounts of salvinorin in just a few milliliters of fluid. When using eitherchilled or room temperature Acetone I extract my leaf from 3 to 5 minutes each time three times over and thenpour more Acetone through the leaf two more times to remove salvinorin residuals. Extracting the leaf just twotimes with either chilled or room temperature Acetone for a couple of minutes each time with a single quick singlepour through of more solvent should be enough to remove most of the salvinorin if you have stirred or shaken theleaf in the solvent well enough, but I recommend extracting the leaf three times over when using Acetone forlonger periods of time and pouring solvent through the leaf two times when your done as added measure just to bethorough. If using 99% Isopropanol or high proof 98% Ethanol I recommend extracting the leaf for at least fiveminutes each time done at least five times over because the solubility of Salvinorin is so much lower to Alcoholsolvents making longer term extraction of the leaf more important than when using Acetone. I don't recommendthe use of 70 to 91 percent IPA or 151 proof Ethanol Alcohol to extract leaf because these solvents are far lessefficient extracting salvinorin and also because of the extra amount tannin that solvents containing that muchwater can pull out of the leaf. However, if you cannot find solvents with very little water in them it has beenreported on the net that you can extract leaf with 70% IPA if the leaf is soaked for a period of days and extractedseveral times over to be sure that you get as much salvinorin out that you can with water diluted solvents. I'venever tried long term extractions with 70% IPA to know how well it works, but some swear by it as a good methodif you soak the leaf for as much as five days in 70% IPA.

If you are able to find 191 proof Everclear in your area which contains less than 5% water this solvent might workwell enough for short extractions but I haven't tried to extract leaf using 191 proof drinking Alcohol because thesale of high proof Ethanol is prohibited where I live and expensive to ship to me if I order it online. If you can findit in your area or don't mind the expense of having it shipped to you via air carrier, I believe 191 proof Ethanolwould be a good second choice to 98% Ethanol which is even more expensive and harder to find, or as a thirdchoice 99% IPA which is cheap, but for some hard to find too. On a solubility basis 98% Ethanol would be betterthan using 99% IPA because the solubility of salvinorin in near pure Ethanol approaches twice the solubility of 99%IPA which in my opinion makes 98% Ethanol a better extraction solvent even if it has 1% more water in it than99% IPA which is a weaker solvent for salvinorin. Also, one thing to be said about extracting with high proofEthanol or drinking Alcohol is that you would be working with food grade solvents which is a must if you areproducing products to be sold for human consumption such as tincture. When doing room temperature extractionsof powdered or crushed leaf with high proof Ethanol or 99% Isopropanol extractions will require more work toextract salvinorin out of your leaf than if using Acetone, but you can make up for the lower solubility of salvinorinto Alcohol by stirring and shaking your bowl or jar of leaf as vigorously as you can extracting for longer periods oftime and a couple of more times over beyond what is needed when using Acetone. When using 99% Isopropanol Iextract my powdered leaf for a minimum of 5 minutes each time up to five times, one right after the other withanother couple of additional pours of fresh IPA through the leaf when I am done. I have found that when using IPAI am able to get close to 80-90 percent or more of the Salvinorin out of leaf when using this method so it will work,just more work. One of the things I like about 99% Isopropanol is that it is medical grade which means its a veryclean solvent and can be easily found on many store shelves sitting right next to the 70% IPA. After I am doneextracting leaf with any of the Alcohol solvents which include Ethanol and Isopropanol I always do a long termextraction of the leaf to be able to get the last of the salvinorin out. Of course, I could just as well do a long termextraction of the leaf to start with and then be assured at getting every bit of salvinorin which can be extracted outof the leaf, but I like getting on with things and do my extractions the quick way first and then follow up with along term extraction to make sure to get the rest of it.

The reason I started working with 99% Isopropanol for extractions was because finding clean or reagent gradeAcetone can be expensive and difficult to find locallyand expensive to ship as a flammable requiring next day air bymost of the carriers. Although 99% IPA will do a fairly good job extracting Salvia divinorum leaf, I have found thateven with my best efforts when using 99% Isopropanol I can't get the last 10-20 percent of the salvinorin outwithout an additional long term soaking of the leaf, but there is a way to increase the effectiveness of 99%Isopropanol, if you heat it to a higher temperature all the way up close to the boiling point it will become far moreeffective at extracting salvinorin than when at room temperature and should then be able to get the last of thesalvinorin out of the leaf fairly easily if warmed that much. Warming any Alcohol will increase the solubility ofsalvinorin to them making hot Alcohol nearly as effective as room temperature Acetone. However, I don't warm mysolvents because of the increased amount of vapors given off and the danger of ignition from static spark or othersources being increased when these vapors are present in large amounts caused by heating. While extracting leaffor long periods of time in any solvent be sure to store your jar away from light because you could loose some ofyour salvinorin due to the interaction of light with Salvinorin when in solvent. This isn't a problem for short periods



of time unless your working in direct sunlight, however when extracting leaf in solvents for more than a few hoursyou should store your container of salvinorin containing solvent in the dark.

After extracting leaf and removing the tannin impurities first, how can I remove the Chlorophyll impurity to isolatesalvinorin crystals?

The easiest and most efficient way I have found to get down to high purity crystalline salvinorin is very simple. Idon't know if this works the same way when using Acetone to extract leaf, but this has worked every time for mewhen extracting leaf with 99% Isopropanol.

The following method can be used to obtain salvinorin crystals by extracting Salvia Divinorum leaf using 99%Isopropanol, removing all of the bits of leaf and then either filtering the extraction fluid or waiting for tanninsediments to fall out of the liquid to remove as much as you can that way first. Next, dissolve all of the extract intothe Naphtha by hand working all of the clumps of extract into the Naphtha with a spoon until only fine granulesremain in the fluid, then continuing to wash the extract several times over with more fresh Naphtha until it isobvious that the fluid has become ineffective for removing additional Chlorophyll because the extract won't getmuch lighter with each additional wash, and the Naphtha has become a very light green translucent color. Eachtime you wash your extract with Naphtha the fine salvinorin crystals will be churned up into the fluid and take ahalf hour or more to settle to the bottom of the container, so be sure to set the glass your using for the Naphthawashes aside for at least 30 minutes between washings of the extract before pouring the fluid off the solvents.When you first start washing the extract with Naptha the fluid will take on such a dark color that you will likely beunable to see where the fluid ends and the dark colored extract in the bottom begins. If after a half hour or moreyou are unable to see that the particles in the fluid have completely settled you can remove half of the fluid (aslong as the glass wasn't filled more than 1/3 full of extract when it was dry) from the top using an eye dropper andthen add more clean Naphtha to the glass stirring the extract for five minutes and waiting another 30 or moreminutes for the fine salvinorin particles to settle again. After the second 30 ml wash of extract with Naphtha I havealways been able to see a separation between the darker fluid and the lighter colored solid in the bottom of theglass. The amount of Naphtha used for each wash to remove Chlorophyll from the extract isn't critical, what everamount is needed, you can use larger amounts without fear of loosing any of you salvinorin as long as you waitlong enough for the salvinorin to settle to the bottom of the container each time. You can add four or more ouncesof Naphtha at a time using a pint sized jar when cleaning your extract instead of a small shot glass and that willwork out just fine, just keep adding and pouring off Naphtha until the extract is as clean as you can get it and thenpour every last drop of Naphtha off of the extract and dry the extract until no hint of Naphtha remains. Collect all ofthe Naphtha used to remove Chlorophyll together in one container and set it aside for several hours and check it tosee if more salvinorin particles have settle out of the fluid. I have been able to find as much as 10% of thesalvinorin in the bottom of the Naphtha that didn't settle all of the way out with each 30 minute settling, so neverthrow it away until you have checked hours later to make sure your not wasting any of your yield that way.

After your completely finished with the Naphtha washes and the extract is completely dry without any hint ofNaphtha smell remaining, crush and mix all of the extract together in a bowl with a spoon as finely as you can sothat it is completely powdered and then start washing the powder with room temperature water until it will nolonger take on a yellow or brown color. This step is to remove additional tannin that might still be in the extract, Ican usually remove the remaining tannin with just a few one ounce washes with water but you can use a full cup ormore at a time of you wish as salvinorin is insoluble to water, but when using that much water at a time to cleanthe extract from a 100g or less extraction of leaf you might not see any color to the water because the smallamount of tannin would be so dilute that it might not turn the water a darker color when using that much at onetime, that is why I like water washing the extract in a small vial or shot glass so I can see for myself if much tannincame over. Once you can see that the water will no longer take on any color completely dry the extract of allmoisture and then put all of the extract into a small shot glass or spice bowl at or under two inch diameter and pourin enough fresh Naphtha so that the extract has about a half inch of Naphtha on top, about an ounce is all youneed. Thoroughly stir the extract into the solvent with a spoon and then place the bowl in an electric oven set toabout 120°F. with its door cracked open. Keep the glass of Naphtha as far away from the heating elements aspossible because there is potential for fire. When using this technique by leaving the glass or bowl undisturbedwhile the Naphtha evaporates off the heavier salvinorin crystals will all settle to the bottom of the glass while theChlorophyll wax forms an upper crust. Once completely dry place the glass container in a freezer for long enough tocause the top layer of wax to stiffen up enough to be able to peel off the upper crust by hand leaving almost puregolden colored to light green high purity micro-size crystals in the bottom of the glass. They might not seem likecrystals unless seen under enough magnification, but they are.

Where can I get clean Naphtha?

I would never recommend using Naphtha for to remove Chlorophyll from Salvia extract to make commercialproducts to be sold to the public, but if you are just making it for yourself and follow up the Naphtha washes onelast wash with 99% IPA or high proof drinking Alcohol you will wash out the majority of not all of the impuritieswhich might have been introduced by the Naphtha.



It can be difficult to find Naphtha that will evaporate completely clean. Do not try to use any kind of Naphtha unlessyour sure that it is only Naphtha and does not have oils, or rust inhibitors added to it, such as is common withcamp stove fuels. What ever Naphtha that you choose to use, evaporate out a ounce or more of it and see if anyresidue remains. A good check of hardware or store bought solvents is to evaporate out as much as you intend onusing, but since your pouring the Naphtha off of your extract evaporating an ounce ought to be enough to seebecause you will have far less than that amount in your extract, once poured off. If you do not want to useNaphtha, you can use 98% Ethanol or 99% Isopropanol to clean the waxes out of an extract if you are very carefulto use as little as possible you won't loose too much salvinorin, especially if the IPA is chilled, it will carry awayeven less salvinorin with each wash when chilled to 40-50°F. because it is unable to hold as much salvinorin whencold but will still wash the waxes out. This might sound contradictory considering chilled solvents are used to helpleave wax behind when extracting from leaf, but once it is extracted into a high concentration small amounts ofcold 99 percent Isopropanol will remove some of the waxes with each wash, even when cold although marginalcompared to room temperature Isopropanol it is one alternative to using Naphtha or room temperature Isopropanolwhich will work too but carries away more Salvinorin with each wash so use it sparingly. I have tried one brand ofNaphtha lighter fluid sold under the brand name of Ronsonol and have been able to evaporate eight ounces of itcompletely out without a hint of residues, but some people object to using it because it contains less than 30 partsper million benzene. Considering that it is only used to clean the extract of Chlorophyll compounds and is notevaporated down into the extract itself, and that benzene evaporates out very easily, I don't see it as a big issuebut you should be aware of it. The amount of benzene that we each are exposed to on a daily basis (if you live in acity) is somewhere around 250 micrograms just from breathing the air and nothing more. The amount remainingfrom using Ronsonol lighter fluid to clean the wax out of extract will be far less than that, if you don't evaporate itdown into your extract and just pour it off, probably a few micrograms.

Can I use any kind of 151 Proof Alcohol to make tincture?

151 Proof drinking Alcohol will work for home made tincture, it won't be as strong as a tincture made out of 191proof Alcohol because it contains close to 25% water but it will work well enough. I have made tincture using 151proof Everclear so that there is no other taste added but others have reported using 151 proof rum which turnedout to be very good. Tinctures made with 151 proof won't hold as much salvinorin because of the water but seemto work fine anyway, you just have to use more tincture for the same effect as commercially made tinctures thatuse 95-98% Ethanol.

Is there a way to make tincture that only requires a drop or two to have an effect?

As far as I know, no one is making a tincture that is strong enough to have effects with only a drop or two becausesalvinorin isn't very soluble in Alcohol, because of this you can't get enough salvinorin in the Alcohol to make it thatstrong. I have heard of using small amounts of Acetone which can hold more than 20 mg of salvinorin per ml offluid and sublingually dosing with it as a tincture requiring less than 10% the amount of fluid required when usinghigh proof Ethanol alcohol, but Acetone isn't something people normally want to put in their mouth and how toxicsmall amounts of Acetone might be if used sublingually as a tincture is something I have never looked into. DanielSiebert's tincture has been tested by someone who says that they found it to contain 1.36 mg of salvinorin per mlof 98% Ethanol. I am not sure what the upward room temperature limit is, but I believe it to be somewhere around1.5 mg per ml for 98% Ethanol, perhaps higher if some of the dark Chlorophyll compounds from the leaf are in it. Ithas been reported to me that when Chlorophyll compounds from the leaf present in Isopropanol or high proof 98%Enthanol that it can hold larger amounts of Salvinorin per ml, but I have not been able to confirm this report yet.Also, I am not sure how much Salvinorin 151 proof Alcohol will hold on a ml basis with close to 25% water in it,probably around one mg per ml of fluid.

If extracting leaf with an average potency of 2.5 mg of salvinorin per gram of dried weight 100 gram of dried leafought to have at least 250 mg of salvinorin but due to extraction losses I wouldn't bet on being able to extract outmore than 200 mg, especially if using 99% IPA which isn't as efficient as Actone. If you extracted the leaf using70% Isopropanol, even if for several days, it could be closer to 175 mg because the water in 70% isn't as effectivemaking a solvent which is already weakly soluble to salvinorin even worse. An ounce of Alcohol contains 28 ml offluid so if you extracted from 100g of average leaf using either 99% IPA or Acetone you ought to be able to makeat least 4 to 5 ounces of strong tincture, depending on how much salvinorin is in your leaf and how efficiently theextraction went. I am being very conservative with those estimates, if your extraction went extremely well youcould make at 6 ounces of tincture out of 100 gram of average potency leaf.

I tried to make Salvia divinorum tincture out of pure white crystalline salvinorin trying to dissolve 40 mg of whitepowder into 28 ml of 151 proof Everclear Alcohol by warming the Alcohol to near boiling and stirring it all it. Initiallyall of the salvinorin completely dissolved into the fluid, but as it cooled at least a quarter of the salvinorincrystallized back out of the fluid making it very clear that 151 proof won't hold what Daniel's 98% proof Ethanolcan hold. Later I tried using the tincture and found it to be very weak without much if any effect. Then I madeanother batch of tincture with enough of the Chlorophyll compounds from the leaf to color the Alcohol a very darkgreen color and found that the tincture was then effective again. From this I gather that there must be somethingin the leaf which either helps sublingual absorption of salvinorin or somehow increases the amount of salvinorin



that can dissolve into the 151 proof Ethanol. Perhaps both are true, these compounds allow Alcohol to hold moresalvinorin and at the same time help with sublingual absorption? Maybe the green compounds from the leaf are notneeded as much for a tincture made from super high proof Ethanol such as 98% Alcohol, I wish I knew the answerto this but I am unable to locally obtain that high of a proof of Ethanol to know. What ever the reason, if yourmaking a simple Salvia divinorum tincture with 151 proof Ethanol you want some of those Chlorophyll impurities init and they might make higher proof tinctures more effective too.

If want to make a 151 proof tincture that isn't as strong or harsh tasting as one made with all of the Chlorophyllcompounds extracted from the leaf you can improve the taste by removing a portion of these dark waxy compoundsby washing the dried extract with Naphtha until it will no longer take on much more green becoming a light greentranslucent fluid, at that point stop washing the extract with Naphtha and pour off every last drop and completelydry the extract until no hint of Naphtha remains and reconstitute with Ethanol drinking Alcohol of your choice. Ifafter removing as much of the dark Chlorophyll as you can with Naphtha and you continue to wash the extract withsmall amounts of 99% IPA as is done to clean the extract to a white purity at some point will take too much of thegreen compounds out and result in a weakly effective tincture.

Be sure to remove most of the tannin from the extract to be used for making tincture otherwise it will end up as abrown sediment in the bottom of your bottle. Tannin is an acidic astringent, because of this I am wondering if smallamounts of it dissolved into the water component of an Alcohol tincture might somehow help the absorption ofsalvinorin tincture because I have heard that small amounts of ascorbic acid (Vitamin C) and Menthol mixed into ahigh proof Alcohol also help absorption. If an acidic component helps bring blood to the surface of your sublingualmembranes perhaps that's the reason why and the natural tannin in the leaf might also produce this same effectfrom its acidity.

Tincture burns my mouth very badly and causes alot of pain every time I try to use it, is there a way of making atincture that burns less?

If you dilute salvinorin tincture with small amounts of water it will burn less but also be proportionally less effective.One kind of salvinorin tincture I have heard about uses a mixture of 50% 151 proof Ethanol and 50% DMSO (70%pure) that has been reported by others to burn far less than tinctures made with 98% Ethanol. DMSO has beenused for a long time in various tinctures, so this isn't completely new, although I have only heard of this being donefor home made salvinorin tincture and not currently being sold as a commercial product. I have not worked withtincture using DMSO very much but I can offer the following: I purchased some 70% DMSO (30% water) at a localhealth food store and made a mixture of half DMSO to half Ethanol and found that it burned far less than tincturemade out of 151 proof Ethanol alone, although I only tried one dropper load of it because I didn't like the idea ofusing DMSO sublingually so being unwilling to use enough of it I can't confirm whether it is an effective method ornot. Perhaps an Ethanol/DMSO tincture burns less is due to the DMSO I used was close to one third water furtherdiluting the Ethanol, or perhaps it was because small amounts of DMSO when used sublingually burn less thanAlcohol does.

If making a tincture of out a mixture of Ethanol and DMSO the best way I can think to do it is to dissolve as muchsalvinorin as you can into hot DMSO until it will hold no more first, and then dissolve the remainder of thesalvinorin into the Ethanol before mixing them together. I found that salvinorin will dissolve into heated DMSO butit doesn't appear to hold salvinorin as well as Ethanol, whether this is due to the solubility of salvinorin to DMSOitself, or the fact that the only DMSO I could find contained 30% water I don't know. As a side note I have trieddissolving large amounts of salvinorin into 70% DMSO and then tried to dose with it by rubbing it into the side ofmy arm but it had no effect at all except for making my arm red and stinging like hell. Apparently salvinorin is toolarge a molecule to be absorbed through the skin through the use of DMSO, or perhaps DMSO won't dissolvesalvinorin finely enough to allow it to pass through the skin. One thing to consider about DMSO is that if you don'tcompletely clean your skin first or have any contaminates in the fluid this solvent can induce contaminates rightthrough your skin into your body which isn't a very good thing to do. Skin is meant as a protective barrier so usingDMSO this way whether on your arm or sublingually might not be the best idea unless completely free ofcontaminates or materials which shouldn't be absorbed that way.

L I N K S

Go to http://photos.yahoo.com/bc/salvinorin2003/ to see my collection of extraction photographs.

Click this link to read how to make your own Salvia Divinorum Standardized Leaf and Tincture and thislink to go to a Salvia Divinorum Extraction FAQ.

http://photos.yahoo.com/bc/salvinorin2003/

http://forums.lycaeum.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=2&t=001364

http://forums.lycaeum.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=2&t=001367



Documents

Salvinorin Extraction and Refinement FAQ v7.6