My chemistry education is a 2.5 in gen. chem last year at college. I basically failed, but since my school ran out of tutors (twice!!!) I think my grade was inflated, as well as my professor's impromptu trip to China halfway through the semester for two weeks.

I'm quite sure I could handle an alkaloid extraction, though. From what I think I know, it's as hard as extracting caffeine from coffee grounds.

Anyone with some expertise have a few words about this? Any alkaloid extraction, for that matter?

This is my reference:
http://www.erowid.org/plants/kratom/kratom_journal2.shtml

This should be moved to Lab Tips but what kind of extraction are you trying to do here? Like extracting caffeine from coffee grounds!? They use CO2 to do that, so do you mean a solvent extraction?! If so you can just use water/alcohol and then filter ---> evap. to tar. If you wanted something more pure [and I think this is what you where interested in] I'd have no idea how to do that OTC, so far as I can tell if you tried to do a normal A/B with say NaOH you're just going to end up hydrolyzing the stuff [note that Mitragynine, 7-Hydroxymitragynine, and Mitraphylline all have a -COOCH3] if you figure it out let me know!

P.S. The article you linked to doesn't give any sort of information about the process of extracting anything, I'm confused.

No two alkaloids are the same (i.e. same properties etc) therefore no two alkaloid extractions are the same.

a normal A/B with say NaOH you're just going to end up hydrolyzing the stuff [note that Mitragynine, 7-Hydroxymitragynine, and Mitraphylline all have a -COOCH3] if you figure it out let me know!


Stupid noob: The a/b NaOH (similar to DMT extraction from misoma hostilis root bark) is the most detailed extraction application that came to mind. I figured most acid/base extraction's would be similar.

What would a hydrolyzed alkaloid be? Inert as far as effects go? Or is it possible to take it a step further and break the aforementioned H/O bonds.

I havn't tried any of this. Just an idea.

The hydrolyzed alkaloid would be -> Well... You would cut the ester group [please look at a drawing of one of the active alkaloids on wiki or something], so you'd get some random chemical.. I doubt it would be active [or you'd hear about people doing A/Bs on kratom, but maybe I'm wrong] and methanol.

Okay so you actually managed to get me a little interested into how one would do this... Check out this paper I dug up: http://mitizane.ll.chiba-u.jp/metadb/up/assist1/Y2006-17.pdf

Page 12 gives a detailed description of the methods they used for purifying the alkaloids, they do a methanol pull, evap, then use vinegar and sodium carbonate [I'm sure bicarb would work fine] for the A/B which I guess are not strong enough to fuck up the ester [interesting they keep the temp at 0C as well]. Anyhow, it seems more straight forward then I would have thought... Enjoy!