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Home Made Salvia Divinorum Standardized Leaf and Tincture Tech ver. 4.3 August 18, 2004
WARNING: DO NOT ATTEMPT TO USE CRUDE OR REFINED SALVINORIN AS A DRUG. IT IS FAR TOO POTENT, ESPECIALLY WHEN IN CRYSTAL FORM. 5X Enhanced leaf is less than 1.5% Salvinorin by weight.
Extracting Dried Salvia Divinorum Leaf in Whole, Crushed or Powdered Form:
When I first started extracting Salvia divinorum leaf with Acetone I found that it didn't seem to make any difference whether the leaf was whole, crushed or even finely powdered, regardless I found that salvinorin was extracted from leaf from whole to finely powdered with the same efficiency. Since Acetone worked so well with whole or crushed leaf my assumption was that most, if not all of the salvinorin was coating the outside of the leaf instead of inside the leaf, either that, or Acetone was somehow able to efficiently draw the salvinorin out of the interior leaf membranes. Daniel Siebert recently published a paper confirming my belief that salvinorin is concentrated on the outside of the leaf, because of this it isn't necessary to powder the leaf to be able to efficiently extract salvinorin using any solvent which salvinorin can be dissolved into, but I like to either finely crush the leaf or powder it to reduce the volume of solvent needed to completely cover the leaf with an extra amount of fluid volume to make it easy to stir the leaf in it.
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 minutes
2. Pour Acetone off of 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 required to make up for losses when using this super simple method. Do not extract from a larger ratio of leaf to enhanced leaf or you will end up with a very gummy leaf which produces too much smoke for most people.
The following was written for 100 to 250 gram extraction of dried Salvia divinorum leaf to make high quality Standardized leaf:
This process will work with any amount of leaf if you scale the amount of solvent used to refine the extract to smaller amounts. For example; if extracting from 25 grams of leaf and you want to purify your extract to white colored salvinorin, use no more than 1/4 to 1/8 the amount of 99% IPA when removing Chlorophyll impurities.
1. Extract finely crushed leaf using room temperature Acetone completely covering the leaf with fluid in a ratio of at least 1/2 crushed leaf to 1/2 Acetone three separate times for at least three minutes each time (longer if desired, but not necessary). If using 99% Isopropanol/IPA or 98% Ethanol Alcohol extract finely crushed leaf at least five times over for no less than five minutes each time with a ratio of 1/3 fine crushed leaf to 2/3 Isopropanol or Ethanol. Whether extracting with Acetone, Isopropanol or high proof Ethanol or shake thoroughly 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 solvent needed to cover the leaf. When extracting whole or broken leaf use only as much solvent as is necessary to completely cover the leaf. These figures are approximates, a somewhat smaller ratio of solvent to leaf or shortening the amount of time extracting the leaf by a minute each time shouldn't significantly impact the extraction efficiency whether using Acetone or Alcohol, but longer extraction periods will assure maximum extraction efficiency.
2. After completing the outlined number of extractions to the same batch of leaf thoroughly wash the wet leaf through twice more with fresh Acetone (or what ever extraction solvent your using) to further remove residuals. This is done 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 solvent for a long term extraction to get what ever amount of salvinorin that might have remained behind in the leaf which should be very little if any, especially if having used Acetone. Re-extract the leaf as long as you like, but keep it in the dark to prevent any loss of salvinorin from long term exposure to UV light which can destroy a portion of the salvinorin while in solvents.
3. Combine the solvent from all extractions and last washes, remove all leaf and fine leaf particles, filter tannin sediments from solvent or let the solvent stand undisturbed for 12 to 24 hours to allow enough time for most of these sediments to settle out of the fluid. While waiting for the ultra-fine tannin particles to settle cover your container and store in a cool dark place to both reduce evaporation and to prevent possible losses due to interaction of light. Once you have waited at least twelve hours for the tannin to settle out of the fluid slowly pour the 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 particles from being stirred up into the fluid. I don't recommend trying to pour out the last ounce or two of solvent because a portion of the tannin will usually flow out with the last of the fluid. Although, when leaving a small portion of the fluid behind a dilute portion of the salvinorin is still in it you can recover it by adding a few more ounces of fresh solvent to the fluid and vigorously swirling the tannin into the solvent for a couple of minutes to make sure to get any 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 pouring the extraction solvent through paper filters stacked three ply several times a fair amount of the tannin particles were still able to get through the papers. A filter made of cotton balls in a glass tube might work better than paper filters, but I haven't tried it to know.
4. After the extraction fluid is poured off of and separated from the brown tannin sediments, completely evaporate the extraction solvent. This is best done using a large flat pan so that the fluid volume will spread out much further than when using a bowl because the shallower the pan the larger the surface area of the fluid, speeding the rate of evaporation requiring far less time than if using a deep bowl. You can increase the evaporation rate even further by using a fan to blow air across the solvent with enough force to cause ripples on the surface of the fluid, but not so much airflow that droplets start taking to the air carrying away any amount of your precious extract. If you live in a buggy part of the world covering the evaporation container with a fine mesh screen which will both allow air to flow through and keep bugs out might be necessary. A full gallon of 99% Isopropanol can be evaporated in under eight hours 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 evaporate quickly. Also, if you have extracted leaf using 99% IPA or 98% Ethanol in addition to water from condensation you will have a percent or more of water remaining after the solvent spirits are completely gone. This water is usually a yellow color due to tannins dissolved into it which is something you don't want in your extract, so once you have evaporated all of the solvent off and are left with only water pour it off, being careful that none of the green particles of extract go out with it. Leave the extract in the evaporation container and completely dry by placing in an oven set to 150 degrees 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 use a non-stick Teflon(r) coated cooking pan over any other kind because once all of the solvent is has been evaporated off and your left with a waxy extract in the bottom of the container it's easier to scrape it all into a pile using a thin piece of plastic (not metal which will gouge the Teflon coating). Also, when the fluid level is being reduced by evaporation thin films of relatively high purity salvinorin are always deposited on the sides of the container which are more easily removed when using Teflon(r) coated evaporation containers. Test non-stick pans with clean Acetone before pouring 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 risk contaminating your extract it is best to test. Acetone should not be used in jars using tops with rubber seals unless manufactured for such use as Acetone will melt many rubbers and plastics. Using either Isopropanol or Ethanol Alcohol shouldn't be a problem for any kind of non-stick pan and most food container seals.
5. Once every hint of solvent has been evaporated out and the extract is completely dry of moisture pour in four or more ounces of pure Naphtha directly into the evaporation container (or if having already scraped it out of a large evaporation 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 aside undisturbed for a half hour or more. What your waiting for is for the ultra-fine salvinorin particles that are stirred up in the Naphtha to settle to the bottom of the glass which can take as much a half hour or more for most of them to fall out of the fluid, this works with Naphtha because salvinorin is insoluble to this solvent. After waiting a half hour or more for the salvinorin particles to settle then slowly, taking great care not to let any of the particles flow out with the fluid pour off the dark green Naphtha leaving the crude salvinorin extract in the bottom of the glass. Next add more clean Naphtha to the jar and mix the extract into the fluid for five minutes and set aside for another 30 minutes or more before pouring off the Naphtha again. Continue using Naphtha to remove Chlorophyll waxes from the extract until the fluid becomes 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 of Naphtha remains.
Note: Since salvinorin is insoluble to Naphtha you don't need to worry about using too much, use as much as you like but take care to wait long enough for the ultra fine crystalline salvinorin particles to fall to the bottom of the container before pouring the fluid off.
6. Although you won't see it the extract, it still contains an amount of tannin. Once you have removed all of the waxy Chlorophyll compounds that you can with Naphtha and the extract is dry, completely crush all of your extract into as fine a powder as you can in a bowl with a spoon and then pour in a few ounces or more of room temperature water, stirring the extract into the water for a few minutes and then set aside for a half hour or for however long it takes for the particles to all settle to the bottom of the container. After the particles of crude salvinorin have settled pour all of the water off being careful not to pour any of the extract solids out with it and then add more water and stir again. As long as the water continues to take on a slightly yellow or brown color continue washing with more water. If using a cup or more of water at a time to dissolve small amounts of tannin contained in the extract you might not see any change of water color, but it will be doing the job. Once you are satisfied that the water is no longer taking on any more color, completely dry the powder in an oven set to 120-150 degrees F.
Note: Water washes of the extract will not remove tannin until you have removed as much of the Chlorophyll as you can using Naphtha first, and have then evaporated all hint of the Naphtha out of the extract otherwise the water will not cut through a barrier of waxy Chlorophyll or Naphtha wetted extract enough to be able to dissolve the tannin. If you have done a good job removing tannin from the extraction solvent and then removed as much Chlorophyll as you can using Naphtha followed up by water washes of the extract to remove most of the remaining tannin, the amount of dried extract from a 250 gram extraction of average potency leaf should weigh close to one gram and be well over 50% pure.
6.5 Making Tincture
Dried extract which has had this amount of Chorophyll and tannin removed by pure Naphtha (without any contaminate to leave any kind of residual and evaporated completely out first) is perfect for making tincture, just dissolve as much of the extract as you can into 151 to 191 or higher proof Ethanol drinking Alcohol of any kind while 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 proof drinking Alcohol. When making a low Chlorophyll content tincture this should only be done when using extremely high proof Ethanol such as 98%, but even then an amount of the dark compounds from the leaf seem to help sublingual absorption of salvinorin. (which will be removed if continuing to clean the extract to a white purity as shown in step 7, below). When dissolving the extract in Ethanol to make tincture, decide on the amount of tincture which can be made out of the amount of salvinorin contained in the amount of leaf extracted from and dissolve all of your extract into that amount of Ethanol. If having extracted from 100 grams of dried leaf you should be able to make at least 5 to 6 ounces of 151-191 proof Ethanol tincture from that amount of extract. If you have extracted from enough leaf to make six ounces of tincture dissolve all of the extract into six ounces of Ethanol all at once instead of making each one separately, otherwise if using too much extract to make a single ounce of Ethanol the excess salvinorin which won't fully dissolve into the Alcohol will end up in the bottom of the tincture bottle as a solid, making a dose of tincture far too potent if a large portion of the solids are accidentally sucked up into a dosing dropper. Although, there is one positive way to look at it if you find Salvinorin solids in the bottom of your Alcohol, you can be assured that the Alcohol contains as much salvinorin as can be dissolved into it. This would be a good way to make sure the tincture is strong enough by using only half as much Ethanol as you believe is needed to completely dissolve all of the salvinorin extracted from your leaf, and then continuing to add more of the drinking 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 of fluid when at room temperature, 98% Ethanol should hold close to 1.3 mg per ml of fluid. A moderate amount of Chlorophyll compounds from the leaf dissolved into Ethanol have been reported to allow tincture to hold more salvinorin per ml, approaching 1.5 mg or more per ml if using very high proof Ethanol. I have found when making my own tincture using 151 proof Ethanol and dissolving near pure salvinorin into this relatively low proof Alcohol that the tincture was not at all effective without also having Chlorophyll compounds from the leaf present in the tincture too. If you have removed every bit of Chlorophyll that can be removed from your extract using pure Naphtha you don't need to be concerned, there will still be enough in the extract to make tincture out of any 151 proof drinking Alcohol of your choice. Whether tincture made from 151 proof drinking Alcohol needs some of the Chlrophyll compounds in it to make an effective tincture because without it, salvinorin can't be efficiently dissolved into 151 proof Alcohol which is nearly 25% water, or whether the Chlorophyll compounds actually help increase sublingual absorption of salvinorin is unknown to me at the time of this writing. Perhaps it does both.
7. To further purify your extract begin washing the solids with very small amounts of 99% Isopropanol in a ratio of no more than 1/3 dried extract to 2/3 Isopropanol in a small 20-30 milliliter vial or shot glass until the extract is a light colored salvinorin. This is done by pouring in IPA and mixing the extract into it for a couple of minutes until the 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 a half hour or more the first time. During the first wash of the extract with IPA the fluid will likely become so darkly colored that once the particles have settled it can be difficult to tell where the fluid and solids separate in the glass, because of this remove no more than half of the volume of fluid off the top before adding more Isopropanol. This can be done by either using an eye dropper to remove half of the volume of fluid from the top (don't dip too deep), or by carefully pouring half of the fluid out of the glass while closely watching under a strong light to make sure none of the solids start to flow out with the fluid. To continue washing your extract, re-fill the glass with fresh Isopropanol and stir it in again for a minute or two and then set the glass aside for another half hour or more to wait for the particles to settle to the bottom. As the salvinorin becomes cleaner with each wash of the solids, the micron sized crystalline particles of salvinorin will take longer and longer to settle out of the fluid, once becoming lightly colored taking as long as a hour or more after each wash. Don't pour the fluid of if it has a cloudy look (assuming you don't have lots of tannin contaminate in it) because this means that you still have lots of fine salvinorin particles floating or suspended in the fluid and you should wait for however long it takes for them to settle before removing the fluid or you will be loosing too high a percentage of your yield. You can continue washing the extract until it is a light green color or all the way to white if you like, however this will increase your losses considerably. Cleaning the solids to a white color isn't necessary because once it's a light green tint the extract is a high enough purity to consider it over 90% salvinorin for use to enhance leaf, just use 10-15% more extract when lightly colored to make up for being less than completely pure. Be sure to save all of your Isopropanol from the first wash plus as it can contain a quarter or more of your salvinorin, depending upon how much was used, how far you cleaned the extract and whether 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 no more than 8-10 ml per wash. Although salvinorin is weakly soluble to 99% Isopropanol take great care to use as little as possible or you will loose too much salvinorin with each wash to the point of removing most of your yield if too much is used.
Note: If you have extracted from less than 10 grams of dried leaf I don't recommend removing Chlorophyll compounds from the extract using Isopropanol if having extracted from that small an amount of leaf, it can be done if you use small enough vials only using a couple of milliliters of 99% IPA per wash, but smaller amounts of leaf require a higher 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 proof Ethanol and will remove close to twice as much Salvinorin per ml of fluid.
8. Once your extract has been cleaned to the color desired and completely dry and free of any other solvent, you can check to make sure it does not contain any tannin impurity by dissolving all of your extract into 100 ml of warm Acetone and waiting 12 or more hours to see if tannin particles fall to the bottom of the glass. You don't need to worry about trying to dissolve too much salvinorin in 100 ml of Acetone from a 250 gram extraction of leaf because that amount of Acetone should easily hold close to four times the amount of Salvinorin in the dissolved state which would be contained from that amount of average potency leaf, being able to hold approximately 2300 milligrams of salvinorin when at room temperature. If the fluid appears at all cloudy after dissolving salvinorin into it this means that 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 a dark green tint if you didn't remove all of the Chlorophyll, but never cloudy before you pour the fluid off or something is wrong. If after a few hours the Acetone is still cloudy continue to wait, the tannin will fall out of the fluid eventually, taking as long as 24 hours in one case when I did it. When your ready to pour the Acetone out for evaporation to net your tannin free salvinorin don't try to get the last few milliliters of fluid out of the glass because some of the tannin will come along with them, better to add more Acetone and shake it up to dissolve what ever remaining Salvinorin there might be in the remaining fluid or mixed into the tannin sediments than to try to pour out 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 a measured 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 gram of leaf, dissolve 12.5 mg* pure salvinorin A in 1 ml of warm acetone, and then add 1 gram of crumbled salvia leaves 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. Make sure 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 being absorbed onto. If the leaves are of average potency, containing 2.5 mg salvinorin A per gram, then you would deposit 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 the salvinorin A content of the leaves, the more accurately you can standardize them. I use very pure salvinorin A for this procedure. If you are using material that is impure, you will need to take into consideration the percentage of impurities when calculating the amount of material to use. Obviously, the same technique can be used to deposit salvinorin A onto other types of leaf.
I strongly advise against smoking leaf that contains more than 15 mg salvinorin A per gram unless the individual doses can be accurately weighed. At this concentration, the amount of smoke produced provides a certain amount of safety because it makes it difficult for a person to accidentally inhale too large a dose in a single inhalation. If you have a precision balance that can accurately weigh small doses, then stronger concentrations are preferable since 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 dissolve relatively 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 much easier to smoke when most of the Chlorophyll and tannin has been removed from it. Here is how I make my own high 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 in favor of the lighter colored soft green leaves. Once I have my pile of leaf to be made into incense I carefully hand de-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 temperature solvent such as Acetone or 99% Isopropanol several times to remove as much of the Chlorophyll from the leaf as I can. Of course, I save the extract to be processed later, but because of the extra work required selecting the best leaf and de-veining them this process isn't meant to obtain Salvinorin, but rather to condition the leaf to ready it for salvinorin enhancement.
After your done extracting your leaf to remove as much Chlorophyll as you can with solvent, evaporate all of the solvent out of it so that it is completely dry without a hint of solvent smell in the leaf and then boil all of the leaf together in a pot of hot water for a half hour or more, once the water turns brown pour it off and add more water to boil the leaf again. Keep doing this over and over until the water will no longer take on a brown color. When done 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 125 and 150 degrees F. for however long it takes to completely dry, usually several hours in a convection oven. After the leaf is completely dry you can use it to make your own standardized enhanced leaf at what ever X factor you desire. When Salvia divinorum leaf is conditioned this way by removing most of the Chlorophyll and tannin first the leaf will then readily 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 the leaf in as large and few pieces as possible because when drying in an oven they will shrink quite a bit. Also, I believe that large pieces of enhanced leaf are better than smaller pieces because it provides far more options for how it can be burned. The only thing is, when you have such nice big pieces of enhanced leaf you won't want to package it in small plastic bags which can easily allow the leaf to be crushed or broken further. For this kind of special standardized leaf I like to package the leaf in a small round tin so that it can't get smashed or broken into smaller pieces. These little tins can be purchased in large lots fairly cheaply from a company called SpecialtyBottle.com
Extraction notes, insights to the process:
Extraction solvents and fluid volume
The solubility of pure salvinorin to room temperature Acetone is approximately 23 mg per ml of fluid, for 98% Ethanol 1.28 mg per ml and for 99% IPA .74 mg per ml of fluid. For Acetone extractions I like to use enough solvent so that its volume 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 leaf which is in reality is more than required on a solubility basis, but due to these solvents being less effective at dissolving 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 when stirring. The amount of time the leaf is soaked in either solvent can be extended for as long as you wish, this will only help increase the extraction efficiency, however I have found that when extracting Salvia divinorum leaf five times over for five minutes each time with 99% Isopropanol that it won't get all of the salvinorin out, usually leaving 10 to 20% of the salvinorin behind which requires an additional long term soaking of the leaf to get the last of it out. When using Acetone to extract leaf I have found that it will remove the salvinorin so efficiently that when re-extracting the leaf a fourth time over to check and see if any was left behind I have not been able to get enough additional salvinorin to be able to tell. If using Isopropanol I do not recommend using anything less than 99% for this quick extraction method as IPA with large amounts of water in it will dramatically increase the amount of time required to efficiently extract the salvinorin. 91% to 94% IPA found on some store shelves might work for short extractions, 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 will get most of it, the second step another portion and the last step every bit of it if you are careful. Waiting 24 hours for the tannin to fall out is better than 12 hours but be sure to keep the extraction solvent in the dark the whole time while waiting because if it is left out in bright sunshine you can loose some of your yield due to the interaction of ultra-violet light which can destroy salvinorin while in solvent. Almost everyone has the same problem with tannin the first few times they try this extraction technique, ending up with far more of it in their extract than they believed possible thinking that all of it must have certainly settled out of the fluid when waiting as many as 24 hours for it to come out of the fluid, but it's still in there to some extent, especially if having used a solvent with any amount of water in it. To deal with this common problem I have worked an additional step into the process to wash out tannin that remains in the extract after cleaning with Naphtha (drying first) using water and then one more 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 still have some of it in the extract. Be careful not to touch your face or other sensitive areas of skin when working with Salvia divinorum wetted by solvent or when having residues from the extract on your hands. Something in the leaf can cause an allergic reaction which I believe is caused by the tannin in the leaf which is a acidic astringent causing sensitive areas of skin to become reddened along with an amount of swelling and later flaking of skin which can last several days. I have never had a problem with the skin on my hands or arms but my face always has this reaction if I scratch my nose or rub my eyes when slight amounts of extraction residues or are present on my fingers this happens every time.
Using Solvents to Remove Chlorophyll
The reason I use Naphtha to remove Chlorophyll from extract first, before switching to Isopropanol, is because Salvinorin isn't soluble to Naphtha but the Chlorophyll is. Unfortunately, after a few washes of the extract with Naphtha it becomes ineffective for removing the last of the Chlorophyll requiring the use of another solvent such as 99% Isopropanol to get the last of it. Although 99% Isopropanol does an excellent job of removing the remaining Chlorophyll, this solvent removes at least three quarters of a milligram of the salvinorin per ml of fluid when at 20 degrees C., more when IPA is warmer, less when cooler. Also, the solubility of salvinorin has been reported by an experimenter to be much higher in 99% IPA when large amounts of Chlorophyll compounds from the leaf are present which can result in a significant portion of your yield being removed with each wash of your extract if you use too much, so use it very sparingly. You can recover a large portion of the salvinorin lost to the Isopropanol washes by completely evaporating the solvent and removing the Chlorophyll waxes using the same process over again with Naphtha and IPA in much smaller amounts. Save all of your Naphtha used for the washes because although salvinorin is insoluble to Naphtha there are usually extremely small particles of salvinorin in the fluid which take much longer than an hour fall out of the fluid and can be found in the bottom of the container after a few hours netting another 10% of salvinorin. Save all of the IPA used to wash your extract because it can be evaporated onto leaf to make 5X enhanced leaf or after evaporation reconstituted into drinking Alcohol to make tincture, depending on how much salvinorin was removed through the washes. Be sure to scrape every bit of film from the sides of your evaporation container because high purity salvinorin films stick to the surfaces of evaporation 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 Salvia divinorum 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 of Chlorophyll extracted from leaf when most of the dark compounds can be later removed from the extract using washes of pure Naphtha, Acetone chilled to between zero and +20 degrees F. is an effective method of initially obtaining a cleaner extract which is somewhat easier to refine into white salvinorin. A chilled Acetone extraction is done using exactly the same steps as shown above for room temperature solvents, except to reduce the amount of Chlorophyll extracted the amount of time the leaf is in the cold Acetone should be limited to between three to four minutes at the most for each of the three extractions, extracting the same leaf three times over to maintain a fairly high extraction efficiency. When working in a room temperature environment pre-chilling both the leaf and the extraction container with the Acetone together to a temperature no higher than 20 degrees F. will help keep the temperature below 40 degrees F. throughout the extraction. You want to start out cold and keep the solvent cold throughout the extraction, but when working in a warm room the temperature of the fluid can increase by 20 degrees F. to be as high 40 degrees F. while finishing up the last of the three extractions. This amount of temperature increase is ok, but no warmer than that and only during the last couple of minutes the leaf is in the solvent or you will begin to pull over additional Chlorophyll in a hurry. When working in a warm room and extracting with Acetone chilled to close zero degrees F. this should keep the temperature of the leaf in the solvent at or below +20 degrees F. the whole time which results in a cleaner extract, so if you can chill it that far down it's a good way to reduce the amount of Chlorophyll extracted even further without impacting your extraction efficiency because of the high solubility of salvinorin in Acetone, even when chilled to zero degrees F. cold Acetone is still far more effective for dissolving salvinorin from the leaf than high proof room temperature Ethanol Alcohol, so don't worry about chilling the Acetone that far down, your extraction efficiency will still remain very high when using zero degree F. Acetone. If you are considering the idea of using chilled Alcohol to extract leaf it won't work, I tried 99% IPA and found that it required four times the amount of time in solvent for one quarter the extraction efficiency of Acetone!
Extremely brief extractions of Salvia divinorum leaf of one minute or less with Acetone chilled to between zero and +20 degrees F., with exception of an amount of tannin extracted, will yield an almost wax free extract of high purity salvinorin. When extracting Salvia leaf for just one minute you won't get all of the salvinorin out but you should get close to a third or more of it. The amount of reduced solubility of salvinorin to chilled Acetone is completely made up for when doing multiple extractions to the same leaf, even when the Acetone is chilled to as far down as zero degrees F. At one time I had reported that chilled Acetone extractions were far less efficient than room temperature Acetone because when using 99% IPA to remove Chlorophyll from the extract I did not wait long enough for the salvinorin particles to all settle out of the fluid and wasn't due to the Acetone being chilled, so if you see any of my old reports that chilled Acetone extractions are less efficient than room temperature you can disregard that report. If your worried that you are leaving salvinorin A behind when using chilled Acetone extract the leaf a fourth time over, but keep that portion of the solvent separate from the rest as it will have more Chlorophyll in it than the previous three extractions. I have done forth extractions to leaf previously extracted three times over for three minutes using both chilled and room temperature Acetone to be sure I didn't leave any salvinorin behind, and after removing tannin and Chlorophyll contaminates found so little salvinorin that I couldn't isolate it through washes with Naphtha and IPA because when finished there was nothing left to be seen in the bottom of the vial. I have also taken the leaf from room temperature and chilled Acetone extractions (after it dried) and powdered the leaf in a small high RPM coffee grinder to a flour-like consistency and when re-extracting it with Acetone was unable to get any amount of salvinorin that I could see out of it.
The photograph below shows a chilled Acetone extraction that started at +5 degrees F. which warmed up to +15 degrees F. by the time it was completed which is fairly typical when working in a warm room, even if you have pre-chilled both your leaf and extraction containers together with the Acetone at the same time. Shown in the photograph is the first wash of the extract with Naphtha, two washes with water and then four washes with 99% IPA to further remove impurities yielding white salvinorin. The weight of salvinorin shown in the photograph of the scale is NOT representative of the extraction efficiency because when I did this extraction I did not wait long enough for the super fine salvinorin particles to fall to the bottom of the glass and unknowingly removed lots of salvinorin when using the IPA to remove Chlorophyll waxes. I later recovered the salvinorin from the last two washes by completely evaporating the IPA and cleaning it once more using Naphtha and more IPA which netted another 200 mg of salvinorin making a total of 525 mg of cleaned salvinorin from the 250 gram extraction, which is very good for average potency leaf. This doesn't include the salvinorin lost from the first two 99% IPA washes. When removing Chlorophyll waxes with 99% IPA the cleaner the salvinorin gets the longer it takes to settle to the bottom, taking an hour or longer to all settle to the bottom of the glass. If you have removed most of the dark green from your salvinorin and are left with a cloudy yellow fluid this means that you still have lots of super fine salvinorin particles floating in the IPA (as seen in the photograph below, the IPA was still cloudy) and must wait until the fluid is completely clear before pouring off the IPA. The fluid can be colored, but not so cloudy that you can't see through it as solvents which are fully saturated with salvinorin are never that cloudy and should be clear unless salvinorin particles are still floating in it (unless fine tannin particles are still present). Even if you have waited long enough for all cloudiness to settle out of IPA used to remove Chlorophyll impurities from your extract be sure to save this solvent because something in the dark Chlorophyll compounds from the leaf appears to increase the solubility of salvinorin to Isopropanol to be able to hold well over 1 mg per ml of salvinorin per ml of fluid, reported to some times 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 a few different solvents. Whether the ability of IPA to hold that much salvinorin per milliliter was due to an actual increase of a solubility to IPA or whether it was caused by fine particles of salvinorin that were still floating in the solvent is something to consider.
The following image shows a chilled Acetone extraction which yielded a total of 525 milligrams of cleaned salvinorin from 250 grams of finely crushed leaf. The photograph showing 324 mg of cleaned salvinorin did not include the salvinorin recovered from the IPA used to remove chlorophyll. The extraction efficiency was close to 100% but the yield of cleaned salvinorin was close to 85% after recovering the salvinorin lost to only the last two of the four washes of the extract with 99% Isopropanol. I did not try to recover the salvinorin from the first two 25 ml washes of IPA due to the amount of chlorophyll but I could have making the total amount of cleaned salvinorin approach 600 mg. Not bad, considering 250 grams of average potency leaf contains about 2.5 mg per gram of leaf for a total of 625 mg of salvinorin.
Note: The manufactures web site for the small scale in the photograph is http://www.gramprecision.com and they no longer appear to make that model and have since replaced it with a model named the Diagem II CT 50 with a suggested list price of $229.00 USD. It's accuracy is plus or minus to milligrams which is accurate enough for weighing salvinorin to make several grams of enhanced leaf at a time, especially if over measured by 2-4 mg.
Go to this link to see my collection of extraction photographs on yahoo: http://photos.yahoo.com/bc/salvinorin2003/
Here is a link to a vendor who sells Salvia Divinorum in bulk for super low prices of only pennies a gram if you buy a large enough quantity: http://www.aztecasplants.com
WARNING: DO NOT ATTEMPT TO USE CRUDE OR REFINED SALVINORIN AS A DRUG. IT IS FAR TOO POTENT, ESPECIALLY WHEN IN CRYSTAL FORM. 5X Enhanced leaf is less than 1.5% Salvinorin by weight.
Extracting Dried Salvia Divinorum Leaf in Whole, Crushed or Powdered Form:
When I first started extracting Salvia divinorum leaf with Acetone I found that it didn't seem to make any difference whether the leaf was whole, crushed or even finely powdered, regardless I found that salvinorin was extracted from leaf from whole to finely powdered with the same efficiency. Since Acetone worked so well with whole or crushed leaf my assumption was that most, if not all of the salvinorin was coating the outside of the leaf instead of inside the leaf, either that, or Acetone was somehow able to efficiently draw the salvinorin out of the interior leaf membranes. Daniel Siebert recently published a paper confirming my belief that salvinorin is concentrated on the outside of the leaf, because of this it isn't necessary to powder the leaf to be able to efficiently extract salvinorin using any solvent which salvinorin can be dissolved into, but I like to either finely crush the leaf or powder it to reduce the volume of solvent needed to completely cover the leaf with an extra amount of fluid volume to make it easy to stir the leaf in it.
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 minutes
2. Pour Acetone off of 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 required to make up for losses when using this super simple method. Do not extract from a larger ratio of leaf to enhanced leaf or you will end up with a very gummy leaf which produces too much smoke for most people.
The following was written for 100 to 250 gram extraction of dried Salvia divinorum leaf to make high quality Standardized leaf:
This process will work with any amount of leaf if you scale the amount of solvent used to refine the extract to smaller amounts. For example; if extracting from 25 grams of leaf and you want to purify your extract to white colored salvinorin, use no more than 1/4 to 1/8 the amount of 99% IPA when removing Chlorophyll impurities.
1. Extract finely crushed leaf using room temperature Acetone completely covering the leaf with fluid in a ratio of at least 1/2 crushed leaf to 1/2 Acetone three separate times for at least three minutes each time (longer if desired, but not necessary). If using 99% Isopropanol/IPA or 98% Ethanol Alcohol extract finely crushed leaf at least five times over for no less than five minutes each time with a ratio of 1/3 fine crushed leaf to 2/3 Isopropanol or Ethanol. Whether extracting with Acetone, Isopropanol or high proof Ethanol or shake thoroughly 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 solvent needed to cover the leaf. When extracting whole or broken leaf use only as much solvent as is necessary to completely cover the leaf. These figures are approximates, a somewhat smaller ratio of solvent to leaf or shortening the amount of time extracting the leaf by a minute each time shouldn't significantly impact the extraction efficiency whether using Acetone or Alcohol, but longer extraction periods will assure maximum extraction efficiency.
2. After completing the outlined number of extractions to the same batch of leaf thoroughly wash the wet leaf through twice more with fresh Acetone (or what ever extraction solvent your using) to further remove residuals. This is done 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 solvent for a long term extraction to get what ever amount of salvinorin that might have remained behind in the leaf which should be very little if any, especially if having used Acetone. Re-extract the leaf as long as you like, but keep it in the dark to prevent any loss of salvinorin from long term exposure to UV light which can destroy a portion of the salvinorin while in solvents.
3. Combine the solvent from all extractions and last washes, remove all leaf and fine leaf particles, filter tannin sediments from solvent or let the solvent stand undisturbed for 12 to 24 hours to allow enough time for most of these sediments to settle out of the fluid. While waiting for the ultra-fine tannin particles to settle cover your container and store in a cool dark place to both reduce evaporation and to prevent possible losses due to interaction of light. Once you have waited at least twelve hours for the tannin to settle out of the fluid slowly pour the 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 particles from being stirred up into the fluid. I don't recommend trying to pour out the last ounce or two of solvent because a portion of the tannin will usually flow out with the last of the fluid. Although, when leaving a small portion of the fluid behind a dilute portion of the salvinorin is still in it you can recover it by adding a few more ounces of fresh solvent to the fluid and vigorously swirling the tannin into the solvent for a couple of minutes to make sure to get any 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 pouring the extraction solvent through paper filters stacked three ply several times a fair amount of the tannin particles were still able to get through the papers. A filter made of cotton balls in a glass tube might work better than paper filters, but I haven't tried it to know.
4. After the extraction fluid is poured off of and separated from the brown tannin sediments, completely evaporate the extraction solvent. This is best done using a large flat pan so that the fluid volume will spread out much further than when using a bowl because the shallower the pan the larger the surface area of the fluid, speeding the rate of evaporation requiring far less time than if using a deep bowl. You can increase the evaporation rate even further by using a fan to blow air across the solvent with enough force to cause ripples on the surface of the fluid, but not so much airflow that droplets start taking to the air carrying away any amount of your precious extract. If you live in a buggy part of the world covering the evaporation container with a fine mesh screen which will both allow air to flow through and keep bugs out might be necessary. A full gallon of 99% Isopropanol can be evaporated in under eight hours 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 evaporate quickly. Also, if you have extracted leaf using 99% IPA or 98% Ethanol in addition to water from condensation you will have a percent or more of water remaining after the solvent spirits are completely gone. This water is usually a yellow color due to tannins dissolved into it which is something you don't want in your extract, so once you have evaporated all of the solvent off and are left with only water pour it off, being careful that none of the green particles of extract go out with it. Leave the extract in the evaporation container and completely dry by placing in an oven set to 150 degrees 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 use a non-stick Teflon(r) coated cooking pan over any other kind because once all of the solvent is has been evaporated off and your left with a waxy extract in the bottom of the container it's easier to scrape it all into a pile using a thin piece of plastic (not metal which will gouge the Teflon coating). Also, when the fluid level is being reduced by evaporation thin films of relatively high purity salvinorin are always deposited on the sides of the container which are more easily removed when using Teflon(r) coated evaporation containers. Test non-stick pans with clean Acetone before pouring 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 risk contaminating your extract it is best to test. Acetone should not be used in jars using tops with rubber seals unless manufactured for such use as Acetone will melt many rubbers and plastics. Using either Isopropanol or Ethanol Alcohol shouldn't be a problem for any kind of non-stick pan and most food container seals.
5. Once every hint of solvent has been evaporated out and the extract is completely dry of moisture pour in four or more ounces of pure Naphtha directly into the evaporation container (or if having already scraped it out of a large evaporation 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 aside undisturbed for a half hour or more. What your waiting for is for the ultra-fine salvinorin particles that are stirred up in the Naphtha to settle to the bottom of the glass which can take as much a half hour or more for most of them to fall out of the fluid, this works with Naphtha because salvinorin is insoluble to this solvent. After waiting a half hour or more for the salvinorin particles to settle then slowly, taking great care not to let any of the particles flow out with the fluid pour off the dark green Naphtha leaving the crude salvinorin extract in the bottom of the glass. Next add more clean Naphtha to the jar and mix the extract into the fluid for five minutes and set aside for another 30 minutes or more before pouring off the Naphtha again. Continue using Naphtha to remove Chlorophyll waxes from the extract until the fluid becomes 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 of Naphtha remains.
Note: Since salvinorin is insoluble to Naphtha you don't need to worry about using too much, use as much as you like but take care to wait long enough for the ultra fine crystalline salvinorin particles to fall to the bottom of the container before pouring the fluid off.
6. Although you won't see it the extract, it still contains an amount of tannin. Once you have removed all of the waxy Chlorophyll compounds that you can with Naphtha and the extract is dry, completely crush all of your extract into as fine a powder as you can in a bowl with a spoon and then pour in a few ounces or more of room temperature water, stirring the extract into the water for a few minutes and then set aside for a half hour or for however long it takes for the particles to all settle to the bottom of the container. After the particles of crude salvinorin have settled pour all of the water off being careful not to pour any of the extract solids out with it and then add more water and stir again. As long as the water continues to take on a slightly yellow or brown color continue washing with more water. If using a cup or more of water at a time to dissolve small amounts of tannin contained in the extract you might not see any change of water color, but it will be doing the job. Once you are satisfied that the water is no longer taking on any more color, completely dry the powder in an oven set to 120-150 degrees F.
Note: Water washes of the extract will not remove tannin until you have removed as much of the Chlorophyll as you can using Naphtha first, and have then evaporated all hint of the Naphtha out of the extract otherwise the water will not cut through a barrier of waxy Chlorophyll or Naphtha wetted extract enough to be able to dissolve the tannin. If you have done a good job removing tannin from the extraction solvent and then removed as much Chlorophyll as you can using Naphtha followed up by water washes of the extract to remove most of the remaining tannin, the amount of dried extract from a 250 gram extraction of average potency leaf should weigh close to one gram and be well over 50% pure.
6.5 Making Tincture
Dried extract which has had this amount of Chorophyll and tannin removed by pure Naphtha (without any contaminate to leave any kind of residual and evaporated completely out first) is perfect for making tincture, just dissolve as much of the extract as you can into 151 to 191 or higher proof Ethanol drinking Alcohol of any kind while 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 proof drinking Alcohol. When making a low Chlorophyll content tincture this should only be done when using extremely high proof Ethanol such as 98%, but even then an amount of the dark compounds from the leaf seem to help sublingual absorption of salvinorin. (which will be removed if continuing to clean the extract to a white purity as shown in step 7, below). When dissolving the extract in Ethanol to make tincture, decide on the amount of tincture which can be made out of the amount of salvinorin contained in the amount of leaf extracted from and dissolve all of your extract into that amount of Ethanol. If having extracted from 100 grams of dried leaf you should be able to make at least 5 to 6 ounces of 151-191 proof Ethanol tincture from that amount of extract. If you have extracted from enough leaf to make six ounces of tincture dissolve all of the extract into six ounces of Ethanol all at once instead of making each one separately, otherwise if using too much extract to make a single ounce of Ethanol the excess salvinorin which won't fully dissolve into the Alcohol will end up in the bottom of the tincture bottle as a solid, making a dose of tincture far too potent if a large portion of the solids are accidentally sucked up into a dosing dropper. Although, there is one positive way to look at it if you find Salvinorin solids in the bottom of your Alcohol, you can be assured that the Alcohol contains as much salvinorin as can be dissolved into it. This would be a good way to make sure the tincture is strong enough by using only half as much Ethanol as you believe is needed to completely dissolve all of the salvinorin extracted from your leaf, and then continuing to add more of the drinking 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 of fluid when at room temperature, 98% Ethanol should hold close to 1.3 mg per ml of fluid. A moderate amount of Chlorophyll compounds from the leaf dissolved into Ethanol have been reported to allow tincture to hold more salvinorin per ml, approaching 1.5 mg or more per ml if using very high proof Ethanol. I have found when making my own tincture using 151 proof Ethanol and dissolving near pure salvinorin into this relatively low proof Alcohol that the tincture was not at all effective without also having Chlorophyll compounds from the leaf present in the tincture too. If you have removed every bit of Chlorophyll that can be removed from your extract using pure Naphtha you don't need to be concerned, there will still be enough in the extract to make tincture out of any 151 proof drinking Alcohol of your choice. Whether tincture made from 151 proof drinking Alcohol needs some of the Chlrophyll compounds in it to make an effective tincture because without it, salvinorin can't be efficiently dissolved into 151 proof Alcohol which is nearly 25% water, or whether the Chlorophyll compounds actually help increase sublingual absorption of salvinorin is unknown to me at the time of this writing. Perhaps it does both.
7. To further purify your extract begin washing the solids with very small amounts of 99% Isopropanol in a ratio of no more than 1/3 dried extract to 2/3 Isopropanol in a small 20-30 milliliter vial or shot glass until the extract is a light colored salvinorin. This is done by pouring in IPA and mixing the extract into it for a couple of minutes until the 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 a half hour or more the first time. During the first wash of the extract with IPA the fluid will likely become so darkly colored that once the particles have settled it can be difficult to tell where the fluid and solids separate in the glass, because of this remove no more than half of the volume of fluid off the top before adding more Isopropanol. This can be done by either using an eye dropper to remove half of the volume of fluid from the top (don't dip too deep), or by carefully pouring half of the fluid out of the glass while closely watching under a strong light to make sure none of the solids start to flow out with the fluid. To continue washing your extract, re-fill the glass with fresh Isopropanol and stir it in again for a minute or two and then set the glass aside for another half hour or more to wait for the particles to settle to the bottom. As the salvinorin becomes cleaner with each wash of the solids, the micron sized crystalline particles of salvinorin will take longer and longer to settle out of the fluid, once becoming lightly colored taking as long as a hour or more after each wash. Don't pour the fluid of if it has a cloudy look (assuming you don't have lots of tannin contaminate in it) because this means that you still have lots of fine salvinorin particles floating or suspended in the fluid and you should wait for however long it takes for them to settle before removing the fluid or you will be loosing too high a percentage of your yield. You can continue washing the extract until it is a light green color or all the way to white if you like, however this will increase your losses considerably. Cleaning the solids to a white color isn't necessary because once it's a light green tint the extract is a high enough purity to consider it over 90% salvinorin for use to enhance leaf, just use 10-15% more extract when lightly colored to make up for being less than completely pure. Be sure to save all of your Isopropanol from the first wash plus as it can contain a quarter or more of your salvinorin, depending upon how much was used, how far you cleaned the extract and whether 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 no more than 8-10 ml per wash. Although salvinorin is weakly soluble to 99% Isopropanol take great care to use as little as possible or you will loose too much salvinorin with each wash to the point of removing most of your yield if too much is used.
Note: If you have extracted from less than 10 grams of dried leaf I don't recommend removing Chlorophyll compounds from the extract using Isopropanol if having extracted from that small an amount of leaf, it can be done if you use small enough vials only using a couple of milliliters of 99% IPA per wash, but smaller amounts of leaf require a higher 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 proof Ethanol and will remove close to twice as much Salvinorin per ml of fluid.
8. Once your extract has been cleaned to the color desired and completely dry and free of any other solvent, you can check to make sure it does not contain any tannin impurity by dissolving all of your extract into 100 ml of warm Acetone and waiting 12 or more hours to see if tannin particles fall to the bottom of the glass. You don't need to worry about trying to dissolve too much salvinorin in 100 ml of Acetone from a 250 gram extraction of leaf because that amount of Acetone should easily hold close to four times the amount of Salvinorin in the dissolved state which would be contained from that amount of average potency leaf, being able to hold approximately 2300 milligrams of salvinorin when at room temperature. If the fluid appears at all cloudy after dissolving salvinorin into it this means that 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 a dark green tint if you didn't remove all of the Chlorophyll, but never cloudy before you pour the fluid off or something is wrong. If after a few hours the Acetone is still cloudy continue to wait, the tannin will fall out of the fluid eventually, taking as long as 24 hours in one case when I did it. When your ready to pour the Acetone out for evaporation to net your tannin free salvinorin don't try to get the last few milliliters of fluid out of the glass because some of the tannin will come along with them, better to add more Acetone and shake it up to dissolve what ever remaining Salvinorin there might be in the remaining fluid or mixed into the tannin sediments than to try to pour out 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 a measured 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 gram of leaf, dissolve 12.5 mg* pure salvinorin A in 1 ml of warm acetone, and then add 1 gram of crumbled salvia leaves 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. Make sure 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 being absorbed onto. If the leaves are of average potency, containing 2.5 mg salvinorin A per gram, then you would deposit 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 the salvinorin A content of the leaves, the more accurately you can standardize them. I use very pure salvinorin A for this procedure. If you are using material that is impure, you will need to take into consideration the percentage of impurities when calculating the amount of material to use. Obviously, the same technique can be used to deposit salvinorin A onto other types of leaf.
I strongly advise against smoking leaf that contains more than 15 mg salvinorin A per gram unless the individual doses can be accurately weighed. At this concentration, the amount of smoke produced provides a certain amount of safety because it makes it difficult for a person to accidentally inhale too large a dose in a single inhalation. If you have a precision balance that can accurately weigh small doses, then stronger concentrations are preferable since 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 dissolve relatively 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 much easier to smoke when most of the Chlorophyll and tannin has been removed from it. Here is how I make my own high 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 in favor of the lighter colored soft green leaves. Once I have my pile of leaf to be made into incense I carefully hand de-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 temperature solvent such as Acetone or 99% Isopropanol several times to remove as much of the Chlorophyll from the leaf as I can. Of course, I save the extract to be processed later, but because of the extra work required selecting the best leaf and de-veining them this process isn't meant to obtain Salvinorin, but rather to condition the leaf to ready it for salvinorin enhancement.
After your done extracting your leaf to remove as much Chlorophyll as you can with solvent, evaporate all of the solvent out of it so that it is completely dry without a hint of solvent smell in the leaf and then boil all of the leaf together in a pot of hot water for a half hour or more, once the water turns brown pour it off and add more water to boil the leaf again. Keep doing this over and over until the water will no longer take on a brown color. When done 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 125 and 150 degrees F. for however long it takes to completely dry, usually several hours in a convection oven. After the leaf is completely dry you can use it to make your own standardized enhanced leaf at what ever X factor you desire. When Salvia divinorum leaf is conditioned this way by removing most of the Chlorophyll and tannin first the leaf will then readily 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 the leaf in as large and few pieces as possible because when drying in an oven they will shrink quite a bit. Also, I believe that large pieces of enhanced leaf are better than smaller pieces because it provides far more options for how it can be burned. The only thing is, when you have such nice big pieces of enhanced leaf you won't want to package it in small plastic bags which can easily allow the leaf to be crushed or broken further. For this kind of special standardized leaf I like to package the leaf in a small round tin so that it can't get smashed or broken into smaller pieces. These little tins can be purchased in large lots fairly cheaply from a company called SpecialtyBottle.com
Extraction notes, insights to the process:
Extraction solvents and fluid volume
The solubility of pure salvinorin to room temperature Acetone is approximately 23 mg per ml of fluid, for 98% Ethanol 1.28 mg per ml and for 99% IPA .74 mg per ml of fluid. For Acetone extractions I like to use enough solvent so that its volume 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 leaf which is in reality is more than required on a solubility basis, but due to these solvents being less effective at dissolving 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 when stirring. The amount of time the leaf is soaked in either solvent can be extended for as long as you wish, this will only help increase the extraction efficiency, however I have found that when extracting Salvia divinorum leaf five times over for five minutes each time with 99% Isopropanol that it won't get all of the salvinorin out, usually leaving 10 to 20% of the salvinorin behind which requires an additional long term soaking of the leaf to get the last of it out. When using Acetone to extract leaf I have found that it will remove the salvinorin so efficiently that when re-extracting the leaf a fourth time over to check and see if any was left behind I have not been able to get enough additional salvinorin to be able to tell. If using Isopropanol I do not recommend using anything less than 99% for this quick extraction method as IPA with large amounts of water in it will dramatically increase the amount of time required to efficiently extract the salvinorin. 91% to 94% IPA found on some store shelves might work for short extractions, 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 will get most of it, the second step another portion and the last step every bit of it if you are careful. Waiting 24 hours for the tannin to fall out is better than 12 hours but be sure to keep the extraction solvent in the dark the whole time while waiting because if it is left out in bright sunshine you can loose some of your yield due to the interaction of ultra-violet light which can destroy salvinorin while in solvent. Almost everyone has the same problem with tannin the first few times they try this extraction technique, ending up with far more of it in their extract than they believed possible thinking that all of it must have certainly settled out of the fluid when waiting as many as 24 hours for it to come out of the fluid, but it's still in there to some extent, especially if having used a solvent with any amount of water in it. To deal with this common problem I have worked an additional step into the process to wash out tannin that remains in the extract after cleaning with Naphtha (drying first) using water and then one more 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 still have some of it in the extract. Be careful not to touch your face or other sensitive areas of skin when working with Salvia divinorum wetted by solvent or when having residues from the extract on your hands. Something in the leaf can cause an allergic reaction which I believe is caused by the tannin in the leaf which is a acidic astringent causing sensitive areas of skin to become reddened along with an amount of swelling and later flaking of skin which can last several days. I have never had a problem with the skin on my hands or arms but my face always has this reaction if I scratch my nose or rub my eyes when slight amounts of extraction residues or are present on my fingers this happens every time.
Using Solvents to Remove Chlorophyll
The reason I use Naphtha to remove Chlorophyll from extract first, before switching to Isopropanol, is because Salvinorin isn't soluble to Naphtha but the Chlorophyll is. Unfortunately, after a few washes of the extract with Naphtha it becomes ineffective for removing the last of the Chlorophyll requiring the use of another solvent such as 99% Isopropanol to get the last of it. Although 99% Isopropanol does an excellent job of removing the remaining Chlorophyll, this solvent removes at least three quarters of a milligram of the salvinorin per ml of fluid when at 20 degrees C., more when IPA is warmer, less when cooler. Also, the solubility of salvinorin has been reported by an experimenter to be much higher in 99% IPA when large amounts of Chlorophyll compounds from the leaf are present which can result in a significant portion of your yield being removed with each wash of your extract if you use too much, so use it very sparingly. You can recover a large portion of the salvinorin lost to the Isopropanol washes by completely evaporating the solvent and removing the Chlorophyll waxes using the same process over again with Naphtha and IPA in much smaller amounts. Save all of your Naphtha used for the washes because although salvinorin is insoluble to Naphtha there are usually extremely small particles of salvinorin in the fluid which take much longer than an hour fall out of the fluid and can be found in the bottom of the container after a few hours netting another 10% of salvinorin. Save all of the IPA used to wash your extract because it can be evaporated onto leaf to make 5X enhanced leaf or after evaporation reconstituted into drinking Alcohol to make tincture, depending on how much salvinorin was removed through the washes. Be sure to scrape every bit of film from the sides of your evaporation container because high purity salvinorin films stick to the surfaces of evaporation 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 Salvia divinorum 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 of Chlorophyll extracted from leaf when most of the dark compounds can be later removed from the extract using washes of pure Naphtha, Acetone chilled to between zero and +20 degrees F. is an effective method of initially obtaining a cleaner extract which is somewhat easier to refine into white salvinorin. A chilled Acetone extraction is done using exactly the same steps as shown above for room temperature solvents, except to reduce the amount of Chlorophyll extracted the amount of time the leaf is in the cold Acetone should be limited to between three to four minutes at the most for each of the three extractions, extracting the same leaf three times over to maintain a fairly high extraction efficiency. When working in a room temperature environment pre-chilling both the leaf and the extraction container with the Acetone together to a temperature no higher than 20 degrees F. will help keep the temperature below 40 degrees F. throughout the extraction. You want to start out cold and keep the solvent cold throughout the extraction, but when working in a warm room the temperature of the fluid can increase by 20 degrees F. to be as high 40 degrees F. while finishing up the last of the three extractions. This amount of temperature increase is ok, but no warmer than that and only during the last couple of minutes the leaf is in the solvent or you will begin to pull over additional Chlorophyll in a hurry. When working in a warm room and extracting with Acetone chilled to close zero degrees F. this should keep the temperature of the leaf in the solvent at or below +20 degrees F. the whole time which results in a cleaner extract, so if you can chill it that far down it's a good way to reduce the amount of Chlorophyll extracted even further without impacting your extraction efficiency because of the high solubility of salvinorin in Acetone, even when chilled to zero degrees F. cold Acetone is still far more effective for dissolving salvinorin from the leaf than high proof room temperature Ethanol Alcohol, so don't worry about chilling the Acetone that far down, your extraction efficiency will still remain very high when using zero degree F. Acetone. If you are considering the idea of using chilled Alcohol to extract leaf it won't work, I tried 99% IPA and found that it required four times the amount of time in solvent for one quarter the extraction efficiency of Acetone!
Extremely brief extractions of Salvia divinorum leaf of one minute or less with Acetone chilled to between zero and +20 degrees F., with exception of an amount of tannin extracted, will yield an almost wax free extract of high purity salvinorin. When extracting Salvia leaf for just one minute you won't get all of the salvinorin out but you should get close to a third or more of it. The amount of reduced solubility of salvinorin to chilled Acetone is completely made up for when doing multiple extractions to the same leaf, even when the Acetone is chilled to as far down as zero degrees F. At one time I had reported that chilled Acetone extractions were far less efficient than room temperature Acetone because when using 99% IPA to remove Chlorophyll from the extract I did not wait long enough for the salvinorin particles to all settle out of the fluid and wasn't due to the Acetone being chilled, so if you see any of my old reports that chilled Acetone extractions are less efficient than room temperature you can disregard that report. If your worried that you are leaving salvinorin A behind when using chilled Acetone extract the leaf a fourth time over, but keep that portion of the solvent separate from the rest as it will have more Chlorophyll in it than the previous three extractions. I have done forth extractions to leaf previously extracted three times over for three minutes using both chilled and room temperature Acetone to be sure I didn't leave any salvinorin behind, and after removing tannin and Chlorophyll contaminates found so little salvinorin that I couldn't isolate it through washes with Naphtha and IPA because when finished there was nothing left to be seen in the bottom of the vial. I have also taken the leaf from room temperature and chilled Acetone extractions (after it dried) and powdered the leaf in a small high RPM coffee grinder to a flour-like consistency and when re-extracting it with Acetone was unable to get any amount of salvinorin that I could see out of it.
The photograph below shows a chilled Acetone extraction that started at +5 degrees F. which warmed up to +15 degrees F. by the time it was completed which is fairly typical when working in a warm room, even if you have pre-chilled both your leaf and extraction containers together with the Acetone at the same time. Shown in the photograph is the first wash of the extract with Naphtha, two washes with water and then four washes with 99% IPA to further remove impurities yielding white salvinorin. The weight of salvinorin shown in the photograph of the scale is NOT representative of the extraction efficiency because when I did this extraction I did not wait long enough for the super fine salvinorin particles to fall to the bottom of the glass and unknowingly removed lots of salvinorin when using the IPA to remove Chlorophyll waxes. I later recovered the salvinorin from the last two washes by completely evaporating the IPA and cleaning it once more using Naphtha and more IPA which netted another 200 mg of salvinorin making a total of 525 mg of cleaned salvinorin from the 250 gram extraction, which is very good for average potency leaf. This doesn't include the salvinorin lost from the first two 99% IPA washes. When removing Chlorophyll waxes with 99% IPA the cleaner the salvinorin gets the longer it takes to settle to the bottom, taking an hour or longer to all settle to the bottom of the glass. If you have removed most of the dark green from your salvinorin and are left with a cloudy yellow fluid this means that you still have lots of super fine salvinorin particles floating in the IPA (as seen in the photograph below, the IPA was still cloudy) and must wait until the fluid is completely clear before pouring off the IPA. The fluid can be colored, but not so cloudy that you can't see through it as solvents which are fully saturated with salvinorin are never that cloudy and should be clear unless salvinorin particles are still floating in it (unless fine tannin particles are still present). Even if you have waited long enough for all cloudiness to settle out of IPA used to remove Chlorophyll impurities from your extract be sure to save this solvent because something in the dark Chlorophyll compounds from the leaf appears to increase the solubility of salvinorin to Isopropanol to be able to hold well over 1 mg per ml of salvinorin per ml of fluid, reported to some times 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 a few different solvents. Whether the ability of IPA to hold that much salvinorin per milliliter was due to an actual increase of a solubility to IPA or whether it was caused by fine particles of salvinorin that were still floating in the solvent is something to consider.
The following image shows a chilled Acetone extraction which yielded a total of 525 milligrams of cleaned salvinorin from 250 grams of finely crushed leaf. The photograph showing 324 mg of cleaned salvinorin did not include the salvinorin recovered from the IPA used to remove chlorophyll. The extraction efficiency was close to 100% but the yield of cleaned salvinorin was close to 85% after recovering the salvinorin lost to only the last two of the four washes of the extract with 99% Isopropanol. I did not try to recover the salvinorin from the first two 25 ml washes of IPA due to the amount of chlorophyll but I could have making the total amount of cleaned salvinorin approach 600 mg. Not bad, considering 250 grams of average potency leaf contains about 2.5 mg per gram of leaf for a total of 625 mg of salvinorin.
Note: The manufactures web site for the small scale in the photograph is http://www.gramprecision.com and they no longer appear to make that model and have since replaced it with a model named the Diagem II CT 50 with a suggested list price of $229.00 USD. It's accuracy is plus or minus to milligrams which is accurate enough for weighing salvinorin to make several grams of enhanced leaf at a time, especially if over measured by 2-4 mg.
Go to this link to see my collection of extraction photographs on yahoo: http://photos.yahoo.com/bc/salvinorin2003/
Here is a link to a vendor who sells Salvia Divinorum in bulk for super low prices of only pennies a gram if you buy a large enough quantity: http://www.aztecasplants.com
