a nicotine extraction method

[twelvepin]

you know what you could do jig, you could start a thread that lists the dangers of concocting a nicotene solution, and the cautionary measures one should take to ensure it all goes swimmingly.

also you should partake in car forums and discuss the inherint dangers of driving. also you should go onto travel forums and discuss the inherent dangers of travelling in a foreign country, also you should go onto horse-riding forums and discuss the inherent dangers of horse-riding or you could quit being such a moaning michael about it all and start being pro-active.

if you have any information about safety do speak up. but stop masquerading as mary whitehouse.

 

[jigtg]

you know what you could do jig, you could start a thread that lists the dangers of concocting a nicotene solution, and the cautionary measures one should take to ensure it all goes swimmingly.

also you should partake in car forums and discuss the inherint dangers of driving. also you should go onto travel forums and discuss the inherent dangers of travelling in a foreign country, also you should go onto horse-riding forums and discuss the inherent dangers of horse-riding or you could quit being such a moaning michael about it all and start being pro-active.

if you have any information about safety do speak up. but stop masquerading as mary whitehouse.

dc2k08, after all that bs, I have two words for you: **** you!

 

[TropicalBob]

Jigtg, I certainly don't mean to belittle your concern. Sorry if it came off that way. But no one I know of on this forum is trying to create pure nicotine. Most are smart enough to understand its danger. What most have been attempting to do is concoct a liquid that contains the flavor of tobacco. E-cigs are a failure in that department. They don't taste like a real tobacco product. So we set out to see if we could add more flavor, and perhaps some nicotine.

Our Dr. Loi in Malaysia said that we'd likely get little nicotine from cooking tobacco product. I took him on his word. I've brewed lots of tobacco fluid now, vaped it and never felt a hint of nicotine overdose.

I know I could buy tobacco absolute (sold for adding aroma to candles) but it's an oil and I'm not sure I want to inhale an oil (even though it is an ingredient in E-Cig's e-liquid). If you have information to contribute on how we can achieve better taste and flavor, please let us know. We're not trying to make an assassin's weapon here.

 

[Josiah]

jigtg makes a good point. No, I'm not agreeing with him (two days of lurking I'm pretty sure I've seen him crap on a bunch of threads without actually contributing, Troll Archetype.) I mean to say that he is a good point.

His way of thinking, the nannyism, isn't something new. That's why some of us are here, local smoking bans created and supported by people like that. My point being, you can't effectively shield yourself from a jury raping you in a lawsuit. A jury of jigtgs would be expensive for the defendant, and they're not in short supply at the moment. (Certainly in low demand, though...)

However, you could always drop this forum off the non-registered user listing and add, to the user agreement, that SJ is not responsible for ...... drinking nicotine straight from a beaker or some such. It wouldn't be censorship, wouldn't block any information that could be safely and effectively used for fun and/or profit, and would give an attorney a strong defense. Certainly it's not something that should be necessary, and I wish it weren't, but it would be the safe route considering how many jigtgs we do have in the real world.

 

[jigtg]

jigtg makes a good point. No, I'm not agreeing with him (two days of lurking I'm pretty sure I've seen him crap on a bunch of threads without actually contributing, Troll Archetype.) I mean to say that he is a good point.

His way of thinking, the nannyism, isn't something new. That's why some of us are here, local smoking bans created and supported by people like that. My point being, you can't effectively shield yourself from a jury raping you in a lawsuit. A jury of jigtgs would be expensive for the defendant, and they're not in short supply at the moment. (Certainly in low demand, though...)

However, you could always drop this forum off the non-registered user listing and add, to the user agreement, that SJ is not responsible for ...... drinking nicotine straight from a beaker or some such. It wouldn't be censorship, wouldn't block any information that could be safely and effectively used for fun and/or profit, and would give an attorney a strong defense. Certainly it's not something that should be necessary, and I wish it weren't, but it would be the safe route considering how many jigtgs we do have in the real world.

You missed the party, I do not talk about certain subjects in public anymore. Talk about pure nic extraction if you want. I do not care.

 

[Josiah]

My apologies, then.

 

[K-Sound Krew]

Never tried it but on foodnetwork there is a show good eats with alton brown, in one episode he shows you how to make liquid smoke for BBQ, If anyone wants to try you could use this same technique for flavor extraction, maybe even some Nic extraction, not sure

 

[jbbishop]

Any good brew shop will carry glycerine in 4 and 8 oz. bottles. It's used as a smoothing agent (and sometimes a sweetener) in wines and distilled spirits and adds body.

Nicotine is soluble in water. If you dry the tobacco out and then pulverize it in a blender and then let it steep in a hot water solution you're going to likely extract a very high percentage of the nicotine. Enough that, in my opinion you should be able to calculate the amount of nicotine from the total volume of tobacco. For example, 1/2 oz = about 20 cigarettes and a cigarette has about 2 mg. of nicotine.

I'm in Utah and was ...... off a few years back that they were going to be selling compressed snuff mints in some eastern states, but that Utah was one of a number of states that were attempting to prohibit them. I wanted to try them when they first came out and they weren't available here. Nicotine lozenges and that prescription crap is like way too much money when you compare it to a $3.00 pack of 20 hard snuff tobacco candies. This product is now available in Utah I believe and I find it delicious (sorta like coffee candy). Well at the time I considered going the route of making my own and actually had completed an extraction of nicotine alkaloid which was suspended as a thin layer of oil in a washed ether solution when I chickened out and threw it away. I just didn't have the right equipment and experience to be working with this stuff. ONE SINGLE DROP ON A PERSON'S UNPROTECTED SKIN CAN KILL! Atropine (another poison) is only a possible antidote. But REALLY ISN'T ALL THAT JUST A LITTLE BIT TOO SCARY?

The method I settled on is the one suggested in these forums, a simple water based extraction that is filtered and then concentrated and mixed with a base. The recipe is easily found on the Internet it's actually used to make insecticide. In my case I made candy mints! It worked out splendidly!

Unfortunately, I can't use snuss or most chewing tobacco because it gives me hiccups. Well, so did these candies I made 8-o

The hard snuff lozenges don't give me hiccups though and I suspect it's for the same reason that the tobacco can be swallowed -- it's low in nitrosamines. Unfortunately neither the lozenges nor the patches have proven to be a suitable nicotine replacement therapy to substitute for my cigarettes so I'm gonna try vaporizing.

But really good luck with these experiments. Still, I'm sure that the real juice is made with refined nicotine alkaloid just like the lozenges at the pharmacy. Some thought should be put into what other compounds (probably more than 95% of the volume) are in the tobacco juice you're making from a water based extraction???

 

[Liberate_Yourself]

* the poster reccomends taking 1 pyrex beaker,

OK.. Check

* Put the content of a rolling tobacoo pack in it.

Alright.. Emptied it..

* Put isopropyl alcohol halfway the height of the tobacco.

K.. That's about 1/2 way...

* Put an aluminum foil on top of the beaker,
* heat gently until you obtain a slime-like solution.

Got the foil on top. Lookin' pretty slime-like now..

* Remove and discard the aluminum and the tobacco.
* Allow to evaporate for 15 mins.

Goodbye aluminum and tobacky.. I'm off to watch some TV..

The poster then cautions:
You now have pure nicotine. Take 2/3 drops with an eyedropper, put them on your finger and think about your life, you will only have about 5 minutes left

K.. that is about 3 drops.. now let's see.. thinking about my life now.. dunno what the heck that has to do with anything, but oooooookay.. what was the next sentence about.. you only have about 5 min.. What the ****?!?!

 

[jbbishop]

I don't know what the decoction that the method heading this thread would produce and if it is a suitable method as I haven't studied the matter properly but the product would still be a compound containing nicotine sulphate. Even if the alcohol evaporates more easily than a water decoction that just allows the gummy resin to coagulate more easily. Still, with the high water content of such solvents , unlike absolute ether or ethanol, all the water soluble, miscable compounds are going to come out in the extraction. If anyone is stupid enough to try to make pure nicotine alkaloid then the method I used involved taking a concentrated water based extract and alkalyzing it with lyme, then extracting the nicotine using petroleum ether. As it appears that all of the other unwanted materials are water soluble but not elutable in ether I obtained a very pure sample in the volume of ether that remained after the other material was removed using a separatory funnel. I only washed it the one time in a single volume of ether before I chose not to continue with this project, but had I elected to do so I would have probably siphoned the oil from the surface of the ether with a pipette and allowed any remaining ether to evaporate. I don't know of any actual instruction available to refer anyone to on a standard kitchen chemistry method of extacting nicotine alkaloid but this is how I went about it and it seems work pretty well plus it's dead simple.

 

[jbbishop]

The information appears in an article from 2002 (posted elsewhere in the forums), titled "Crack Nicotine: Anti-tobacco Fantasies and the Law of Unintended Consequences" the relevant portion shown here :

Nicotine as an Insecticide

Nicotine is a naturally occurring substance found in many plants, such as eggplant. Its highest concentration occurs in tobacco leaves. Its function is to protect the plant against insects, i.e., it is a natural insecticide.

Black Leaf 40, an environmentally safe and biodegradable agricultural insecticide used around the world, is 40 percent nicotine sulfate. Farmers have been using nicotine sulfate insecticide since the early 1800s. To make it, all you do is boil tobacco leaves in water with a little sulfuric acid (the same acid as in a car battery).

Free-Basing Nicotine

If you mix the resultant nicotine sulfate extract with a common alkali such as lime, then add a solvent such as ether, pure nicotine alkaloid - or free-base "crack” nicotine - will float to the top dissolved in the solvent, which is then evaporated off. A trivially simple procedure that anyone with a high school chemistry course can perform, it is the same process as making free-base ....... from ....... hydrochloride powder.

And just as "crack" or free-base ....... is far more addictive and lethal than ....... hydrochloride powder, so crack or free-base nicotine would be frighteningly more addictive, and lethal, than tobacco.

The faster a drug rises in the brain, and the higher its concentration, the more potentially addictive it is. Smoking tobacco leaves is a quick and concentrated, and thus addictive, way to administer nicotine - unlike the nicotine skin patch, which delivers the drug slowly. Faster still, much faster and far more concentrated, than smoking plant leaves would be smoking nicotine free base.

 

[jbbishop]

Here's the rest of the original article not posted here on the forums with some interesting and (ironically) pertinent information.

From:

Nightmare of crack nicotine

August 29, 2002
Washington Times
Jack Wheeler

Nicotine is the most addictive substance known to science. It is far more addictive than any illegal drug, including ....... Smoking crack nicotine would be the fastest way to administer the drug, making crack nicotine many times more addictive than tobacco.

Nicotine acts by stimulating the nicotinic cholinergic receptors located throughout the brain and body. If these receptors are mildly stimulated, such as via smoking tobacco leaves, there will be a sensation of heightened alertness, an improved capacity to focus and block out extraneous stimuli. Just as the high of crack ....... is experienced more intensely by the addict than snorting coke powder, so will the high of crack nicotine be more intensely pleasurable to the tobacco addict than smoking tobacco leaves. But if the nicotinic cholinergic receptors are stimulated too strongly, one's brain and body will go into fatal convulsions.

In its ability to quickly and massively overstimulate one's nicotinic cholinergic receptors, crack nicotine is incredibly poisonous. One drop of 40 milligrams of pure uncut crack nicotine smoked in a glass pipe has a 50 percent chance of killing an adult. Two drops will kill you for sure. It is more toxic than cyanide, one-tenth (gram per gram) as toxic as typical military nerve gas. A few drops on your skin, one or two drops on your mucous membranes, and you are dead.

Thus, purveyors of crack nicotine would have to cut or dilute it with water (as it's water-soluble) by around 20-1. (The nicotine sulfate in Black Leaf 40, on the other hand, cannot be absorbed by the skin or membranes well; it is poison only if you ingest it - like an insect is supposed to).

There is an average of 2 milligrams of nicotine in one high nicotine cigarette. Total state and city taxes in New York City are now about $3 for a pack of 20 - a tax of 7.5 cents per milligram, or $75,000 per kilo of nicotine in cigarettes.

Three drums of nicotine sulfate extract would yield one drum, or 200 kilos, of crack nicotine. This could be manufactured at an average cost (ingredients, equipment, Third World labor) of less than $500. The tax-avoidance value ($75,000 a kilo) is 30,000 times that: $15 million for one drum of crack nicotine. That is a 3 million percent profit.

Further, one eyedropper-full of uncut crack nicotine would have a nicotine content of four cartons of cigarettes, one kilo poured in a 20 oz. soda-pop bottle would equal 5,000 cartons or 50,000 packs: a value-per-volume increase of 1,000 times for cigarette smugglers. A typical fix of cut crack nicotine (diluted 20-to-1, or 2 milligrams) would be 1 percent of a crack ....... fix (200 milligrams) by weight - making it 100 times easier, in terms of size, to smuggle than ........

Given these numbers, the politicians' greedy tobacco tax crusade makes the creation of a crack nicotine market inevitable and irresistible to organized crime. And likely to develop soon.

The fantasy of anti-tobacco activists, that ever-higher tobacco taxes will result in fewer people smoking, is going to result in a hideous nightmare instead. They could infinitely improve public health by ending their tax crusade and demanding safe alternatives to cigarettes, such as Nico Water (mineral water laced with 2 milligrams of nicotine), recently banned by the FDA and ignorantly opposed by anti-tobacco groups like Tobacco Free Kids. Unless they do, such groups are about to learn a horrible lesson taught by the law of unintended consequences - and all of us will suffer for it.

 

[jbbishop]

So there is an interesting discussion on nicotine extraction and yields from this thread on another forum and one guy's successful result here:

sciencemadness.org/talk/viewthread.php?tid=3404

OK, to close this off and leave something for others attempting this same item, I finally did it. There were a large (really large) number of problems as detailed previously, but I've found a way of getting the nicotine out of tobacco on a small scale that can be handled at home.

First though, the tobacco chosen is important. For example, good old rolling tobacco you buy in bulk at the discount cigarette store works great. Marlboros have too many additives that mess up the works. Tobacco dust sold in four pound bags works well, but there is actually very little nicotine in it. Something in the processing is removing the nicotine.

So go get the cheap rolling tobacco that has already been ground up.

The initial extraction is to use around 100 grams of tobacco and 300ml of kerosene. Yes, I know that I swore off this stuff because it left a taint to the nicotine, but I found a way to remove it later. Also add 50ml of 40% sodium hydroxide solution to the mix. This frees the nicotine from the salts in the tobacco and helps break down the cellular walls.

Let this set with occasional stirring for 24 hours. The tobacco will swell some and the mix will increase in viscosity. Filter and squeeze through cloth to get all the liquid you can and put the tobacco back in the container for another kerosene extraction with 200 ml this time. Note that you won't get the 300ml back, you'll be lucky if you get 200ml out of the tobacco and the water will have disapeared. 24 hours later filter and squeeze what you can out of the tobacco and just throw it away. Further extractions are an exercise in futility.

Combine the kerosene fractions and set them aside while you prepare a solution of 20ml 30% hydrochloride and 80 ml of water. Just use the old driveway cleaner from the local building supply. Extract once with 50ml of the acidic water and a LOT of stirring, shaking, whatever. The kerosene layer will be on top and will turn a milky yellow color. The water layer, bottom, will turn an amber color; separate and repeat the extraction with the other 50ml of acidic water.

The kerosene can now be discarded or set aside (just in case). The amber water needs to be washed with a little VM&P naptha. Use about 30ml and mix well so it can take up all the left over kerosene. This is the stage where you get rid of the nasty kerosene. Basify to ph>10 with 40% water solution of NaOH and add enough salt so no more will dissolve.

This is where it gets interesting. The basic salt-saturated solution will cause the nicotine to separate at temperatures over 60C. So, just for fun take the temperature up to around 70C and you'll see the oil separate and rise to the top as a separate (very small)layer. This isn't pure nicotine, but includes all the alkaloids and some other contaminants. But it does give one a good idea what you're going to get.

Cool, filter out the solids, and extract twice with 30ml of naptha. Evaporate the naptha at room temperature and you have a small amount of relatively pure nicotine. There isn't enough here to do much with, so dissolve in acetone and save. Repeat the entire procedure saving the nicotine in acetone until you have enough to deal with. I use 4 of the full extractions to get enough nicotine to further purify.

Further purification. The right way to do this is a vacuum distillation under an inert gas, but most of us don't have the equipment to do that so.... First evaporate the acetone at room temperature and dissolve the nicotine in basic water (ph> 11). Extract with pure (distilled) ether. This is important since the ether one can get at the auto parts stores has contaminants in it. You can find instructions on distilling ether on the web, just be sure to keep flames away and use good ventilation. Evaporate most of the ether and use the small amount left to help you pour the fluids into a container for storage. Evaporate the last of the ether from your container by warming slightly and you're done.

If you have the equipment, you can scale this up to larger amounts of tobacco and cut down the effort. One can even arrange a pump to pump the kerosene through the tobacco to extract on a continuing basis and do an acidic water extraction in line by letting the kerosene bubble up through the acidic water before being returned to the tobacco. With a little screening and filtering this could be set up to produce reasonable quantities of high percentage nicotine. The surprising part is how little nicotine there actually is in tobacco. One would think there's 4 or 5 grams in each 100 grams of tobacco, but I just couldn't find it. I did get as much as 3 grams on the first pass, but that was as good as it got and only happened once. So, keep your expectations in check and proceed.

 

[jbbishop]

So, there are several ways to extract relatively purified forms of the nicotine alkaloid that shouldn't be incompatible with the vaporizing devices.

Again, if someone considered trying to make their own nicotine extract, they would need a cheap source of bulk tobacco in order for it to be cost effective. This is the cheapest source for bulk tobacco that I know of:

tobaccotalk.itgo.com

I guess from there you would need to determine the correct proportional ratios for PG/VG, Ethanol, Water and Flavoring. The tobacco flavoring extracts mentioned elsewhere appear to be the standards used in the manufacture of all the tobacco flavored liquid smoking products and would be my own personal preference. Here is the ingredient disclosure list for Janty Juice which seems very popular:

TOBACCO ABSOLUTE BURLEY
ORIENT TOBACCO ABSOLUTE

NICOTINE FROM TOBACCO LEAF
​

2 5-/2 5-DIMETHYLPYRAZINE
2-/2-ACETYLPYRAZINE
LINALOOL
VANILLA EXTRACT
PROPYLENE GLYCOL
​

Unfortunately we are unable to list exact percentages in the ingredient contents.

 

[Letzin Hale]

I'm not here to call for censorship or to lecture those amateur chemists who are obsessed with finding the 'holy grail' of nicotine.
Just to say, holding an open 100ml bottle of pure nicotine in your hands is not the most comfortable feeling, even in strict laboratory conditions.
Playing with it at home is potentially lethal to yourself and others as you don't just have to drink it or spill it on your skin to be poisoned.
If you have an accident, make sure you've read the checklist below and made suitable emergency preparations, or funeral arrangements.
You can buy pure nicotine, but I will not tell you where or how, leave it to the chemists.

• 
  [*]In case of contamination, wash skin by flooding with water and scrubbing vigorously with soap.
  [*]Emesis - patient may already be vomitting. Emesis is not advisable because it may be dangerous. If possible, give activated charcoal orally to adsorb any remaining nicotine. Administer charcoal slurry, aqueous or mixed with saline cathartic or sorbitol. The FDA suggests 240 ml of diluent/30 g of charcoal. Usual charcoal dose is 30 to 100 g in adults and 15-30 g in children (1-2 g/kg in infants).
  [*]Administer one dose of a cathartic, mixed with charcoal or given separately.
  [*]Gastric lavage - may be indicated if performed soon after ingestion, or in patients who are comatose or at risk of convulsing. Protect airway by placement in Trendelenburg and left lateral decubitus position or by cuffed endotracheal intuba tion. Use tap water containing activated charcoal, if available.
  [*]After control of any seizures present, perform gastric lavage. Volume of lavage return should approximate fluid given.
  [*]Initiate artificial respiration using oxygen, is available.

Specific Drugs and Antidotes

• 
  [*]Mecamylamine is a specific antagonist of nicotine actions; however since it is only available in tablets, therefore it is not suitable for a patient who is vomitting, convulsive or hypotensive.
  [*]either give atropine sulphate, (adult 0.4-2 mg; child 0.01 mg/kg, not to exceed 0.4 mg per dose) i.m. or i.v. and repeat every 3-8 min. until signs of parasympathetic toxicity are controlled. Repeat atropine frequently to maintain control o f symptoms. As much as 12 mg of atropine has been given safely in the first 2 hours in adult. Ensure proper oxygenation to avoid arrythmias associated with hypoxia. Interruption of atropine therapy may be rapidly followed by fatal pulmonary oedema or resp iratory failure.
  [*]or give phentolamine 1-5 mg i.m. or i.v. to control signs of sympathetic hyperactivity, such as hypertension.

General Measures

• 
  [*]Control convulsions: Administer diazepam i.v. bolus (adult, 5-10 mg initially which may be repeated every 15 minutes PRN up to 30 mg; child, 0.25-0.4 mg/kg dose up to 10 mg/dose) or lorazepam i.v. bolus (adult, 4-8 mg; child, 0.05-0.1 mg/kg).
  [*]Do not administer antacids since nicotine is better absorbed in an alkaline media.
  [*]Monitor ECG and vital signs carefully.

Chronic Poisoning
Remove from further exposure to dust or smoke. Prognosis
Survival for more than 4 hours is usually followed by complete recovery.

 

[MikeMac]

Ok, I'm completely freaked out now!

Crack, crank, freebasing. Diazepam? WTF?

And Ether? That stuff is starter fluid for engines. It EXPLODES! VERY DANGEROUS!

This all sounds like stuff no ordinary citizen should be messing with.

Now I'm off to get some zero nic juice. YIKES! 8-o

 

[bebop]

Here's the rest of the original article not posted here on the forums with some interesting and (ironically) pertinent information.

There is an average of 2 milligrams of nicotine in one high nicotine cigarette.

if this figure is right then 18 cigarettes would equal 36 mg of nicotine..
I should be able to dissolve the 18 cigs in 30 ml of water/glycerine and be safe. right?

 

[jbbishop]

Each cigarette actually contains between 7 and 24mg of nicotine and delivers between 1 and 2.5mg from smoking.

I did a couple more write ups
here: http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/forum/diy-e-liquid/1135-extracting-nicotine-tobacco-4.html
and here: http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/forum/diy-e-liquid/1687-isopropyl-alcohol-tobacco-extraction-3.html

 

[Phalse]

I'm Talking Trash about Josh Wheeler, who wrote the article about nicotine crack, I do not mean any of this towards the original poster of that article, jbbishop.
He obviously knows what he's talking about and I don't want any e-internet confusion.

Nicotine is toxic, pure nicotine is nicotine......
Saying "crack nicotine", is kind of funny, but more annoying and stupid.

Josh Wheeler wrote for a new paper almost 8 years ago.....new york times, yeah.......that paper sure is known for its accurate sources and non-hyped, fair, balanced media stories.

When we say nicotine 16mg we are talking about "crack nicotine", 16mg of it.

Nicotine is not as toxic as cyanide.
Concentrated Nicotine will still kill you.

I would not bet my life on my opinon either.

It's funny the only source for the statements on the internet comparing cyanide and nicotine is that article LOL which is total bull crap. Lol Military nerve gas? You mean military cyanide gas? Because thats an accurate comparison, nicotine is 1/10 as toxic as cyanide gas.

hahahah the infamous nic crack is worse than cyanide tale.............i'll test it by taking a drop of this crack nicotine and a drop of this cyani...........ghhhuuuuughaaaaaaauuuuuuuuuuooo......ooooggggglllleeee.......

You can really kill yourself even using the "chopped tea" method with water and simply boiling it off. Drying the resin to a powder, that stuff is deadly.

I'm not trying to take away from the danger of nicotine here.

 

[TribbleTrouble]

Has anyone tried extracting Nicotine from SNUS? I'm not sure how much Nic is in each pouch, but it would seem to me that since it is dissolvable tobacco, it might be easier to extract the Nic from it. Anyone else tried this?