Gasoline ⛽️ as an extraction solvent

If tanks are from a “lot” storage you’re never assured clean fuel because they’ve only tested one particular tank. either or you’ll have to distill any butane, propane, isobutane prior to extraction of botanical in order to remove industrial mystery oils

that info is gold right there!

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As someone who used to work in the Oil & Gas Industry, I almost definitely guarantee you wouldn’t want to use widely-available consumer gasoline as an extraction solvent. A couple reasons why:

  1. Your standard gasoline is a blend of various isomers, lighter and heavier hydrocarbons, Ethanol, and other additives (like detergents and fuel stabilizers) to closely approximate iso-octane. This is actually where your “octane rating” comes from. Iso-octane is considered the standard for optimal gasoline engine performance (compared to n-heptane which is used as a reference for 0 octane rating).

  2. Engines actually perform very differently and require different fuel compositions to run optimally in different seasons. Because of this, the gasoline producers will usually have a “summer blend” and a “winter blend” to compensate for these differences. This further increases the variability in the composition of gasoline.

Depending on your situation, these reasons might not be deal breakers for you, but not knowing what is actually in your gasoline is a big red flag for me when considering it as an extraction solvent. My biggest concern is all of the other additives and such that gasoline producers add in to make their cheaper hydrocarbon mixes perform better as fuel. If it was just a mix of hydrocarbons and ethanol, I wouldn’t be quite as against it.

Now, refineries typically refer to the hydrocarbon fractions used to make fuel as Light Naptha (C5-C6) and Heavy Naptha (C6-C12). Commercial gasoline is typically a mix of both to produce the desired final product. However, I do know that high-octane racing fuel typically is a more pure Light Naptha product that undergoes a few more processing steps to ensure purity. If you somehow had a source of racing fuel (not methanol), you might be able to use that as an extraction solvent.

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No!
No racing fuel.
Contains MTBE and all kinds of aromatics like toluene.
If you have some ship it to me, I can burn it safely (in my 1969 Corvette)
VP113

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Benzene is nasty stuff and everyone should limit their exposure as much as possible, but why would it be difficult to purge? I think it would actually be quite easy to get n.d. levels with a nice pump.

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Toluene is the best option as a solvent in CBN synthesis. I love toluene, used it every opportunity I could over DCM in university.

If the end product is isolate, how important is the cleanliness of the input solvent?

Does the refined cocaine that was extracted with gasoline show evidence of such?

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I think he’s referring to a country with little-to-no access to lab-grade solvents. I’m pretty sure the consumers of such a country would be glad to have an unobtainable extract. Can’t be THAT much worse than what a lot of the US was dabbing 15 years ago. Especially considering how much knowledge there is now surrounding the culture. With what we know today we could probably make a safer product using gasoline than we would have made 20 years ago using butane. This is the @Future and although I have no interest in ever using gasoline as a solvent, the fact that people are even bringing this up is awesome.

P.S. I have a challenge for everyone that chooses to comment in this thread:

Try only commenting on why or how we could make this work. Try not even thinking about why it wouldn’t.

:beers:

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I heard jezzy start playing

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You could probably extract with straight benzene if you steam stripped the distillate under decent vacuum.
The thing about benzene is its ring structure makes it very easy to detect with a mass spec so quantification at ppt levels is relatively easy.

Ever smell cocaine? 9/10 it smells like gasoline or diesel.

Though I will say the stuff actually in Colombia and Peru doesn’t seem to have that smell. The smell stateside could be coming from exposure to exhaust fumes during transport.

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The smell of petrol can be good or bad. That does not indicate good product, it indicates the chemists are cutting corners and using gasoline instead of e.g. naptha or hexanes. It is, however, a good indicator that the cocaine hasn’t been modified since it left It’s location of production.

It really depends on professionalism of operation on the smell you get. If your blow doesn’t look like the scales of that kids book the rainbow fish. It has been cut. Anyways the shit people put in cocaine production is sickening and never did it myself.

But those wild drum days are gone…

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@mcpikeig is correct but it’s actually worse. Gasoline is not a pure substance but a blend that’s made to specifications, i.e. octane number, boiling range, reid vapor pressure etc., and, last not least, of course, price.

So whatever comes from the refinery adheres to the regional laws and specifications but may or may not contain mtbe or other ethers, aromatics, alkenes, ethanol etc. etc. on top of the well-known alkanes like iso-octane. In other countries with less strict regulations it may also well contain metal organic compounds, like tetra ethyl lead etc. to increase the octane number to bring inferior hydrocarbon mixes up to acceptable levels.

If you want to derive a resonable, ideally not deadly or cancerogenic solvent from gasoline, I’d recommend you fractionate it and only take the cut up to say 65 C. That would include all pentanes and branched hexanes but no aromatics and no tel.

With no high-boilers it should also relatively easy to remove completely on a rotovap (some gas components boil above 200 C. I’ve been there)

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This is turning into a poor representation of a reddit thread. There is a country where hardware, pool, painting, camera, or other relevant stores don’t exist? Toluene, Ethanol, Methanol, Naphtha, Isopropanol, Xylene, MEK, Acetone, Denatured Alcohol, or any other solvents used in chemistry labs would be your best bet. I would be overwhelmingly surprised if there are no stores carrying one of these. The notion of using gasoline is ridiculous and I don’t understand why it’s even being entertained.

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This is an awesome video:

Also a follow up vid:

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It’s a thought experiment pull your head from your ass and learn to think freely.

The point is that it IS ridiculous, but also entirely possible.

The point was to, in your imagination, take the dirtiest mix of hydrocarbons and heavy metals possible and potentially use it to safely make medicine.

It’s also here to weed out the weak minded pencilnecks such as yourself.

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I find it intriguing for arguments sake. It’s interesting to hear people’s take on the notion. I take it you didn’t read the P.S. in my previous reply :wink:

Orange oil

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Ether breath. I used to own a night club and customers would talk to me with their ether breath. God I hated that smell. :joy::joy:

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I believe my response offered adequate information that demonstrated I am thinking freely. I offered a list of solvents that are used [besides denatured alcohol] in chemistry settings.

Okay, so, let’s say we take the dirtiest hydrocarbons… here’s a thought experiment: in a country you can’t buy solvent in, what are you proposing an extractor utilize as an adsorbent to remove the carcinogenic hydrocarbons [e.g. benzene], heavy metals, or other contaminants? I fail to see how readily available activated and selective adsorbents would be in a country one can’t buy proper solvent in. The suggestion of making “medicine” from this type of extracted material is highly questionable.

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