NOTE OF WARNING: QT's DMT Extraction for Students is archived by Erowid as a historical document. The process as described has been critiqued as flawed and dangerous several ways. Safer and more effective DMT extraction and purification techniques have been developed and made available in the years since the document below was created. For one such process, see Noman's "DMT for the Masses".

Specific concerns regarding QT's tek, detailed below, were sent to Erowid on behalf of the community at The DMT Nexus, who note: "Time and time again, people have come to The DMT Nexus or other web forums because they were following QT's tek and it either didn't work or they ran into serious issues trying to follow it. Our largest concerns with QT's tek are related to health and safety. Throughout the tek, comments on safely handling chemicals are scant. If we've learned one thing, it's that people doing extractions by following a tek as though it's a recipe often are not sticklers for proper handling and safety. Following the tek as it is written could lead to serious bodily harm, it may not successfully extract DMT, and even if some DMT is obtained, there is a strong possibility of it being contaminated with toxic substances." Erowid is grateful to be able to share the detailed commentary and harm-reduction efforts of The DMT Nexus folks. -- The Erowid Crew, February 4, 2011

Health and Safety Concerns

1) The tek recommends using hydrochloric acid without appropriate guidance on safe handling. While it also mentions other acids, HCl is specifically recommended. However, weaker acids like citric acid or vinegar are preferable alternatives because they can be handled more safely and are readily available at grocery stores.

2) While the tek mentions the health hazards of working with dichloromethane (DCM), it fails to note the flammability hazards of naphtha and ether. It likewise does not mention the intoxication hazards from the fumes, which necessitate minimizing contact and using them in a well-ventilated and spark-free area (and some fans that one might use for ventilation could have the potential of creating sparks).

3) The tek describes a method for obtaining ether from starting fluid. This method will generally not obtain pure ether. Unless the extractor has a good working knowledge of chemistry and has consulted the Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) for the specific starter fluid, this could easily lead to very unhealthy contaminants in one's end product. The tek specifically mentions Coleman fuel, Zippo lighter fluid, and Ronsonol, all of which have been reported to contain non-volatile contaminants. Particularly since the tek instructs the extractor to obtain the final product by evaporation, this seriously needs to be addressed to prevent people from unwittingly smoking harmful contaminants.

4) No health and safety warnings are provided with regard to chloroform, which may be carcinogenic and can have other negative health effects if not handled properly.

5) Suggesting that people employ ziploc bags as separatory funnels is hazardous in a couple of ways. Such bags are not made from high-density polyethylene (HDPE), a plastic known to have a high resistance to chemical solvents. Ziploc bags contain plasticizers (additives that increase flexibility, and that have been implicated in adverse effects on health when consumed), which would likely leach into naphtha; and since the naphtha is being evaporated, these plasticizers will end up in the extracted DMT. While the tek does suggest making sure that the solvent used doesn't melt the bag, this ignores the likelihood that it may leach harmful contaminants. (The suggestion to use a "turkey baster" may present a similar problem, depending on what type of plastic it is constructed from.) Furthermore, there's a very good chance of spilling caustic chemicals if the ziploc bag fails to work as anticipated.

6) The tek calls for "warm naphtha" on multiple occasions, but makes no mention of how to go about safely warming this flamable solvent. If unwary extractors were to heat it on a gas stove, they could easily find themselves with a fireball in their face!

7) The tek does not present sufficient safety warnings regarding lye (sodium hydroxide). "Take proper precautions" is not specific enough advice. When working with lye, one should wear shatter-resistant anti-fog safety goggles, chemical-resistant (nitrile) safety gloves, a vapor/fluid-resistant face mask, and a polyethylene safety apron, to prevent blindness and chemical burns. One should also have an acid such as vinegar on-hand to neutralize any possible lye spills.

8) The tek recommends obtaining the DMT by evaporating-off the naphtha. Before it was widely known that purification could be performed via freeze-precipitation, this might have been excusable, if not for the fact that many of the tek's recommended varieties of naphtha include non-volatile contaminants, and the tek suggests employing non-HDPE plastics. Considering the processes recommended in the tek, any DMT obtained by evaporation is reasonably likely to be tainted with harmful contaminants and would not be safe to consume. The tek acknowledges that the product will be impure, but provides no information on purifying it. Indeed, it explicitly seems to recommend consuming it, impurities and all. And "Don't worry about weighing it" is bad advice, plain and simple.

Technical Errors

1) Incorrect terminology is used in step 3. One is not converting the DMT to a salt; it's already a salt in the plant material. And, of course, the ions dissociate when salts dissolve. The step might be more appropriately titled "Dissolving DMT Cations in Water", or at least "Dissolving Salts of DMT".

2) Incorrect terminology is used in step 8. One is not unhooking the DMT salts (they're in solution, so they aren't really hooked together at all). One is actually deprotonating the DMT cations to generate the free-base.

3) QT suggests that ammonia is typically used to basify, and that this tek's use of lye is a departure from the norm. However, ammonia is not an effective base for Mimosa tenuiflora [= M. hostilis] root-bark (MHRB). All one will get is a stubborn emulsion.

4) The recommended pH after adding the base is too low; pH 9 is not high enough. With MHRB in particular there are serious emulsion issues at pH 9; but even ignoring that, pH 9 is only 0.32 above the pK_a (-log₁₀ acid dissociation constant) of DMT--not terribly efficient.

5) The tek states that it is ideal to extract an alkaloid at its pK_a. This not necessarily true. At its pK_a, half of the alkaloid is protonated and the other half unprotonated. In ideal conditions (i.e., assuming infinite solubility in the nonpolar extraction solvent), this is sufficient since Le Châtelier's principle is on one's side. But unless there are instability-related complications or other factors to account for, it's better to have the vast majority of the alkaloid in the desired form (in this case, unprotonated)--especially with MHRB, where emulsions are a crucial issue.

6) The tek treats emulsions as though they are inevitable, that one should not be concerned if these take several days to resolve, and that it's near-miraculous for an emulsions to resolve in less than an hour. This is insanity. Emulsions can be prevented by ensuring sufficiently high pH and by mixing gently (rather than shaking, as the tek suggests). The addition of plain salt may be employed as a further preventative measure.

7) The tek suggests that the final product may contain "hydroxide". Hydroxide is not a molecule, it's an ion. It is possible that the product could contain sodium hydroxide or other hydroxide salts, but neither of the recommended methods for eliminating the "hydroxide" would help at all if the product actually were contaminated with sodium hydroxide or another hydroxide salt.

Practical Issues

1) The pH for step 2 is unnecessarily low. While pH 2 won't hurt anything, it's a waste of materials.

2) Ridiculously long times are presented for the aqueous acidic extraction. The tek recommends 24 hours for the first soak, and a whole week for subsequent soaks. In reality, simmering 15-30 minutes three times will get most of the DMT out of the MHRB and into solution. There is no need to spend two weeks; this step can be done in two hours or faster.

3) The tek recommends defatting, even though it is designed for use with MHRB, which is not a fatty material. This is a waste of solvent and time.

4) Step 7 says to add warm naphtha to the acidic MHRB extract and shake it for five minutes before adding lye. This won't accomplish anything.

5) The tek says to repeat steps 7-9 two more times. In step 8, one is told to add 5 grams of lye to the mix. Is the tek really suggesting that this step is also supposed to be repeated, with more lye added each time? Of course, that extra lye isn't going to hurt--on the contrary, it will likely bring the pH up into a more practical range than the tek (seems to) recommend. But why is the tek suggesting that one add more base prior to each extraction with nonpolar solvent, instead of adding all that one is going to use at one time? We suspect that this is just an artifact of poor phrasing on the part of the tek's author.

6) The tek calls for using way too much naphtha for extractions, suggesting 100 ml per pull for 30 grams of MHRB. A tenth of that would be sufficient.

7) In "Lab Notes" under step 6, the tek suggests that one should be saving the naphtha from the defatting process, but discarding the DMT-laden naphtha from the later steps. Why would one want to save the (practically non-existent) fats from MHRB but throw away the DMT?

8) "You will know when DMT is in the final product by the smell." This is an odd statement, since DMT is supposed to be the final product, not merely be contained in it.

9) Outdated info: The tek suggests using Red Devil lye; however, the manufacturer of this brand discontinued production in 2005.

10) The three sets of "Lab Notes" from QT's extraction record that the extractions took 24 days, 39 days, and 61 days. Yikes! A quick and effective acid/base extraction can be completely finished in 24 hours (and that includes time for freeze-precipitations); a big, leisurely (and frankly, unnecessarily long) acid/base extraction (BLAB) is still done in a week. From a legal standpoint, it seems prudent to complete an extraction as quickly as possible so that--if worse comes to worst--the extractor is only on the hook for possession of a controlled substance and not for manufacture as well.

11) The tek is written for MHRB with lye as the base and naphtha as the non-polar solvent; yet it implies that it would be just as effective for Phalaris grasses with chloroform as the solvent. Unfortunately, different factors need to be taken into account for different plants and solvents. Getting clean DMT out of Phalaris grasses, in particular, is a massive chore, requiring its own specialized tek.

Minor Gripes

1) Measuring pH with beets and cabbage? Seriously? That's pretty ghetto. Litmus papers and pH monitors are fairly cheap if one cared to measure the pH. And with MHRB, it's not necessary; a dash of acid is fine for the initial extraction, and MHRB provides its own handy color-changing reaction when enough base has been added.

2) Multiple times, the tek refers to "naptha" instead of naphtha.