I tried doing this synthesis and it ended up looking and having the texture of caramel. There were no crystals at all. I used pills that contained cornstarch, povidone, lactose and magnesium stearate. Instead of adding the pills in microwaved water I added them to ethanol then I evaporated off the ethanol and it had that caramel texture. I then added the same amount of water to the caramel pseudoephedrine as the recipe said. After that I did as the recipe said but the color change appeared immediatly after 1-2 hours instead of 8-10. I waited 8 hours anyway then I filtered it and left it on the counter and I meant to add hcl but I couldn't because I wasnt home and I ended up adding it 3 days after the mixture was filtered. I added 1.5 tablespoons of hcl I tried to overshoot because I didn't have ph strips at that time. I then boiled away the liquid and was again left with that caramel like substance. I tried recrystalizing it in acetone but it didnt work, it was still caramelly. What caused the failure of this synthesis? Is it the tablets, the extraction method, me adding the hcl too late or adding too little hcl? Or did I succeed in this synthesis and I should have just let it dry a bit more? Please help.
Could be the pills weren't extracted or properly enough. Or the final product was over acidified. I've never done this one as tina is better and reagents are more readily accessible.
- By Anarchy Labz
I tried it a differen't time with proper ph management, I didn't extract the pills, I did it like in the synthesis, but when I evaporated the final mixture it was still caramel but when I added ethanol crystals came out and I separated them from the caramel and got like 2g of white crystals.