Mephedrone Purification

Introduction
Mephedrone (4-MMC) synthesis reaction is carried out with production of some amount of by-products. Also, some amount of unreacted precursor is left in the reaction mixture after reaction. It takes to purify 4-MMC product with insufficient purity to reduce health risks. 4-Methyl-N-methylcathinone is a powerful synthetic stimulant drug and cheap euphoretic. Importantly, it is most demanded and wide common. It is known that big number of drugs on dark market are sold without purification (with enormous number of side synthesis substances). Using of these drugs can cause physical and psychological harm. Purification is a way to minimize the risks of drug use.

In this article, a Home Purification Method is shown for dirty mephedrone. You don't need a chemical laboratory, you need a kitchen and some stuff, which you can buy in any pharmacy or public store.

Home mephedrone (4-MMC) recrystallization
You need:

1. A mephedrone for purification.
2. The mixture of ethyl acetate:acetone, 4:1. It takes 20 ml of mixture for 1 g drug.
3. Metal cups for water bath and evaporation procedure.
4. A filter paper or filters for a coffee machine.

Procedure:
Suspension preparation

1. Pour the mephedrone powder into the mixture of ethyl acetate and acetone.
2. Mix it thoroughly until a suspension is obtained.

Heating and evaporation.

3. Put the water bath onto the сooker

Pour the mixture into a metal plate

and place it into the water bath.

Cooling and settling

4. Pure mephedrone will be crystallized partially because it is not solved in acetone, but at the same time it is solved in ethyl acetate partially. Organic side substances, which have to be removed from mephedrone, are solved in acetone.

The solution have to be evaporated by 1/3.

5. After that, wait until the solution would be cooled to room temperature. Put the plate with solution into a fridge for 2 hours (3-5 degrees).
Filtration and washing.

6. Take the plate from your fridge.

7. Scrape off the crystals that have fallen from the side pieces

8. and start filtering

Wash your crystals by an acetone 2-3 times and dry it in an open air.

As you can see, the procedure isn't complicated. It should be noted that the mother liquor (the filtered solution) contain approximately 5-10% of mephedrone. You can evaporate this solution by 3/4, until crystals appearing, and repeat stages №5-8 of the procedure.

Mephedrone Before and After Home Mephedrone (4-MMC) Washing

Home Mephedrone (4-MMC) Washing
One of the most frequent questions is how to clean the purchased drug (crystals/powders). It is also one of the basic skills of an advanced consumer, sometimes the results of such a simple cleaning are striking.

    Why clean if always used as is?

- For example, this is necessary for intravenous use (the cleaner the drug, the safer), in addition, it affects the purity of the exposure, as well as the severity and variety of side effects.

Then, I give a universal instruction, following which you can easily wash not everything from the residues of synthesis by-products, but a lot. If the drug is purified by this method, as a rule, the weight loss of the final product is small.

    How to determine what can be cleaned according to this instruction?

-The main parameter of a suitable drug for cleaning is insolubility in anhydrous acetone and cold isopropyl alcohol. Most of the impurities in street drugs are from laboratories due to negligence in synthesis. And impurities, of course, reduce the shelf life of the drug, spoil the commercial species, worsen the force of exposure, and also increase the risk of poisoning.

Consider a method of purifying mephedrone in powder form

If it's a crystal, it doesn't mean it's clean. Therefore, the mephedrone crystals are cleaned in the same way, ground as much as possible to a uniform state.

The principle of the process is elementary. A filter is assembled from the available means, which will retain mephedrone, but pass flushes with impurities (impurities dissolve in cooled acetone/alcohol, and mephedrone is insoluble). The impurity extractant is then forced out of the filter under pressure, leaving the pure product. If necessary, the process can be repeated by adding a new portion of extractant.

What will be needed and what to do?

1.   Chilled extractant (anhydrous acetone or absolute isopropanol);
2.   Mephedrone of any hue and humidity 3 g;
3.   Cotton wool 0.5x0.5 cm;
4.   Syringe 5-20 ml 1pc;
5.   Waste glass;
6.   Petri Dish (any plate is suitable);
7.   Pipette 3 ml.

In a syringe, we put a tiny piece of cotton wetted in extractant. It'll hold the clean mephedrone inside. If there is a lot of cotton wool, the design will lose functionality. If the cotton wool is too small, or it does not cover the hole, then part of the mephedrone will come out with the waste.

Creating a filter

We grind mephedrone into dust and pour it into a syringe over the cotton wool, you can slightly compress. A third of the free space for the extractant should remain in the syringe.

Charge the system

Using a pipette, we fill the remains with the syringe with a cooled extractant (in the photo, the extractant is marked with the number 1). As it moves, it will be visible how impurities leave (in the photo you can see in the field at number 2).

Add an extractant

Next, we insert the piston into the syringe cylinder and squeeze the extractant through the mephedrone with some force. The eyes will see how the dirt moves to the filter, and then leaves the syringe in a waste glass.

Extract impurities into a waste beaker

The indicator of mephedrone purity is the color of the extractant drop leaving the filter. The drop should be transparent and without color. If necessary, add fresh extractant to remove impurities without residue.

Complete the washing of mephedrone

The impurity extractant should be discarded. It won't be useful anywhere else.

Extract

The syringe contents are now placed on a Petri dish to further evaporate the extractant residues. We remove a piece of cotton from the mephedrone, it will no longer be useful. The evaporation of the extractant can be accelerated in a water bath or other heating elements.

Lay out the purified mephedrone until it is dried completely

Purified Mephedrone Hydrochloride

Upon reaching a constant weight and the absence of the smell of the extractant, cleaning can be considered completed. This method does not give 99.9% purity of the product, but this is the best of the most affordable and simple. After such cleaning, the substance is suitable for consumption. For greater purity and commercial appearance, the obtained powder can be subjected to a slow recrystallization method (and another recrystallization method).