Question What is the best route to synthesize methamphetamine on a large scale?
- Thread starter GhostBlack
- Start date
I feel like someone asking this question is not ready to do so...
The big dogs in the Netherlands use the leuckart reaction, and precious metal catalyst hydrogenation. I read a report that precious metal catalyst usage is especially popular, and read a bust about 10 years back where they found canisters of hydrogen, which is used for this route. I believe that it is popular because it allows one to process more amphetamines at once than other methods for the same reaction vessel size
Now, I'm more referring to mdma, but the usage of precious metal catalysts in mdma is similar to meth.
So look into precious metal catalyst usage
The big dogs in the Netherlands use the leuckart reaction, and precious metal catalyst hydrogenation. I read a report that precious metal catalyst usage is especially popular, and read a bust about 10 years back where they found canisters of hydrogen, which is used for this route. I believe that it is popular because it allows one to process more amphetamines at once than other methods for the same reaction vessel size
Now, I'm more referring to mdma, but the usage of precious metal catalysts in mdma is similar to meth.
So look into precious metal catalyst usage
I have just recently started to look into precious metal catalyst, as they are much more efficient if done properly. The problem is that I haven`t found any good guidance on this, even youtube has only a couple of videos. Can anyone recommend some good educational material? PM or comment here would be appreciated.
Also: the easiest would be to somehow get a cylinder of H2 gas, which is available in theory, there is no restriction on it to my knowledge, although it is quite dangerous if handled wrong. That said, I have tried to order a cylinder of H2 and none of the online shops got back to me (I tried 2). Does anyone know a good way/excuse to get it?
Also: the easiest would be to somehow get a cylinder of H2 gas, which is available in theory, there is no restriction on it to my knowledge, although it is quite dangerous if handled wrong. That said, I have tried to order a cylinder of H2 and none of the online shops got back to me (I tried 2). Does anyone know a good way/excuse to get it?
You could follow the NAZI METHOD;
- D-PSEUDOEPHEDRINE
Hydroiodic acid
- Red Phosphorous
- Also known as “Red P”, “Tweeker” or “Mexican National” lab
- Ephedrine or Pseudoephedrine is reduced in a chemical process using red phosphorus and hydriodic acid to form d-methamphetamine
- Hazards: Red phosphorus is highly unstable: slight friction will cause ignition and deadly phosphine gas can be produced if overheated. Symptoms can include: shortness of breath, headache, double vision, tremor, jaundice, and pulmonary edema. Lung toxicity can occur immediately or can even be delayed for 18 hours or more.
- Acetone: fingernail polish remover
- Methanol: brake cleaner fluid
- Benzene: varnishes, lacquers
- Ether: starter fluid
- Hydriodic acid: driveway cleaner
- Iodine crystals: antiseptics
- Lithium metal: lithium batteries
- Muriatic acid: swimming pool cleaner
- Sodium hydroxide: drain cleaners, lye
- Sulfuric acid: battery acid
- Toluene: paint thinners
Last edited:
Your best bet will be Al/Hg hands down. Netherlands should be full of readily available P2NP. You can use metal reactors however they will need to be epoxy coated or the acid will eat through the reactor after around 3-5 reactions (you do not want to be there when it happens). If you are looking for smaller large scale, you can simplify things with 200L glass reactors however you will only achieve around 7.5 or so kg of P2P per batch. We used 20L carboys with plastic hosing attached from the carboy to a glass adapter and added the HCl slowly in small increments. Once one carboy was added, we would attach another one. Then NaOH is added to basify everything and large amounts of water which will cool the reaction enough to switch to distillation. We used an extension column to deal with the splash back and steam distilled the P2P directly from the flask. This is one of the bottle necks, we tried peristaltic pumps, toluene extractions... in the end you will have to do the distillation for 8 hours. That is the best. If you are efficient and start the day early, you can finish in 12 hours.
We would place most reactants in the flask ready to go the night before. We would then wait for it to cool down after distillation, add some water once we are sure the flask wont crack, and suction all the crap out of the flask with a few rinses and some oxalic acid solution. You clean in place. You do not have to take down any setup. Imagine with 4 reactors going and 4 days in a row, you end with 120 kg of P2P. This reaction is terrible at small scale. Once you really scale it, you learn to love it and the yields increase. If you choose something like a metal reactor, its even better but your equipment may end up being disposable. It almost scales in a linear fashion, no real surprises.
Unfortunately, the Al/Hg is not so straight forward. Everything that is available about it online is almost all wrong. Many things apply to MDMA but not so much to Meth production. It can be scaled enormously with the proper understanding of how to create the catalyst and how it is introduced to the reactants. In smaller large scale, it can be done with the same 200L reactors in glass with 90%+ yields. In order to achieve those yield, the reaction must be violent. Foil will not work. It can also be done in 220L metal drums even with no mixing in 73-78% yields and the lid slightly ajar.
The shape of the reaction vessel, how it can hold pressure and how much solvent to Al to Hg makes all the difference. In a large metal reactor, it is also great but you will have to form the amalgam separately in another container and add it in to the Schiff base at the proper time. If you care about your reactor, you may also want to rinse the Al once it is activated with alcohol to remove a good part of the HgCl2. The best part: if done right no external heat is needed. Add toluene and siphon using a peristaltic pump.
Gassing is done by loading up your 200L reactors with conc sulfuric acid, and dripping HCl under slow mixing and passed through a CaCl column and into 220L plastic drums (with the option to open the lid) that sits on a drum dolly. Use multiple setups and drums. Use peristaltic pump again to siphon liquid/crystals into table top buchner. Rinse with acetone and repeat gassing.
Best method.
We would place most reactants in the flask ready to go the night before. We would then wait for it to cool down after distillation, add some water once we are sure the flask wont crack, and suction all the crap out of the flask with a few rinses and some oxalic acid solution. You clean in place. You do not have to take down any setup. Imagine with 4 reactors going and 4 days in a row, you end with 120 kg of P2P. This reaction is terrible at small scale. Once you really scale it, you learn to love it and the yields increase. If you choose something like a metal reactor, its even better but your equipment may end up being disposable. It almost scales in a linear fashion, no real surprises.
Unfortunately, the Al/Hg is not so straight forward. Everything that is available about it online is almost all wrong. Many things apply to MDMA but not so much to Meth production. It can be scaled enormously with the proper understanding of how to create the catalyst and how it is introduced to the reactants. In smaller large scale, it can be done with the same 200L reactors in glass with 90%+ yields. In order to achieve those yield, the reaction must be violent. Foil will not work. It can also be done in 220L metal drums even with no mixing in 73-78% yields and the lid slightly ajar.
The shape of the reaction vessel, how it can hold pressure and how much solvent to Al to Hg makes all the difference. In a large metal reactor, it is also great but you will have to form the amalgam separately in another container and add it in to the Schiff base at the proper time. If you care about your reactor, you may also want to rinse the Al once it is activated with alcohol to remove a good part of the HgCl2. The best part: if done right no external heat is needed. Add toluene and siphon using a peristaltic pump.
Gassing is done by loading up your 200L reactors with conc sulfuric acid, and dripping HCl under slow mixing and passed through a CaCl column and into 220L plastic drums (with the option to open the lid) that sits on a drum dolly. Use multiple setups and drums. Use peristaltic pump again to siphon liquid/crystals into table top buchner. Rinse with acetone and repeat gassing.
Best method.
- By CryoThio
I have some questions I hope you can answer
What type of epoxy?
Do you have any more info on using a 55 gallon drum as a reactor? I was thinking putting a homemade distillation column on a 55 gallon drum, so I could do everything in one go, reaction, distillation, the whole thing.
What is a good ratio of solvent to Al to Hg?
You mentioned that it is important how one adds the catalyst (I believe this to mean the amalgam). Can you give a general guide to how one should add the catalyst?
Thank you!
What type of epoxy?
Do you have any more info on using a 55 gallon drum as a reactor? I was thinking putting a homemade distillation column on a 55 gallon drum, so I could do everything in one go, reaction, distillation, the whole thing.
What is a good ratio of solvent to Al to Hg?
You mentioned that it is important how one adds the catalyst (I believe this to mean the amalgam). Can you give a general guide to how one should add the catalyst?
Thank you!
- By PNicole
You have to keep the following variables in mind
The other variables depend on one and other. The one variable you should keep consistent is Al. Once you establish the conditions of how your source of Al will react with HgCl2, you can proceed with volumes of solvent needed and ratios of Al:HgCl2
In general, you want to keep the space where Al and HgCl2 meet very small. Round bottom flask achieves this easily because it shrinks at the bottom.
Containing a violent reaction is when you achieve high yields. Essentially, with a reactor flask or round bottom flask with the only exhaust being one or two condensers, you can create enough pressure to hit 90-92% yields.
You could also create enough pressure that the alcohol no longer goes up the condensers and one of your workers decides to undo the electrical tape around a stopper to reduce the pressure and does a back flip along with the 45/50 stopper shooting to the ceiling with a healthy splash of sludge, much of which landed on the visor of his 3M 7800 series respirator. Somehow stlll achieved a 77% yield.
Now getting back to the drum question. I have never attempted to seal the drum or do what you are suggesting. It could work, I would have attempted it but my retirement came earlier. Certainly worth a try.
Now think of the shape of the drum. It is wide. If you want to create the catalyst in the drum, you will perhaps have to tilt it to keep the volume low. You may also create the catalyst in a large beaker or erlenmeyer and dump it into the Schiff base already create in the drum.
You will not achieve those 90% + yields but what an affordable and easy to acquire reaction vessel.
- the volume or "space" where the Al can interact with the HgCl2
- the surface area of the Al
- the time required for amalgamation
- the volume of the solvent used
- the solvent used
The other variables depend on one and other. The one variable you should keep consistent is Al. Once you establish the conditions of how your source of Al will react with HgCl2, you can proceed with volumes of solvent needed and ratios of Al:HgCl2
In general, you want to keep the space where Al and HgCl2 meet very small. Round bottom flask achieves this easily because it shrinks at the bottom.
Containing a violent reaction is when you achieve high yields. Essentially, with a reactor flask or round bottom flask with the only exhaust being one or two condensers, you can create enough pressure to hit 90-92% yields.
You could also create enough pressure that the alcohol no longer goes up the condensers and one of your workers decides to undo the electrical tape around a stopper to reduce the pressure and does a back flip along with the 45/50 stopper shooting to the ceiling with a healthy splash of sludge, much of which landed on the visor of his 3M 7800 series respirator. Somehow stlll achieved a 77% yield.
Now getting back to the drum question. I have never attempted to seal the drum or do what you are suggesting. It could work, I would have attempted it but my retirement came earlier. Certainly worth a try.
Now think of the shape of the drum. It is wide. If you want to create the catalyst in the drum, you will perhaps have to tilt it to keep the volume low. You may also create the catalyst in a large beaker or erlenmeyer and dump it into the Schiff base already create in the drum.
You will not achieve those 90% + yields but what an affordable and easy to acquire reaction vessel.
- By blackburn
@PNicole
(You can use metal reactors however they will need to be epoxy coated)
You know where they could be found?
Could you post a Link?
Thanks !
(You can use metal reactors however they will need to be epoxy coated)
You know where they could be found?
Could you post a Link?
Thanks !
- By PNicole
For me, local contacts are the best for this but maybe not for you. I would buy from places that purchase and refurbish industrial process equipment. Many times they love cash deals because they purchased large lots at auctions from production facilities shutting down and not all the inventory is accounted for.
If you are looking to become serious, it would be wise to eventually become one of these providers yourself, or place someone in that role. It is actually a pretty good business. You will to find large auctions that are listed and they will allow you to take a tour of the facility to then place a bid. My guy was interested in generators and the lab glass was always looked at as an afterthought. It was almost free. I am talking about 22L, 50L flasks sometimes reactors, heidolph overhead mixers... etc
Some examples are on LabX. I am not necessarily recommending you buy from that site, I did many times but I was not in the USA and I had credible businesses to receive.
These guys selling used process equipment end up being contacted by police when their company info ends up being found in a busted drug lab. You have to keep that in mind and be careful.
I would be wary of buying brand new reactors and process equipment in developed countries like Canada and the USA. I knew an individual with proper licenses and a real business who purchased a $50,000+ Reactors from a Calgary, Alberta company and he was investigated and arrested. (Woking with extraction of ephedrine from ephedra)
That is why even a "cover" as some people believe can be an illusion. He paid by bank transfer from his business account and everything was above board. The company took his money, fulfilled his order and the info was passed on to police. To them this is simply a lead that is worth investigating.
The safest bet is to look at process equipment in the food/cosmetic space and non pharmaceutical. Basic mixing tanks are available in the milk/cheese and cosmetic products industry. They could be modified to fit your needs or they can be used as provided. They are really not expensive but not as resistant.
So when you are doing large scale, you want to avoid certain bottle necks like heat application and working under pressure, gas atmospheres etc.
That is why I find these ideas of catalytic hydrogenation for truly large scale amusing.
Now for P2NP -> P2P, perhaps done with NaBH4 or with Fe/HCl. The later will require heat. You can use a propane heater provided no solvents are around. If you get the water to around 80C, the addition of the acid will bring the Temp up anyway.
If you are entering this pilot plant world for the first time, get a metal open 220L drum which is epoxy coated, a drum heater, a drum dolly and a drum overhead mixer. You will also need a peristaltic pump and proper tubing.
Then you will need to see a machinist and try to have a the top modified to improve the flange as well as find a better O-ring that is chemical resistant. Or just have a new top made. You will have to have the mixing paddle coated with epoxy or made special to be able to move the Iron properly.
If you do not want to bother with all that, this system will work for Al/Hg reduction without mixing.
Again I get going and it ends in a blog.
PM me and I will give you a link for the drum and all accessories.
If you are looking to become serious, it would be wise to eventually become one of these providers yourself, or place someone in that role. It is actually a pretty good business. You will to find large auctions that are listed and they will allow you to take a tour of the facility to then place a bid. My guy was interested in generators and the lab glass was always looked at as an afterthought. It was almost free. I am talking about 22L, 50L flasks sometimes reactors, heidolph overhead mixers... etc
Some examples are on LabX. I am not necessarily recommending you buy from that site, I did many times but I was not in the USA and I had credible businesses to receive.
These guys selling used process equipment end up being contacted by police when their company info ends up being found in a busted drug lab. You have to keep that in mind and be careful.
I would be wary of buying brand new reactors and process equipment in developed countries like Canada and the USA. I knew an individual with proper licenses and a real business who purchased a $50,000+ Reactors from a Calgary, Alberta company and he was investigated and arrested. (Woking with extraction of ephedrine from ephedra)
That is why even a "cover" as some people believe can be an illusion. He paid by bank transfer from his business account and everything was above board. The company took his money, fulfilled his order and the info was passed on to police. To them this is simply a lead that is worth investigating.
The safest bet is to look at process equipment in the food/cosmetic space and non pharmaceutical. Basic mixing tanks are available in the milk/cheese and cosmetic products industry. They could be modified to fit your needs or they can be used as provided. They are really not expensive but not as resistant.
So when you are doing large scale, you want to avoid certain bottle necks like heat application and working under pressure, gas atmospheres etc.
That is why I find these ideas of catalytic hydrogenation for truly large scale amusing.
Now for P2NP -> P2P, perhaps done with NaBH4 or with Fe/HCl. The later will require heat. You can use a propane heater provided no solvents are around. If you get the water to around 80C, the addition of the acid will bring the Temp up anyway.
If you are entering this pilot plant world for the first time, get a metal open 220L drum which is epoxy coated, a drum heater, a drum dolly and a drum overhead mixer. You will also need a peristaltic pump and proper tubing.
Then you will need to see a machinist and try to have a the top modified to improve the flange as well as find a better O-ring that is chemical resistant. Or just have a new top made. You will have to have the mixing paddle coated with epoxy or made special to be able to move the Iron properly.
If you do not want to bother with all that, this system will work for Al/Hg reduction without mixing.
Again I get going and it ends in a blog.
PM me and I will give you a link for the drum and all accessories.
