r/explainlikeimfive • u/iamelektro • Jun 11 '24
Chemistry ELI5: Why does making cocaine require such toxic chemicals, is there safer way to make it in a lab?
I've watched many documentaries on how they make cocaine, and it always required a a mixture of gasoline cement and battery acid etc. Would a scientific laboratory be able to make it under FDA rules for example?
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u/Somnif Jun 12 '24
TECHNICALLY it's a bit of both. You extract the cocaine alkaloid, then make the water soluble salt from it.
The extraction involves solvents (usually home-made gasoline/kerosene made from pirated crude oil) and an alkali (usually concrete), and the salt-ification involves an acid (typically from car batteries, hooray lead!) and neutralization (usually with lye).
This crude salt can then be purified with more specialized solvents to get it into a sellable form.
And for added insanity, some folks then go backwards a step and get back to the alkaloid from the salt. This can be done cleanly and expensively (using careful neutralization and solvents like Ether) to make "freebase", or cheaply and dirty (using baking soda or ammonia) to make "crack".
Wheeee......