by Iskander » Sat Mar 22, 2008 10:53 am
I can't get what you folks are talking about... Cathinone cannot "oxidise" to cathine. It is a ketone (beta-ketoamphetamine) and cathine is an alcohol (beta-hydroxyamphetamine). It is cathine which can be oxidised to cathinone, and the reverse is reduction. It's yet unknown what happens to cathinone. I suppose that it's either enzymatically reduced to cathine (upon damage to plant tissue) or that it is by itself active enough oxidiser to get reduced by whatever reductant accessible. Maybe it by itself disproportionates into cathine and some other compound.
In either way air is of no concern IMHO. Still it would be interesting to isolate (given the legality of the aforenamed substances) pure cathinone in salt form, store it for one year and see if there's been any loss of potency. Also, if the sum of alkaloids has been extracted from the plant, cathine must be easily converted to cathinone via the same route as ephedrine to methcathinone, by permanganate in acidic solution. It's unlikely that salt of cathinone is receptive to further oxidisation.