(Kratom) mitragynine till 7-Hydroxymitragynine

Mitragynine to 7-oh-mitragynine via oxone oxidation

1. 18g of high quality kratom alkaloid was dissolved in acetone (31% mitragynine, 66% overall alkaloid content. The other 35% was composed of the other 3 major kratom alkaloids, speciogynine, corynantheidine, and paynantheine, which will also be oxidized to their corresponding 7-oh alkaloid).
2. To this was added about 50ml of saturated aqueous sodium bicarbonate, followed by 18g of aqueous oxone.
3. The mixture was stirred for an hour and then diluted with 5x the volume of water.
4. This was thoroughly mixed with ethyl acetate and allowed to separate into 2 layers, the ethyl acetate organic layer on top.
5. The ethyl acetate was separated using a separatory funnel.
6. Steps 4 and 5 were repeated twice.
7. The combined ethyl acetate was allowed to evaporate yielding approximately 10g of oxidized kratom alkaloid as an orange powder.

The video above is the ethyl acetate containing the alkaloids on top of the diluted reaction mixture. The fluorescent green hue in certain lighting shows the presence of nitrogen containing alkaloids. The product can further be converted into mitragynine pseudoindoxyl using sodium metal and dry methanol but it is more involved, dangerous and low yielding. Though the pseudo indoxyl is a full mu opioid agonist and should be worthwhile if the procedure can be improved.