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A handy microsublimator can be made by taking a large test-tube with a side arm hooked up to a vacuum line, inserting a smaller test tube in it using a rubber stopper with a large hole bored into it (to accommodate the smaller test tube). The smaller test tube should be fitted with a two-holed rubber stopper and two pieces of glass tubing, one longer than the other and extending nearly to the bottom of the tube, while the other just enters its top. Water is run into the longer piece of tubing and drained via the shorter piece, creating a ‘cold-finger' upon which sublimed material can condense. Alternately dry-ice and either acetone or methanol could be used to cool the cold-finger.

To operate, simply heat under an appropriate level of vacuum while chilling the cold-finger as just described.

[Be careful when doing this procedure; evacuated vessels are potential fragmentary bombs.]

To recover alkaloids: disassemble and scrape, or dissolve, the alkaloid(s) off the outside of the small test-tube.