Any interest in determining nicotine--by DVAP

[DVap]

Bears,

The tobacco itself would give perhaps, total alkaloids.. mostly nicotine. Though with cigarette tobacco, I know they're good for lacing it with fun stuff like ammonia to push the nicotine towards the free base form. The ammonia itself would affect this sort of procedure.

The thing you have to look out for is the fact that any sort of determination involving a complex matrix (tobacco, snus, etc), involves extraction from that matrix, and then extraction efficiency becomes a factor. E-liquid, on the other hand, is a relatively simple matrix.

[bearscreek]

I see what you're saying. Oh well, I'm at least glad to see that you had some success with your nic liquids. Be sure and let us know when you repeat the one that came out way low.

[DVap]

Hey bears,

I hate it when some guy says something and it gets me thinking...

Anyway, I hope you folks find this interesting. I know there are threads here and there where folks salivate about the kind of stuff in this post.

I got to thinking I had nothing better to do this evening/morning... my fiancee was asleep, and I was bored. I went out and bought a pack of Marlboro Reds and set up shop in the prep lab next door to my instrument lab. I got the tobacco out of the cigarettes, pulverized it, and did some extractions to the point where I'd essentially isolated and concentrated the tobacco alkaloids from the matrix (tobacco).

This is probably greater than 90% nicotine, with some nornicotine, anabasine, anabatine, and a couple dozen other tobacco alkaloids, plus a few unknowns that I'd really rather not think about.

alkaloids.jpg

Don't ask for any hints.

That's around a tenth of a mL (100 microliters). Those are my fingertips in the green gloves (for scale). It titrated out to 105 mg of tobacco alkaloids (as nicotine). This could kill a person. I probably recovered half the nicotine, I would expect 200 mg or so in a pack of Reds, but the horrible emulsion I ran into really took a toll.

The next series of steps that actually isolates pure nicotine from the other alkaloids and impurities, I will not attempt, I want to live.

I extracted one pack of cigarettes, I know exactly what I'd doing, I have the appropriate equipment, facilities, and training. This was an ugly extraction. I haven't seen an emulsion this bad in my 20+ years on the job... and that was just ONE pack of cigarettes. Oh, it was 4 hours spent in a professional laboratory environment. At the recovery I got (~50%), it would take a CARTON of cigarettes to make 30 mL of 36 mg e-liquid and God only knows how much time. If anyone tries it at home, they stand a 100% chance of making a horrible mess, half a chance of perhaps getting something that can be mixed into e-liquid if they're daring, and a significantly greater than 0% chance of getting themselves killed.

If anyone goes on about needing to be able to make their own nicotine from cigarettes in case e-liquid gets banned. Do them a favor, tell them to buy e-liquid in bulk and freeze it.

[me who]

Awesome post DVape

What's this mention of freezing?
What's your opinion on the best long term storage practice and expected shelf life?

Hey bears,

I hate it when some guy says something and it gets me thinking...

Anyway, I hope you folks find this interesting. I know there are threads here and there where folks salivate about the kind of stuff in this post.

I got to thinking I had nothing better to do this evening/morning... my fiancee was asleep, and I was bored. I went out and bought a pack of Marlboro Reds and set up shop in the prep lab next door to my instrument lab. I got the tobacco out of the cigarettes, pulverized it, and did some extractions to the point where I'd essentially isolated and concentrated the tobacco alkaloids from the matrix (tobacco).

This is probably greater than 90% nicotine, with some nornicotine, anabasine, anabatine, and a couple dozen other tobacco alkaloids, plus a few unknowns that I'd really rather not think about.

Attachment 4194

Don't ask for any hints.

That's around a tenth of a mL (100 microliters). It titrated out to 105 mg of tobacco alkaloids (as nicotine). This could kill a person. I probably recovered half the nicotine, I would expect 200 mg or so in a pack of Reds, but the horrible emulsion I ran into really took a toll.

The next series of steps that actually isolates pure nicotine from the other alkaloids and impurities, I will not attempt, I want to live.

I extracted one pack of cigarettes, I know exactly what I'd doing, I have the appropriate equipment, facilities, and training. This was an ugly extraction. I haven't seen an emulsion this bad in my 20+ years on the job... and that was just ONE pack of cigarettes. Oh, it was 4 hours spent in a professional laboratory environment. At the recovery I got (~50%), it would take a CARTON of cigarettes to make 30 mL of 36 mg e-liquid and God only knows how much time. If anyone tries it at home, they stand a 100% chance of making a horrible mess, half a chance of perhaps getting something that can be mixed into e-liquid if they're daring, and a significantly greater than 0% chance of getting themselves killed.

If anyone goes on about needing to be able to make their own nicotine from cigarettes in case e-liquid gets banned. Do them a favor, tell them to buy e-liquid in bulk and freeze it.

[motorcity57]

1 of the first posts i made on this forum, many months ago was is there any way to test nic level in a juice. guess what yours is the first answer.
i'm no scientist, math is not my strong suit. unless i'm counting money , lol. i commend you for all the work you have done. the more simple you can make it, the better. in fact, if you could put together a nic test kit, for the right price i would be first in line to buy one .
anyway i will be following this thread from now on, even if i don't understand half of the stuff. thx

[DVap]

Awesome post DVape

What's this mention of freezing?
What's your opinion on the best long term storage practice and expected shelf life?

I really don't have anything solid that says freezing bulk e-liquid will help the shelf-life; It's nothing more that a hunch based on the fact that chemically, things happen more slowly when it's colder. I'll see if I can't come up with something more definite.

[bearscreek]

Wow! Thank you very much. That confirms my hunches about many things.

(On a side note, you must have a Ph.D. What is your specialty?)

[DVap]

bears,

Nope, got my B.S. in Chemistry back in 1987.
(I love how having a B.S. degree sounds, btw!)

I started with organic chemical research when I in college, graduated and worked on extractions of various classes of organic pollutants for a couple years, then gas chromatography analyzing those same pollutants for the next 5 years, then 5 more years analyzing organic air pollutants by GC/MS, and for the past decade I've been analyzing trace dioxin/PCB contaminants by high resolution GC/MS.

I've spent my whole career working with stuff that wants me dead and I've been trained accordingly. Even so, I still wasn't willing to do any more with that pack of Marlboro's than I did there. The laboratory is just not set up for the next series of steps (and I've not none some of the procedures since college), and the odds of killing myself or unknowingly leaving a residue that might kill someone else were, in my opinion, greater than 1%.

[DVap]

if you could put together a nic test kit, for the right price i would be first in line to buy one .

My total lack of entrepreneurial spirit assures that's not likely to happen.

As a mental exercise, such a kit would contain a ten mL graduated vial with a cap to allow shaking, a 50 mL bottle of distilled water (with a dropped top), a 50 mL bottle of 0.1N acid (also with a dropper top), and a 30 mL bottle of the bromothymol blue solution (also with a dropper top).

The instructions would read:

1. add e-liquid to the 1 mL mark.
2. add 2 drops BTB solution.
3. add distilled water to the 3 mL mark, cap and shake gently.
4. add acid drop-wise with swirling to mix.
5. watch the color, it will go from blue, to green, to pale green, to yellow green, to yellow.
6. compare the volume of acid to your handy reference card for nicotine content.

[bearscreek]

Well, I must say that you've done well. I got a degree in chemistry a couple of years after you (after first getting one in psychology, of all things), but I must say that you can blow me right out of the water, although I really didn't work in the field for more than a few years. Anyway, thanks a ton for your knowledge, and don't go away any time soon.