Rinsing chemicals out of atomisers (or not)

[exogenesis]

Some info about the effectiveness of rinsing chemicals out of atomizers:

Basically atomizers are difficult things to rinse properly:

Using an Atomizer soaked in 1% fluorescein dye for 1 hour:

The below picture shows successive water rinses:
shake atty out hard, till no more liquid comes out, drop in 75ml water, swirl 5 mins.



On the face of it a quickly reducing level of dye,
the 4th flask from the left looks similar to water (5th from left)

So it's practically all been rinsed out ?, 'fraid not:
2nd from right flask is after 8 hours sitting, quite a lot more has diffused out.

Far right flask is after rinsing another atty hard for a minute under a tap,
with vigorous shake-outs (excessive rinsing right ?),
then left in water for 8 hours. Quite a bit of dye still there as well


Here's a more quantitative test, using pH to measure phosphoric acid.

Left 2 atomizers in 53% w/w phos.acid (H3PO4) overnight, then tried two rinsing methods,
the objective being to measure the 'hold up' of acid in the metal mesh & atty voids.

1
Did a 'under the tap' rinse, 1 min with fast water, turning atty all ways round,
with several vigorous shakes along the way.
This is what I'd call the damned obvious way of rinsing.
But I’ve always left the rinsed atty overnight in a glass of water,
to diffuse out any residual acid, not sure everyone does.

2
A more controlled sequence of 'drain, shake hard, then 5 min soak in 50 ml water' steps.
Finally step left overnight

So how much acid is left in the atty ?

1:
After the tap rinse, and putting the atty into 50 ml water, the pH showed
that the equivalent of 0.002 ml of the acid was immediately released.
If the atty was say an easily rinsable tube that would
have been zero within seconds of the tap rinse start.
After leaving overnight an equivalent of 0.008 ml of the acid had been released,
that's getting up there a bit, thats 0.06 moles of acid that was still in the atty.

If the overnight soak hadn't been done, but the atty had just been drained & used
there would be enough retained acid to turn 0.3 ml of 36mg/ml juice from freebase
to salt-form nicotine. i.e. approx. your first 50 draws on the e-cig would be acid contaminated
(& effectively nack'd), probably more cos it would come out as a reducing curve
rather than a clean juice wash-though (if you see what I mean).

So overnight soak after rinse is a must!

2

 
Rinse               carry over volume (ml)
1                            0.099
2                            0.0041
3                            0.0030
4                            0.0016
5                            0.0011
6                           <0.0004
7                        (almost zero)
8                            (zero)
(15 hours soak) 9           0.0024 

What this shows is that it’s a sloooow diffusion of the acid into the soaking water,
All those tiny passages in the metal mesh probably, almost designed to be un-rinsable.

Further details in this spread sheet:
(for the other OCD people here , &/or if anyone wants to check my calculations)
http://www.Exogenesis.co.uk/AtomiserRinsing.xls


How many people use the 'ice-machine cleaner' method for cleaning
atomizers, & are they doing effective rinses ?
(answers on a postcard).

[Scottes]

Good info Exo. Thanks for doing this experiment.

[exogenesis]

Cheers Scottes, it was quite 'fun' really.


btw after pontificating about safety & such,
got caught out myself doing this.

After being careful with the acids & alkali's involved,
I forgot about the dangers of naked UV lamps & I've
managed to 'sun-burn' the suface of my eyes while
trying to get the dye to fluoresce.

I woke up in the middle of the night with pretty painful corneas,.
seems to be receding now, luckily, bit bloodshot though.

Oh well, live & learn.

[SwaggTech]

You'll be fine, you might have some burning during the day when you blink or close your eyes, but it'll be minor. Your eyes heal quite rapidly in your sleep.

[kno]

explains alot

i let mine site for 2 days in dish detergent then boiled them and set them out overnight
im still doing non inhale puffs on the second atty - im thinkin another 2 nights worht of soaking are in order - no dish liquid

horrible horrible idea

dont be stupid like me

[JamieJ]

thanks SO VERY MUCH Exo! I most of the time I was rinsing in water and soaking for a few hours....I WILL be soaking for 24 now. Very very helpful

[exogenesis]

Glad this helps, must admit the degree of carry over surprised me as well.

Certainly shows why it's difficult to get a strongly flavoured juice's taste out
when switching to a different flavour.

Was thinking of doing this again with strongly acidified glycerol
just to see if it's even worse with a viscous liquid (suspect so).

Eyes are OK now thanks , they were sore for most of the next day tho,
actually I think I've got slightly clearer vision which is odd.

[Tanner S Hyde]

What about forced flow? I find that when switching flavors I use a simple forced flow device:
1. PGA in shot glass
2. Silicone ring from carto (fits in carto, 901, and 510 that I know of)
3. Syringe tip inserted into silicone ring.
Dip the atty in question into the PGA and use the syringe to draw and expel maybe 10-15 times, blow the atty out, lay it on a napkin.

After about ten minutes or so the atty is dry enough to prime and vape, and most flavors come completely out with this method.

My question: What changes would take place in the OP's test if forced flow rinsing was incorporated?

[exogenesis]

Your method looks good for efficient use of PGA, and I'd guess when switching flavours
it's not really a prob. if a little of the old flavour is left over.

These tests were to see if any residue of 'nasty cleaning fluids' was left after rinsing.

There was a forced flow test in the above tests -
the force of a strong tap water flow hitting the open end for one minute,
loads of water pushed through, maybe a few x 100 ml ?,
but it still needed an overnight soak to leach out the acid.

[sjohnson]

What about ultrasonic cleaning? *Sounds* like a fast path to removal, but is it?