Apple method nicotine extraction experiment #0001

[Kibey]

I'm assuming that this e-smoke thing won't last long in many countries. Governments seem to be afraid of it. So I want to start making my own stuff (I like to be independent). I'm going to start with making my own e-liquid and then have a go at making home built e-cigarettes with nichrome wire. I'll document my experiments on this forum.


WARNING: Purified nicotine is DANGEROUS! A few drops on your skin can KILL you.


Here's the start of my first experiment.

Apple method nicotine extraction experiment #0001

What I've learned from others.
Nicotine is soluble in water. If you put tobacco in water the nicotine will leach out into the water. If you filter out the tobacco and boil off most of the water, you will end up with a concentrated nicotine solution.

The problem.
How do you filter out the tobacco?
When tobacco gets wet it swells and turns into a gluggy mess. Other peoples experiments have shown that coffee filters are inadequate to filter out the tobacco mess from the nicotine.

The solution.
A finer filter.
I will be attempting to use the skin of an apple and the natural process of osmosis to extract the nicotine from the gluggy tobacco mess.

What is osmosis?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osmosis

How does this apply to nicotine?
The tobacco solution has a high concentration of nicotine.
The apple has a low concentration of nicotine (none to start off with).
Nicotine easily absorbs into plants.

When the apple is submerged into the tobacco liquid, nicotine will filter through the skin into the apples water content. The apples nicotine concentration will rise and the tobacco solution nicotine concentration will fall until they equal out. Once the apple and tobacco liquid have equal levels of nicotine concentration, osmosis will stop.

What to do with the poison apple?
The apple will be removed from the liquid. Then the skin will be washed thoroughly and the apple will be chopped up and blended. The juice will be extracted then heated and most of the water content will be boiled off leaving a very high nicotine concentration of apple juice.



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EXPERIMENT BEGINS
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I took about 50 grams of roll your own type tobacco and immersed it into 250ml of plain tap water.


I then brought this to the boil (barely simmering) and turned off the heat and allowed the solution to cool.


I placed an apple (approximately 250cc in volume, so that is fairly equal to the volume of the solution) into a smallish container and covered the apple with the tobacco solution. (Note. I have left all the tobacco solids in the solution)


The smallish container was covered and put safely away where is will do it's osmosis thing for one week.

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EXPERIMENT CONTINUES NEXT WEEK
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[TropicalBob]

Kibey: If you don't post next week ... we'll think you killed yourself!

Good experiment. I had come across the apple-osmosis theory in researching how to extract nicotine and tobacco flavor. Glad you're doing a real-world test.

Now ... how do you accurately determine the strength of the extracted nicotine, so you don't overdose? Good work.

P.S. Do wear latex or rubber gloves as you work with the apple.

[dnakr]

I read this too and was going to try it but decided to wait until someone else tried it because of this quote:

Next, I took one drop and put it on my skin to make a patch. Whow! One drop turned out to be a overdose. I started showing all the signs of a small overdose.

If I try it - it will definitely be with only 1 can of tobacco.

Keep us updated on how it goes. It would be wonderful if it worked and if it does, I wonder if a potato could be used instead of an apple.

[accordeur]

VERY interesting!!! Let us know how it works out!!!

[bishybob]

Or Celery!
Anyone ever do that thing when you're a kid where you put celery in water with food coloring and you can see where it travels up the stalk...

We could have all different fruit flavored e-liquid.

mmm sweet potato flavored liquid. With a bit of smoke flavoring.

[jdrancor]

It sounds good. I'm very excited to see your results!

My only concern is the sugar content of the apple, and the resultant caramelization upon heating. But I wonder if this will even be a problem.

Please keep us posted! VERY EXCITING.

[Kibey]

Day 1: Trapped on a tropical island. The native women seem friendly. The apple is still an apple.

I expected the apple to be all nicotine stained or something. But no, it appears to be the exact same color as before. I wonder what it looks like inside? I just have to wait.


Accurately determine the strength of the extracted nicotine?
I have no idea how to do this. I'll have to do some more researching. Any ideas anyone?

I think in theory this should work with any kind of fruit or veg matter. The Thai here have some kind of parsnip-looking vegetable. They soak this veggie in very salty water for one week, then chop it up and dry it. The dried veg thing is then used as a salt substitute in soups. Nicotine is a type of salt so it should work well. I think I'm gonna try it for the next experiment.

I used an apple and plain tap water this time so I'll have something to compare my other experiments to. This is kinda like the control experiment.

[accordeur]

I am really interested in this. Please keep us updated. The only problem I can see (if the apple indeed absorbed nicotine) is how you will be able to filter it enough not to clog and ruin atomizers. I sure hope it works. I triple filtered smoke juice and mixed it with pure PG from Bickford's. Here is a picture. Most of the particulates seem to have settled at the bottom. I wonder if it would be safe to use the top part.

[dnakr]

Try it. It appears yours is even lighter in color then mine was after I filtered. See what happens and let us know.

[TropicalBob]

I'd certainly use it. If you feel your atomizer is dirtied after vaporizing this, give it a bath at the end of the day. I was happy to read Ludo's suggestions elsewhere on maintaining our hardware.