So - are we getting it or are we not - nicotine

[kinabaloo]

Could well be useful. Back when I used to brew, I would use powdered Polyvinylpyrrolidone (Polyclar) to settle out polyphenols. One might expect a significantly longer settling period due to the viscosity of PG/VG containing mixtures.

Agreed that distillation would preclude nonvolatile plant material. Not sure how the technical challenges of doing a distillation would be addressed by the non-technical though. The greatest danger, as I see it: Pissed-off wives!

Finings might prove a simpler solution that still goes further than just normal filtering.

If one thinks of tea - before adding milk tea can look very clear even though there are tannins present. So it is most likely that the tannins are not in suspension but too small to create a visible haze but are dissolved.

Wikipedia backs this up: While hydrolyzable tannins and most condensed tannins are water soluble, some very large condensed tannins are insoluble.

Finings should work even on dissolved tannins - it's just a chemical reaction after all.

~~~

Some tanins and other polyphenols remain in bottled wine, however, so might need to explore a range of finings to see which would work best for our needs. Wine finings would be a good first try though. Perhaps it is mostly the long-chain ones that we need to worry about (predominantly the non-dissolvable one) which might be cleared by the slowly descending gel. Perhaps an enzyme like pectinase could be helpful also, as a first step.

Later: Isinglass (a type of collagen) will act on dissolved tannins. To retain some tanins winemakers use a minimal amount of isinglass. So this looks a good bet. For an amount such as 100ml, perhaps 5 hours or so required for it to work its magic. A taller rather than wider vessel is to be preferred; and a transparent one at that.

~~~

Further, I wonder if enzymes employed during the extration phase could help yield more useful alkaloids by breaking down cell walls consisting of pectin and cellulose? Typically plants are about 30% cellulose (cotton is 90% cellulose).

Whereas pectinase can be aquired at a wine-making shop, the enzymes for cellulolysis might be harder to come by: cellulases and glucosidases.

[kinabaloo]

I'm signing-off from the forums now. I might come back at the end of the year for a peek; maybe not. Until last week I was away about 8 months but almost nothing has progressed much in that time (not even mods and new atomiser designs, which I have also been interested in). So it's kind of the end of the line for me.

Despite the fact that the issues are IMO damn important as many hundreds of millions of people still smoke and many of those will die early because of it, and the need therefore for an effective alternative that encmpasses more of those wishing to quit the burning of tobacco, there just doesn't seem to be much interest. I wish I had the time to pursue it more by myself but I don't. Without active collaboration and checking back only to find no posts makes me feel I'm wasting time I could spend on other things. In the Tobacco extraction threads elsewhere also next to nothing for about a year.

I devote quite a bit of time to a travel website :

Beijing Buzzz: events, places, news, travel, videos, photos ... Your guide to China

where there is a feedback link; feel free to contact me via that if anything new arises in the tobacco extraction, something-missing, absorption/efficiency, safety and related areas. (I made a start at transforming VapingBuzzz into a similar video-based site, but not sure if I will invest more into that at the moment).

I am happy to have contributed to vaping in the fields of e-liquid dry residues as atomiser deposits and potential dangers of, the 'something missing' angle and what that might be, that vaping should not be seen as a new drug and thereby be banned, PCM and temperature controlled atomisers, direct feed atomiser design, proposed ink-jet technology as an alternative liquid feed system, and generally (i hope) been a measured voice in assessment of real dangers and relative benefits.

Here's to vaping, one of the most important health related developments of our time.

[boz]

Bye kin,

It's been nice working with you, shame to see you go. I'm currently taking a step back before I take my next run up, so I'm not gone, just resting.

Hope something does break and we see you back.

Cheers,
John

[BCB]

I'm posting for another member: From tceight:

information for "what are we missing" thread

greetings all. A long time lurker, and vaping for a couple months. I've been following the 'what are we missing' , 'beta carbolines' and 'WTA' associated threads.

Followers of these threads may be interested in these articles I found, and if so could you repost in the appropriate thread as I am unable to as a new poster.

Science News, may 7 1994
".....When pressing the lever delivered only saltwater, the animals gave themselves about 8 doses a day. But when it delivered 8 micrograms of acetaldehyde per kilogram of body weight ([mu]g/kg) -- the rat equivalent of what a person could receive from smoking one cigarette -- the animals upped their daily intake to some 240 doses. When offered nicotine, the rats gave themselves 90 doses a day. However, when given the choice of a cigarette's worth of nicotine and acetaldehyde, the animals self-administered 400 doses a day."


and this one from Neuropsychopharmacol, 2007

"This review evaluates the presumed contribution of acetaldehyde to tobacco smoke addiction. In rodents, acetaldehyde induces reinforcing effects, and acts in concert with nicotine. Harman and salsolinol, condensation products of acetaldehyde and biogenic amines, may be responsible for the observed reinforcing effect of acetaldehyde. Harman and salsolinol inhibit monoamine oxidase (MAO), and some MAO-inhibitors are known to increase nicotine self-administration and maintain behavioural sensitization to nicotine. Harman is formed in cigarette smoke, and blood harman levels appear to be 2-10 times higher compared to non-smokers. Since harman readily passes the blood-brain barrier and has sufficient MAO-inhibiting potency, it may contribute to the lower MAO-activity observed in the brain of smokers. In contrast, the minor amounts of salsolinol that can be formed in vivo most likely do not contribute to tobacco addiction. Thus, acetaldehyde may increase the addictive potential of tobacco products via the formation of acetaldehyde-biogenic amine adducts in cigarette smoke and/or in vivo, but further research is necessary to substantiate this hypothesis."

This is probably nothing 'new' to the experts out there, but does tend to support the harman alkaloid approach by those experimenting with Passion Flower extracts.
Thanks to all those researching and sharing their results in these areas!

[jamesam1243]

The Devil made me do it!

am i addicted to some product of combustion?

bearing in mind that i am an old nicotine fiend and even my 40 full flavor cigs do not really satisfy me any more

nothing i have tried has worked well for me

i macerated several cigarette butts and extracted the juice by putting in a syringe and forcing the juice out. it is quite thick.

17:20 took 1 drop of ECB (extract of macerated cigarette butt) ( do not swallow )

now have no desire for cigarettes

so powerful that it numbs your face

19:44 still get facial numbing from 12mg ejuice

19:54 when i vape 12mg ejuice i get a cigarette craving but if i vape 0mg ejuice it goes away

20:45 ECB seems to be wearing off now

21:30 still no desire for a cigarette if i vape TV AC 0mg, 4 hrs since ECB

22:22 ECB seems to be wearing off now

22:27 vaping 12 mg still seems to make my face a little numb

23:12 vaping 12 no mg longer makes my face numb so ECB effect is not obvious at 6 hours, but still no real urges for cigarettes (any urge i have can be easily satified by vaping 0mg ejuice)

so am i addicted to some product of combustion? these results were very unique

James

August 01 smoked 01 cigs, 39 less than my usual 40 cigs a day 3122 cigarettes not smoked in 90 days by using Stonewall, Joye 510, Hello 016, Ken's BoxMod, MadVapes 2xAA Box Mod, WetBox Vaporizer (ecig) and 19 bottles of ejuice partially used , $0.28 per cig X 3122 Cigs = $874.16 diverted from cigarettes to Vaporizer (ecig). OMG I have spent over $1671.51 in 74 days on this stuff but bare in mind that my old cigarette cost was $330 a month and i have $790 in supplies so $880 in hardware and consumed ejuice

[kinabaloo]

The Devil made me do it!

am i addicted to some product of combustion?

bearing in mind that i am an old nicotine fiend and even my 40 full flavor cigs do not really satisfy me any more

nothing i have tried has worked well for me

i macerated several cigarette butts and extracted the juice by putting in a syringe and forcing the juice out. it is quite thick.

17:20 took 1 drop of ECB (extract of macerated cigarette butt) ( do not swallow )

now have no desire for cigarettes

so powerful that it numbs your face

19:44 still get facial numbing from 12mg ejuice

19:54 when i vape 12mg ejuice i get a cigarette craving but if i vape 0mg ejuice it goes away

20:45 ECB seems to be wearing off now

21:30 still no desire for a cigarette if i vape TV AC 0mg, 4 hrs since ECB

22:22 ECB seems to be wearing off now

22:27 vaping 12 mg still seems to make my face a little numb

23:12 vaping 12 no mg longer makes my face numb so ECB effect is not obvious at 6 hours, but still no real urges for cigarettes (any urge i have can be easily satified by vaping 0mg ejuice)

so am i addicted to some product of combustion? these results were very unique

James

August 01 smoked 01 cigs, 39 less than my usual 40 cigs a day 3122 cigarettes not smoked in 90 days by using Stonewall, Joye 510, Hello 016, Ken's BoxMod, MadVapes 2xAA Box Mod, WetBox Vaporizer (ecig) and 19 bottles of ejuice partially used , $0.28 per cig X 3122 Cigs = $874.16 diverted from cigarettes to Vaporizer (ecig). OMG I have spent over $1671.51 in 74 days on this stuff but bare in mind that my old cigarette cost was $330 a month and i have $790 in supplies so $880 in hardware and consumed ejuice

Interesting.

Makes sense that nic lquid wuld increase desire for a cig in the 'something missing' group as it is associated with the something missing.

Have you tried with fresh tobacco (perhaps from a cig) rather than butts, to compare ?

[jamesam1243]

on August 1:
08:12 maceration 10 old + 10 new cigs

40 ml water
40 ml TVT
20 ml TVT

total 100 ml

retrieved about 60 ml juice from this, the water appears to have evaporated during heating or is still bound in the pulp

Tasty Vapor's Tobacco seems about the same, is vapable and taste a bit better

i use a lot of Geoff's stuff

4 Oz. Doublers » Tobacco $15.00
This is our own tobacco maceration made from Virginia/Burley/Oriental tobacco. Steeped for a week, strained, clarified and finished with a few choice additives. This is a very aromatic, natural and flavorful liquid. When ordering please keep in mind, this is NOT a concentrated flavoring, therefore, at 48mg, the tobacco taste is rather diminished. This natural product tastes its best in 24mg and lower concentrations.


i use a lot of this

James

[boz]

OK, having vaped for 3 months now I can definitely say that I believe that nicotine is not as addictive as we are made to believe. I have tried 0 Nic juice and it gives the same useless effect as high Nic juices. So IMO the tobacco companies have pulled a shifty and the only thing that is addictive is whatevere additives they have put into it.

I could easily not vape again, but I'd still be craving the added crap that BT have put into cigarettes in order to addict their victims. That's right, victims, because BT are the ones that have created the addicts. Why are people that are vaping the so called "highly addictive" nicotine finding that they are still craving for that extra that the evil nicotine doesn't have? Simple, BT over the decades have conspired and concocted a formula way beyond simple nicotine designed to addict people to their products.

The whole thing stinks and the sooner someone manages to isolate what we are missing and makes it into a safe, vapable liquid that we can all use to satisfy our "real" addiction the better. It just makes me so mad when I think about it. Those stinking bastards are murdering people when they could easily manufacture something that would satisfy people without killing them. I spit on BT.

[Katya]

Uneverno,

We've all suspected something like this for quite a while. Judging from the studies I've seen and from my own experience, I agree with you that nicotine alone is a quite benign substance, probably no more addictive than coffee or tea. There is something in cigarettes that makes nicotine highly addictive, and it's not just the MAO inhibitors (even though those do play a role). Have you noticed that pipe and cigar smokers have a much easier time quitting the habit than cigarette smokers do? I suspect that BT never messed with cigar and pipe tobaccos like they did with cigs.

One of the theories I came across was that adding ammonia to cigarettes changes the nicotine delivery patterns and turns it it into something like crack nicotine, if you will, somehow. Just a theory, mind you, but an interesting one.

Whatever it is, it's not just the nicotine. If it were, the NRT would work, wouldn't it?

[jamesam1243]

i see that kinabaloo posted this kind of stuff in Beta Carboline MAOIs - towards a more effective e-liquid #1 on 11-14-2009, 01:53 PM , boy am i behind