Atomizer Wire and Health Concerns

druckle;14905414 said:

I've spent 32 years developing metallic materials for turbine engines and my wife is in medical technology. After reading through this whole thread we've become concerned about the amount of misinformation being presented as fact.

In many ways it's understandable that folks who are into vaping would be more concerned about potential health issues than the average person. After all we have found vaping as a way to improve our health after many years of smoking burning tobacco. Why would we not be highly concerned about health? Still, misplaced health concerns may frighten folks who do not have relevant knowledge and harm the image and future of this great smoking cessation technology. I hope that does not happen.

The three metallic materials most often discussed for atomizer wire seem to be Kanthal (what material scientists generically refer to as FeCrAlY), pure Nickel and Titanium. Having spent my life doing detailed studies and development in each of these material classes my opinion is that none of them present any health hazard when used as atomizer wire. Not low risk but absolutely NO risk. Under other conditions which cannot be created in a vapers atomizer any of them could be found to be hazerdous to some degree. It's a dumb analogy in many ways but many of us live in wood houses with no particular concern but we do become concerned when the house is burning around us. The key is not to allow the house to burn. The next thing to remember is that most common metals can be made to burn. All it takes is to make the particles of the metal small enough, provide oxygen at the right pressure and provide the proper temperature.

Given the right conditons iron burns, nickel burns aluminum burns and titanium burns. None of these metals will burn in a vaping atomizer because the right conditons are impossible to create in an atomizer. None of these materials can be caused to emit harmful species during normal vaping because the conditions that could cause them to do so are impossible to create in our atomizers.

Kanthal, pure nickel and titanium each have special properties which make them potentially good atomizer wire materials, yet all are different and all will provide a different vaping experience.

Personally I use all three wire types in different atomizers, with different power supply devices to meet different goals I have for a specific vaping conditions.

I would like to see folks pay more attention to the unique qualities of each of the wire materials in vaping rather than focus on health concerns which cannot be created in our atomizers. I think that would be better for the future of vaping if it could happen.

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