Agreed, unless cotton was abrasive enough to remove it from the inside (which I'm not convinced of)
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Coil under electron microscope
- Thread starter Alien Traveler
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This is what I am doing, "bathing" the coil overnight, but I do not dry burn it afterwards. No idea if it is better in any way, I just never trusted dry burn so instead I reduced flavor instead to a really tiny amount. Of course, I cannot verify if it is better in any way.
Yes, I am pretty confident contaminations are not from cotton. I used Japanese cotton, KGD, and spectrum is below. Only O and C were detected (Au and Pd are from my coating).
Too much debris to come from trace contaminations.seems more likely the metals would come from trace contaminants
in the coil itself.
regards
mike
The most probable source - juice.
You forgot H! Only kidding. Good job on thinking this experiment through. I'm a bit surprised to find that many inorganics, presumably from juice. I was getting ready to start DIY since gravimetric dilutions are part of my daily routine. Looks like you just expedited the process for me!
Again, thanks for you help!
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H and He do not produce X-rays, too simple atoms, just one orbital. No kidding.
or from the coil getting in the juice.
have you tested the juice alone?
regards
mike
Well, if you compare fresh wire, which has never been fired, to wire which has been fired once, I would suspect that the oxide layer would already have gotten much thicker. It would be interesting to see the spectrographic analysis including the "Fired Once" case.
However, for the EM photographs, this is clearly not something coming off the coil. The exposed areas of the coil still appear to be as smooth as the original. Seeing extra scale left over from vaping e-liquid really shouldn't surprise anybody, it's entirely dependent on how the coil was cleaned and what was in the e-liquid. The visible scale is clearly loosely attached to the wire (and also is clearly not coming from the wire, but is residual gunk from the e-liquid).
Not sure what this is trying to show, and I am particularly confused by "Looks like poorly sintered ceramic". Where is the SI coming from? (I suspect this was done using a silica wick, which would explain a lot).
It's distressing to me to see this kind of "Scientific" data put out, without enough details to understand what is really going on. To me it seems quite possible that the flaky material is stuff that rubbed off of a silica wick - and the wicking material was NOT spectrographically tested (or at least you didn't show the results). Was the wick dry-burned, and then pulled out after dry-burning? Would explain a lot.
The smoking gun is the high concentration of silicon. Points right at the wicking material, and exactly in the other direction from either the coil wire or the juice.
That was the point of my joke. Sorry, not sure I conveyed it very well.
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Sorry, I did not conveyed my understanding. I just wanted to add a bit of explanation to your professional joke (we are not on X-ray professional forum, we are on vaping professional forum).
I am so sorry I made you distressed.
But please let me know who promised you full research? I do not remember I was paid for vaping-related research (and such a research is quite costly, just buying instrumentation time alone will cost a lot).
May be I should explain what was my intention in more detail:
In slow summer time I wanted to spend an hour to satisfy my (and hopefully other vapers) curiosity on some facts from life of a coil.
Nope. It was cotton wick, its spectrum was posted on the same page as your post, just a few posts above yours.
Alien Traveler,
I apologize if I come across as contentious, I very much appreciate scientific data, but without the right context, it's impossible to figure out what the implications are.
The one question that this really raises is "Where is the silicon coming from"? It's not coming from the coil, it's extremely doubtful that it's coming from the e-liquid. It's really the odd symptom, that needs an explanation if we are going to figure out what the lower concentrations of other elements means.
Was this really done with a cotton wick, and there was never any glass wick involved, ever, either in the coil or the head?
The only other place I can imagine where SI could come from is if the e-liquid was etching silicon off of a glass tank, hard to imagine, but possible.
But, since there is such a high concentration of SI in the spectrograph, it's origin needs to be explained. These results really aren't consistent with a cotton wick in a head, vaping any imaginable kind of juice.
Can you find a pathway for the Silicon? Absent of that, the pathway for the other stuff is highly suspect.
I do appreciate your contributions to ECF, even though I don't always agree!
I apologize if I come across as contentious, I very much appreciate scientific data, but without the right context, it's impossible to figure out what the implications are.
The one question that this really raises is "Where is the silicon coming from"? It's not coming from the coil, it's extremely doubtful that it's coming from the e-liquid. It's really the odd symptom, that needs an explanation if we are going to figure out what the lower concentrations of other elements means.
Was this really done with a cotton wick, and there was never any glass wick involved, ever, either in the coil or the head?
The only other place I can imagine where SI could come from is if the e-liquid was etching silicon off of a glass tank, hard to imagine, but possible.
But, since there is such a high concentration of SI in the spectrograph, it's origin needs to be explained. These results really aren't consistent with a cotton wick in a head, vaping any imaginable kind of juice.
Can you find a pathway for the Silicon? Absent of that, the pathway for the other stuff is highly suspect.
I do appreciate your contributions to ECF, even though I don't always agree!
Besides liquid and a coil one needs air to produce vapor and nobody vapes (and would be allowed to) in chipindustry-standart cleanrooms. 
By putting FFP3 filters on the attys air intake, raidy found in 2011 that a big portion of the coilgunk origins from dust.
This should be the most plausible pathway for Si and the other elements found by the spectoscopy.
Woher kommt der Dreck im Verdampfer?
Short summary:
100ml tobaccojuice and 180ml of pure PG without filter made quite the same amount of crust on the coil while 200ml PG with filtered air left the coil in a nearly-new state.
By putting FFP3 filters on the attys air intake, raidy found in 2011 that a big portion of the coilgunk origins from dust.
This should be the most plausible pathway for Si and the other elements found by the spectoscopy.
Woher kommt der Dreck im Verdampfer?
Short summary:
100ml tobaccojuice and 180ml of pure PG without filter made quite the same amount of crust on the coil while 200ml PG with filtered air left the coil in a nearly-new state.
The air hypotheses is contradicted by newer observations in the same German forum made by a member who experimented with reduced flavoring and demonstrated that radically cutting the flavor in his liquid considerably reduced the gunk on his coil.
Coil and wick after about 30 ml liquid with "normal" flavoring
Coil and wick after 30 ml liquid with strongly reduced flavor
He is not the only one experiencing dramatic gunk reduction after flavor reduction or by vaping unflavored base, this is also demonstrated in the same thread.
I am not saying that ambient air has no influence at all, but the main factor seems to be flavor.
Coil and wick after about 30 ml liquid with "normal" flavoring
Coil and wick after 30 ml liquid with strongly reduced flavor
He is not the only one experiencing dramatic gunk reduction after flavor reduction or by vaping unflavored base, this is also demonstrated in the same thread.
I am not saying that ambient air has no influence at all, but the main factor seems to be flavor.
Best thread on this forum ever?
But I don't frequent some of the remote reaches of this forum, so I may have missed it.
I don't recall anyone ever finding anything that actually removes the "gunk" other than dry burning.
But I don't frequent some of the remote reaches of this forum, so I may have missed it.
Very interesting @Alien Traveler. Gunk buildup notwithstanding, it's encouraging to see the Aluminum oxide layer increasing in thickness with use and dry burning, especially following Dr. F's earlier comments.
Damn
Beat me to it.
But i would like more details about the coil and use. As well I'd like to know what color the coil glowed to when it was dry burned, pulse length, power applied, etc.
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