Compact Ceramic Disc Atomizer

[cmonkey]

Back when I was researching fuel efficiency, and gas was at $4 a gallon and everyone was researching fuel efficiency, I ran across a unique little device that might be useful as an atomizer.

The device was a small, porous, ceramic disc. At normal room temperatures, it was closed, and did not allow fuel to pass thru it. When heated, the ceramic disc would begin to wick the fuel, and spray ( atomize ) it out the other side. It was essentially, a pump/atomizer that operated via heat.

The company that was making these discs, had an example product, in the form of a small pocket torch, much like the common butane torches, except that it accepted any flammable liquid of compatible viscosity as a fuel. You could use naptha, gasoline, alcohol, etc. and the torch would operate.

I spent about an hour searching the web for the name of the device, or the company, or the torch to no avail.

If anyone has seen this device, or comes across it, or remembers the companies name, if you would, paste it here. They were really inexpensive and in combination with a heater might / might not be useful for vaping.

cmonkey

ps. This was a small ceramic disc only. No electronics or wires attached like the ones I found during my recent search.

 

[vt100]

I found this and this. It looks like the second one does have a low voltage model that gets to 120c.

 

[Charged]

Sounds like a realy cool device. I'm very interested.

 

[The_janty_Misfit]

Sounds like a realy cool device. I'm very interested.

This is interesting. It seems that PTC heating elements offer great advantages over resistance wire including and especially long service life.

True, unless I read this wrong, the power requirements of some of the devices would have you smoking something the length of a cop's flashlight, but that might be less of a problem with a really small device.

The more times pass-through vaping makes me go through seventy dollars worth of cheapo atomizers in three weeks, the more interesting the idea becomes to me. Any thoughts?

How much heat do we actually need here anyway? How hot doe an atomizer's heating element get?

This is a link to the wikipedia bit on thermistors and PTCs:

Thermistor - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

And here's one to an explanation of PTC heating elements by a manufacturer.

PTC Heaters - PTC Heating Elements, Positive temperature co-efficient (PTC) heating elements


Have fun....

 

[jxmiller]

I have looked into PTC elements.

Found a company that makes flat circular silicone elements but they do not make ones small enough. They also do not make them to be used for liquid.

Thermistors are interesting because you could save battery life.. and atomizer life too. I suppose the idea there is that once a certain temp is reached the thermistor would reduce voltage such that it only maintains that temp and does not go above it. That would also be built in safety.

 

[cmonkey]

The disc I originally saw, and posted about ... was not a heating element. It was just a porous ceramic disc made in a special way, of some super secret special material

What happened was, when it was heated, it automatically sucked fluid from one side, and atomized it out the other. The company made only the discs. They sold, as an example use of the disc, a little pocket torch, that worked with any fuel. When you put fuel in it, nothing happend. You could turn it upside down, and the fuel would not leak out or evaporate. It used pretty much any clean type of liquid fuel. Lighter fluid, gasoline, kerosene, etc.

When you put a flame to the tip and heated the ceramic disc, it began wicking the fluid through and created a flame, which then became a self-sustaining torch.

To use this disc in a vaporizer, assumeing its compatible with PG, you would have to either hold a flame to it, or wrap a heating element around it.

These were really inexpensive devices, and I thought it might be an interesting experiment, using a sample, to see if it would wick, and subsequently vaporize PG.

cmonkey

ps. It wasn't either of the 2 links VT100 posted.

 

[jxmiller]

The disc I originally saw, and posted about ... was not a heating element. It was just a porous ceramic disc made in a special way, of some super secret special material

What happened was, when it was heated, it automatically sucked fluid from one side, and atomized it out the other. The company made only the discs. They sold, as an example use of the disc, a little pocket torch, that worked with any fuel. When you put fuel in it, nothing happend. You could turn it upside down, and the fuel would not leak out or evaporate. It used pretty much any clean type of liquid fuel. Lighter fluid, gasoline, kerosene, etc.

When you put a flame to the tip and heated the ceramic disc, it began wicking the fluid through and created a flame, which then became a self-sustaining torch.

To use this disc in a vaporizer, assumeing its compatible with PG, you would have to either hold a flame to it, or wrap a heating element around it.

These were really inexpensive devices, and I thought it might be an interesting experiment, using a sample, to see if it would wick, and subsequently vaporize PG.

cmonkey

ps. It wasn't either of the 2 links VT100 posted.

Well post a link, if you don't mind. I have a prototype from Quit4MyKids (user here) it seems to have some great possibilities. Still trying to find time to get it in a device the way it needs to be. Holidays are killing me.

 

[cmonkey]

As I said in the original post ... this was awhile ago ... I don't remember the company or product name ... and after googleing for an hour ... I still couldn't find it. Hence, no link from me, just the original cry for help

cmonkey

 

[Frostmonkey]

Very interesting! The power requirements are very high though. 12v to heat to 40C, but with an inline amplifier I can see this working.

PTC Heaters - PTC Heating Elements, Positive temperature co-efficient (PTC) heating elements

 

[Charged]

I've used the opposite NTC devices to control inrush current on induction heating equipment. They start out with a very high resistance and as they heat the resistance drops significantly.

This PTC device goes the other way. The resistance starts out low and increases as the device heats. I could see possibilites for use in E-cig but cost may be prohibitive.

They have these mini ceramic heaters as well. They look almost identical to the heaters Quit4myKids is working with in this thread.