DIY e-liquid and nicotine extract method

[Safira]

One thing most people overlook is that the bulk of the nicotine in tobacco is in the form of a salt. Before extracting it, you have to turn it into the freebase by adding...well, a base. Sodium hydroxide (lye) works well, although that isn't as widely available as it once was. Baking soda might work too.

As for heat stability: the stuff boils at 247*C without decomposing. Raising the temperature might make it react with other stuff in the tobacco / air / apple, though. All my extractions from tobacco were cold extractions with no heat applied.

Just a curious question, I don't really plan on playing with this idea, 3 children + caustic soda X nicotine = a horrible disaster. But, how would you go about neutralizing the NAOH if this would work. Or are you saying basically to use this to create nicotine salt. (Sodium nicotine?) So it would be just enough to create it with no extra.

I realize these are 2 dangerous chemicals, so if you don't feel comfortable answering it without giving someone idea's on how to kill themselves in a very horrible and painful way just tell me. It just actually sounds interesting to me, but I will admit I didn't always pay attention in science class all those years ago.

 

[BardicDruid]

Well I've found a site that sells Raw Tobacco Leaves but because I'm a noobie you'll have to google it for your selves. I can't leave a URL.

 

[dave8944]

Well I've found a site that sells Raw Tobacco Leaves but because I'm a noobie you'll have to google it for your selves. I can't leave a URL.

Here is a link: Raw Tobacco Leaves : Rollyourown.com, One Stop RYO Tobacco Shop

Just what I needed too as my dad is a very experienced chemist who is in the process of setting up a lab for nicotine extraction. If he can get it to work properly I'll post his recommendations for a DIY method. I've sent him posts from here and the sciences discussion board and he was not impressed at all.

 

[breno]

Method no 53:-

Take one 10mg nicotine patch, roll it into a tube, place one end in your mouth, carefully light the other end, inhale

 

[breno]

Sure is dangerous stuff though, however, IMO the authorites should be providing the stuff free, as it would be enormously beneficial to public health.

Furthemore I believe governments taxing me out of existance because of my addiction to proven highly addictive substance if not only immoral, but a breach of my human rights, dunno which article, but certaintly the right to LIFE is a highly appropioate one.

Such taxation leaves smoker more anxious and depressed, something which is relieved by smoking so it has the opposite of the desired effect for many smokers, they smoke to relieve the anxiety of high taxation.

Certainly in the USA I believe you have things such as 'rights' too, surely there is something in your consitution which would make a such a tax policy illegal?

Maybe be I wil post this as a seperate thread as its a bit OT here.

But prehaps rather than looking for Chemists you should be looking for good lawyers.

 

[ESmoking1979]

Sorry if this question has been asked, but I don't have time to read this entire thread.

I have seen many posts where do-it-yourselfers take their soaked tobacco or nicotine liquid and try starining it through a coffee filter as the final step (which I hear is dangerous and difficult due to the globby mess).

But what I have NOT read so far is someone who has tried to wrap the tobacco up FIRST, very tightly into coffee filter(s) teabag(s) BEFORE soaking it in water or alcohol. I would think that this would resolve the problem of the globby mess if you were to wrap up the tobacco extremely tight into a filter beforehand so that the tobacco has no room to expand. After soaking for days or weeks in a sealed container, this should result in water/alcohol that is filled with nicotine and not globby or difficult to mess with. So has anyone tried this method? Anyone willing to give it a whirl?

(This idea seems similar to the soaking snus method, except snus has much less nicotine than actual tobacco, thus many users report hardly any nicotine kick.)

 

[Justncredible]

Sure is dangerous stuff though, however, IMO the authorites should be providing the stuff free, as it would be enormously beneficial to public health.

Furthemore I believe governments taxing me out of existance because of my addiction to proven highly addictive substance if not only immoral, but a breach of my human rights, dunno which article, but certaintly the right to LIFE is a highly appropioate one.

Such taxation leaves smoker more anxious and depressed, something which is relieved by smoking so it has the opposite of the desired effect for many smokers, they smoke to relieve the anxiety of high taxation.

Certainly in the USA I believe you have things such as 'rights' too, surely there is something in your consitution which would make a such a tax policy illegal?

Maybe be I wil post this as a seperate thread as its a bit OT here.

But prehaps rather than looking for Chemists you should be looking for good lawyers.

What??

My god what country do you live in that the government provides anything of value to anyone?

In America our government takes money and gives to it friends.

Esmoking, read the threads, even this one, you can not just soak tobacco and get pure nicotine, it will never happen. You can extract nicotine by filling your bottom lip with some skoal and spitting it into a can. If thats what you want to smoke then by all means go for it. There is a known process for getting nicotine out of tobacco. It is not simple. It is not guesswork, and I seriously doubt anyone a 100 years after the process was done will figure out a way to do it any better.

Maybe a PHD in chemistry one day will come up with a new process for extracting nicotine. You would think the drug cartels would be the first ones to use any new techs, since getting ....... out of coca is the same process. They use the kerosene process..

I really do not understand the mindset that comes up with such ideas. If people really were serious they would do the real extraction method first, then try to improve that. Optimize the times and measurements, verify the results and repete it a few times.

 

[DVap]

There is a known process for getting nicotine out of tobacco. It is not simple. It is not guesswork, and I seriously doubt anyone a 100 years after the process was done will figure out a way to do it any better.

Hi... I hope this comes off more informative and thought provoking than arrogant and preachy.. but here goes.

There are many processes for getting nicotine out of tobacco. From the perspective of a chemist (which I am), some of them are difficult, some of them are not. Some of them are efficient, some of them are not. Some of them yield high purity, some do not. Give me 10 ounces of cheap tobacco and I could turn it into about 2 grams of essentially pure nicotine, but I'd have to do some "weekend work" at my place of employment to pull it off correctly and safely. This wouldn't sit well with my employer if they found out. I suppose I could turn this 2 grams of nicotine into about 60 mL of 36 mg e-liquid. (assuming 10 mg nicotine/gram tobacco and 70 percent recovery after extraction/purification).

Lets check the price. About as cheap as you can go is raw tobacco leaf, about $20 - $25 for a pound. Let's say after shipping $25.00/pound. So for 60 mL of 36 mg e-liquid, tobacco will cost around $16.00. The various reagents, namely required acids/bases are essentially trivial in price, and the necessary glassware (not at all trivial in price) would only have to be purchased once. But the required solvents to process 10 ounces of tobacco at the purity that won't create risks as bad as just going for it and smoking... those are gonna cost a lot. (unless you know about continuous extraction techniques.. nobody has mentioned them yet, and they can save you a bundle, but you'd choke if you saw the price of a complete continuous extraction setup). Add $10.00 as a round guess (and true reagent grade solvents are much pricier than that). So your cost is $26.00 for 60 mL of 36 mg e-liquid. (assuming you can even get a 70 percent yield as an amateur chemist and live to enjoy the fruits of your labor).

So you're making 36 mg e-juice at $13.00 per 30 mL bottle. Once you pay shipping, folks like JC and TW will charge you around $30 for the same. If you're not as good an amateur chemist as you'd hoped, and you can purify nicotine at 30% percent yield, even from cheap raw leaf, you're going pay about the same price as you would to sit back, relax, and let folks like JC and TW do the work for you.

Is it worth it? After adding in the intensive labor and the chances of getting caught at it and fired from my job, or possibly (but not likely) poisoned (I handle stuff like this professionally) it's not worth it to me.

Your mileage and motivation may vary.

 

[jodi]

Just studying the issue... has anyone tried liquifying the dissolveable nicotine tabs, i.e. Stonewall?

 

[Justncredible]

Hi... I hope this comes off more informative and thought provoking than arrogant and preachy.. but here goes.

There are many processes for getting nicotine out of tobacco. From the perspective of a chemist (which I am), some of them are difficult, some of them are not. Some of them are efficient, some of them are not. Some of them yield high purity, some do not. Give me 10 ounces of cheap tobacco and I could turn it into about 2 grams of essentially pure nicotine, but I'd have to do some "weekend work" at my place of employment to pull it off correctly and safely. This wouldn't sit well with my employer if they found out. I suppose I could turn this 2 grams of nicotine into about 60 mL of 36 mg e-liquid. (assuming 10 mg nicotine/gram tobacco and 70 percent recovery after extraction/purification).

Lets check the price. About as cheap as you can go is raw tobacco leaf, about $20 - $25 for a pound. Let's say after shipping $25.00/pound. So for 60 mL of 36 mg e-liquid, tobacco will cost around $16.00. The various reagents, namely required acids/bases are essentially trivial in price, and the necessary glassware (not at all trivial in price) would only have to be purchased once. But the required solvents to process 10 ounces of tobacco at the purity that won't create risks as bad as just going for it and smoking... those are gonna cost a lot. (unless you know about continuous extraction techniques.. nobody has mentioned them yet, and they can save you a bundle, but you'd choke if you saw the price of a complete continuous extraction setup). Add $10.00 as a round guess (and true reagent grade solvents are much pricier than that). So your cost is $26.00 for 60 mL of 36 mg e-liquid. (assuming you can even get a 70 percent yield as an amateur chemist and live to enjoy the fruits of your labor).

So you're making 36 mg e-juice at $13.00 per 30 mL bottle. Once you pay shipping, folks like JC and TW will charge you around $30 for the same. If you're not as good an amateur chemist as you'd hoped, and you can purify nicotine at 30% percent yield, even from cheap raw leaf, you're going pay about the same price as you would to sit back, relax, and let folks like JC and TW do the work for you.

Is it worth it? After adding in the intensive labor and the chances of getting caught at it and fired from my job, or possibly (but not likely) poisoned (I handle stuff like this professionally) it's not worth it to me.

Your mileage and motivation may vary.

Great post, my intrest is that if banned, or over regulated, I want the option and the knowledge to produce my own. I think you get about 3 pounds from a single tobacco plant, so if high content burley, 2 or 3 plants would provide enough juice for a year. Right now with china imports being so cheap, there is no way it is worth setting up.

 

[DVap]

Hi Just,

When I was considering motivations for doing the extraction, yours (a ban) was the only one that really makes any sense to me, putting aside all practical and safety considerations.

If you sourced your raw leaf really carefully and got some Virginia at a potent 3%, you could triple the yields I talked about. Assuming you can find a supplier who knows what he has percentage wise and who isn't blowing smoke.

3 pounds of 3% could make about 28 bottles of 36 mg e-liquid at 36mg, if you were really good at it, maybe 14 if you weren't. I can see where that would be a year's supply.

If I were to do it myself, which I'm not intending, but the mental exercise is interesting, I'm debating whether I would simply extract down to the essentially pure tobacco alkaloids (mainly nicotine, with lesser nornicotine, anabasine, anatabine, and a handful of more trace alkaloids), or just go for it and isolate the nicotine from the other alkaloids.

I've also considered 21 mg nicotine patches. Since they use a rate limiting membrane, much more than 21 mg nicotine has to be present to allow delivery of 21 mg, and I've read that the amount is 114 mg in a Nicotrol. If I wanted a gram of nicotine, I'd process a dozen patches and have a 30 mL bottle of 36 mg e-juice for the effort and someone else has already taken care of the minor alkaloids for me. Backing material, glue, etc... trivial issues for a chemist. But still, unless realities change, I'll let TW do the work for me.

 

[DVap]

The whole issue of e-smoking btw, reminds me so much of what's going on with the whole stupid recording industry trying to legislate their dying business model.

They cannot succeed for the simple reason that once the genie is out of the bottle, you can't put him back in.

The e-cigarette genie is out of the bottle. Batteries are a non issue, atomizers are a little harder but hardly insurmountable, PG and VG are non-issues, and pushed hard enough, everyone will know how to do the nicotine.

I expect one of two things to happen. 1) Since the "wrong" palms are being greased, a ban, or 2) they'll fix it so the "right" palms are being greased.

The FDA, as I interpret it, is really very panicked, the interests they serve are NOT being served by e-cigarettes. Their "science" thus far has been laughed out of the room when subjected to anything resembling peer review, and they've resorted to a good old-fashioned FUD (fear, uncertainly, doubt) campaign to try to scare the public into being afraid of these things so they can ride to the rescue and save us from our fears.

 

[Justncredible]

And what of the nicotine extraction from tomato plants? Or other nightshade family plants?

And agreed on the FDA role in business. Some poeple just can not understand how intrusive our government can be and what motives they have. I think it has little to do with money.

 

[need_2quit]

Here is a link: Raw Tobacco Leaves : Rollyourown.com, One Stop RYO Tobacco Shop

Just what I needed too as my dad is a very experienced chemist who is in the process of setting up a lab for nicotine extraction. If he can get it to work properly I'll post his recommendations for a DIY method. I've sent him posts from here and the sciences discussion board and he was not impressed at all.

we have 5 tobacco plants burley, virginia, etc in our garden. They have doubled in size since this picture and since flowered .... we cut the top flowers and are hanging them to dry. They're heirloom plants, so the seeds will be good.

You're supposed to cut the leaves from the bottom up as they turn yellow. Cutting the seeds helps the leaves to grow larger and age adding sugars to the leaves, I guess to break down the leaves further?

This is our first test of tobacco plants in a small home garden, so we only grew a few. We planned to build a curing chamber (very easy to do), but now that I no longer smoke analogs, not sure what we'll do with them.

Any ideas?

 

[DVap]

And what of the nicotine extraction from tomato plants? Or other nightshade family plants?

If you want to see movie stars, you go to Hollywood. While you can find them elsewhere, they're mostly in Hollywood. Same goes with nicotine, if you want to find a lot of it, you're looking at tobacco.

 

[DVap]

we have 5 tobacco plants burley, virginia, etc in our garden. They have doubled in size since this picture and since flowered .... we cut the top flowers and are hanging them to dry. They're heirloom plants, so the seeds will be good.

You're supposed to cut the leaves from the bottom up as they turn yellow. Cutting the seeds helps the leaves to grow larger and age adding sugars to the leaves, I guess to break down the leaves further?

This is our first test of tobacco plants in a small home garden, so we only grew a few. We planned to build a curing chamber (very easy to do), but now that I no longer smoke analogs, not sure what we'll do with them.

Any ideas?

As far as growing tobacco for smoking, there are a lot of things you need to do with the cut leaf to get it right. I'm not sure, but I don't think any nicotine increase occurs during curing, so if you're growing tobacco for extraction, perhaps just getting it dried quickly is sufficient?

 

[Tomsnow]

Get the strongest patches which supply 24mg I think over 24 hours. The 16 hour patches are almost identical except that you take them off before bed. Can't believ they market them as different how stupid do they think we are? equally why spend the same for a weaker patch when you can just cut the stronger one in half? Are people really that stupid?...

-Rohan

Hopefully, people ARE that stupid. Those patches are time released and if you cut them, they are no longer time released and you can OD. I'm pretty sure that the literature inside the box even tells you that.8-o

 

[basic_atheist]

Just studying the issue... has anyone tried liquifying the dissolveable nicotine tabs, i.e. Stonewall?

I was wondering about that too.

Star Scientific makes those things. Supposedly they have scaled up a non-chemical tobacco curing technology, called "StarCured", that interferes with the formation of tobacco specific nitrosamines (TSNAs) that occurs in traditional curing methods. So, it sounds like some of the work has already been done for us in those.

I used to use those, btw... helped me quit the nicotine gum, which I used to help me quit smoking, which I eventually went back to smoking, now I've quit again using an e-cig. It's a dag-gum nicotine rollercoaster ride I tell ya!

But anywho, Stonewall is basically edible tobacco with sugar in it. So, wouldn't you still have to filter out the tobacco residue and sugar? I don't think it would be atomizer friendly by just liquifying it.

I'm no chemist and I barely passed HS chemistry because it was so frickin' boring to me at the time. Dagnabbit, I should've paid more attention!

... but these lovely brainiac chemist geeks in here should be able to offer a safe solution without a bunch of overkill... rrriiiiggghhht?... lol

[nevermind me, I'm just another nut thinking out loud]

 

[skunkjar]

Not sire if this will help anyone, but this might be of interest to some of you extracting:

(FROM WIKIPEDIA)

Nicotiana rustica, known in South America as Mapacho, is a plant in the Solanaceae family. It is a very potent variety of tobacco. The high concentration of nicotine in its leaves makes it useful for creating organic pesticides.

Rustica is also used for entheogenic purposes by South American shamans. Growing in the rainforest it contains up to twenty times more nicotine than common North American varieties such as N. tabacum. Other reasons for its shamanic use are the comparatively high levels of MAOI beta-carbolines, including harmine, harmaline and tetrahydroharmine.[2] Most commonly, it is allowed to soak in water, and the water is then insufflated; it is also smoked in cigars and used as an enema and as an anthelmitic effective against tapeworm infections. In the east southern of Turkey, people use this herb and ashes of some tree bodies to make a snuff called "Maraş Otu". They use this putting under either of the lips like Swedish snus. It is also a common admixture of Ayahuasca in some parts of the rainforest.

In Russia, N.rustica is called "makhorka" (махорка). It was smoked casually by the lower classes before normal tobacco became widely available (after WWII), and is still sometimes smoked by peasants and farmers.

Nicotiana rustica leaves have a nicotine content as high as 9%, whereas Nicotiana tabacum (common tobacco) leaves contain about 1 to 3%.

This is a very fun and easy plant to grow, and the seed is widely available from online vendors. As it says above, this is no ordinary tobacco, with a nicotine content around 10%. That is a lot of nicotine! for every 100 grams of plant material you can get up to a 10g of nicotine if my math is right.

I have grown this species before and as a warning, WEAR GLOVES WHILE HANDLING THE FRESH LEAVES! When I harvested my first plant I never thought to wear gloves and boy was I in for a nasty surprise! Racing heart, flushed skin, sweating, dizziness were some effects from handling the fresh leaves. Not fun, not healthy.

Nicotine is very water soluble, so perhaps a 30 minute soak in distilled water would get a significant amount of nicotine without getting other nasties such as chlorophyll. Then one could evaporate the water and be left with a relatively pure (and VERY DANGEROUS) nicotine extract.

 

[Vap3rLov3r]

I agree with the guy a few pages back.... just smoke the damn no nic e-juice and wear the patch!!!!
DUGH