People cook in SS pots and pans.....not reports of deaths so far from eating the food
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While I can't say for certain, because am not an expert in the field, I trust SS 316L over other types of wire to be cleaner.
Still, I dry burn SS 316L and also Kanthal when I used it, to remove the oil from the manufacturing process before making a coil.
Cat
+1!
Having purchased a near $1,300 set of cookware over 25 years ago & still use quite often today, would have been gone long ago if these were hazardous to my health.
Cat
Maybe this myth of toxins comes from the fact that it's not good for someone to pulse their ss coils for too long for using temperature control. I read a post once that pulsing the coil too long ruins it for tc. I don't know it this is true because I don't know enough about tc.
Im confused. How can it release toxins when dry fired but not wet fired?
The only real worry with stainless steel is the potential formation of hexavalent chromium compounds. This is a major concern when welding stainless steel or when working with any alloy that contain chromium at or above its melting point. Unfortunately it's hard to find anything authoritative regarding the minimum temperatures required for such compounds to form, but I gather it's pretty dang high, probably well higher than the red-to-orange temps we hit dry-burning.
People dry-burn Kanthal all the time without giving it a second thought, right? Well guess what? Kanthal A1 has more chromium (over 20%) than 316 or even 430 stainless. Nichrome wire also has comparable amounts of chromium, yet it and Kanthal are used in all kinds of applications where they're hot enough to glow red and people breathe the air that's been in contact with 'em. Think toasters, hair dryers, and many electric heaters.
People dry-burn Kanthal all the time without giving it a second thought, right? Well guess what? Kanthal A1 has more chromium (over 20%) than 316 or even 430 stainless. Nichrome wire also has comparable amounts of chromium, yet it and Kanthal are used in all kinds of applications where they're hot enough to glow red and people breathe the air that's been in contact with 'em. Think toasters, hair dryers, and many electric heaters.
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Contact with liquid will limit the coil temperature the something not a whole lot higher than the boiling point of that liquid.
A dry coil will get much hotter, but won't "keep getting hotter". It will eventually reach a temperature at which the differential to its surroundings can dissipate the power being applied, or it will pop, breaking the circuit.
Well yeah it won't hit infinity, but will keep getting hotter than the input temp for a while. Still thinking about cooking parameters.
When a coil is dry burned to a red, its over 500°C already. It can easily be taken to 1000°C in no time. I don't want to vape at 500. That's suicidal. We're talking dry burning.
To be honest, i've never seen any cookware heated to a red glow when used.
As I said, I don't think anything dangerous is happening when st st is heated to a glow....but i'm not sure. I would like to know for interest sake.
Yeah sure, check the welding temps of 316 and the temps of your catalytic converter, or your grill, or anything that uses stainless steel, if you want Neil Degrass Tyson to come in and say it's safe good luck, but SS is used at high temp all the time safely and 316 isn't special.
It is a problem in welding and exposure to some other industrial activity. I doubt there is much exposure in vaping even dry burning ss wire. The amount of wire involved is small.
Department of Labor on Hexavalent Chromium
Safety and Health Topics | Hexavalent Chromium - Exposure and Controls | Occupational Safety and Health Administration
Department of Labor on Hexavalent Chromium
Safety and Health Topics | Hexavalent Chromium - Exposure and Controls | Occupational Safety and Health Administration
Yeah that's white hot, 1000C temps. Which everyone said is bad, but even then I think it's fumes, not the metal.
500C is 932F. Rest assured NO ONE is vaping at that temp. In fact when vaping your coil isn't getting hot enough to glow at all. If it did, your juice would actually catch fire and you would be smoking an actual flame instead of vaping. As far as what may or may not be in the oxidation layer of SS, I don't know, but then again it is hard to scrape off with a razor blade, so I highly doubt it would be "flaking off" into your juice.
Yes exposure could be a problem if we were melting massive amounts of SS so it could fuse together, and did this in an enclosed space, all day, 5 days a week. Heating a tiny wire to an orange to just red color for a couple of seconds every week or two? Nothing to worry about.
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