Testing properly can be expensive but it is absolutely necessary if we are to move the industry forward and upward. We have found a University Laboratory that has the very latest NMR equipment and whose staff understand the whole process as well as some of the politics. I'll post a link shortly to the latest report on the UK made ECOpure to give others an idea of what happens. The test was almost identical to the FDA test and came up with far different results than the FDA did when they tested Chinese liquids. Every company will have problems along the way, we are pioneers, but it is being able to overcome them and continue to forge the way forward that counts.
As I recall, TW wasn't particularly happy with that report, not because it contained a controversial result, but because they paid a lot and received a very questionable report.
If the UKAS is anything like NELAP in the U.S., and I suspect they are, then they do serve an important purpose. If you're with a lab that knows what it's doing, and doesn't do the things that NELAP works to prevent, you see them as more intent on making sure you're not stupid or cheating.. I.E. Making things harder than they ought to be for the competent in the name of battling the incompetent. In short, to bad labs, NELAP is toxic, to good labs, NELAP is a pain in the .... I have enjoyed on a number of occasions telling their auditors or auditors from other entities that the program is wrong-headed about a number of things, amid much squirming and fidgiting by our local QA/QC Coordinator. I am good at getting out of doing audits, they would rather trot out the custodian than have me talking to auditors.
Analytical techniques such as NMR, IR, and GC/MS are all useful in assessing the purity of a material. (The NMR of your nicotine and Glycerin look quite clean, BTW). TW appears to have moved to high quality sourcing and testing as well with their PI liquid. I see it as a sign of the evolution and maturing of the industry, as well as of a healthy competition going on over there in the UK between TW and Intellicig. The concept of the supplier maintaining control over the quality and purity of e-liquid ingredients is not firmly entrenched, but it is gaining a foothold both in the UK and in the US. It is, as they say, the road ahead.
As far as the FDA testing of Chinese liquids, I've been vocal in my assessment that the FDA went out of their way to present these liquids in the worst light possible. I've seen that video they put out of one of their chemists discussing the testing, and it was nothing more or less than a hatchet-job on e-cigs.
I started posting on these forums because after lurking for quite awhile, I found an abundance of curiosity, but very few answers about the chemistry behind e-liquids. My initial intent here was to make folks aware that anyone with enough desire to pull together the required materials could assess e-liquid potency at home. No expensive labs, no waiting for results. This has resulted in readers who have followed the discussions (particularly in the nicotine determination thread) becoming better educated and able to ask more of the right questions and to refine the expectations to which they hold their suppliers.
If I have been a bit critical of TW here, it is perhaps because they have mastered the art of promotion more thoroughly than the science of quality control vis a vis labeled potency, at least in the past. I am not interested in putting their feet to the fire, only to state it plainly to the industry that customers pay for potency and we must be able to trust the liquids we purchase to deliver the stated potency since it directly affects our decisions in how we mix down the concentrates we purchase for our consumption. The fact that purity is becoming better appreciated by the industry, in addition to potency, well that's nothing but a good thing.
Given enough cash to buy enough samples, I could probably uncover valid objections to most any supplier's e-liquid offerings. I fully expect that with time, I will find less and less to be concerned about. So, I suppose my intent here is to help "grease the skids" on the way forward.
