How much nicotine is destroyed during vaping ?

[kinabaloo]

I guess I am right in thinking that the electrodes are outside the glass tube?

In that case the current is through ionisation into the air. Inside the jar only the field is at play. Perhaps polar molecules can act this way without any ionisation taking place.

 

[kinabaloo]

Btw, some air humidity, and dissolvable pollutants, will end up in the condensed liquid too. More likely acidic in nature though?

ps: smoke particles are mostly already charged.

And a high voltage supply likely has a curent limiting 10M resistor in series so the actual current could not be anywhere near 1ma, afaik.

 

[DVap]

I really don't think it's that critical what occurs in the electrostatic field as far as titration is concerned since, as Exo has pointed out, the basicity of the nitrogen should be unaffected. If further characterization of the condensate were to be performed, then it might or might not have some impact. Such further characterization, much beyond selective precipitation of nicotine would be getting into the realm of GCMS, and cost prohibitiveness.

 

[DVap]

Btw, some air humidity, and dissolvable pollutants, will end up in the condensed liquid too. More likely acidic in nature though?

From my canister analysis days, these would be VOC's (volatile organic compounds). Even in some pretty smelly industrialized regions, these volatiles might add up to around a few parts per million, and generally with indoor air, might only add up to a few dozen parts per billion.

Probably need to distinguish between large particles and diffuse gases... seems much easier to get large particles to clump in an electrostatic field than diffuse gases.

 

[kinabaloo]

I really don't think it's that critical what occurs in the electrostatic field as far as titration is concerned since, as Exo has pointed out, the basicity of the nitrogen should be unaffected. If further characterization of the condensate were to be performed, then it might or might not have some impact. Such further characterization, much beyond selective precipitation of nicotine would be getting into the realm of GCMS, and cost prohibitiveness.

But the titration just measures how much alkali (acid neutralising potential) is in the liquid, right ?

Agreed the e field would be acting on the recondensed droplets, perhaps their polar nature, causing them to collide and grow larger.

 

[kinabaloo]

While most likely the 92% is right, I still think there might be a way for the liquid to be altered in terms of pH by the electrical field; and for this I suspect it is through ionisation of the water molecules (small-scale electrolysis) and loss of more hydrogen than oxygen.

Consider the electrolysis of brine:

2 NaCl + 2 H2O → Cl2 + H2 + 2 NaOH

The result is from neutral to basic liquid. Now suppose that some of the nicotine was lost in some way that created a basic solute but no longer nicotine ... something like this.

Or how about oxidation of the hydroxyl moiety contained on a propylene glycol monoether by electrolysis to an ether ketone?

If such effects do not occur in the electrostatic precipitator, they might still be important in understanding what happens on the nickel-chromium heater coil.

Amjad et al., "The Oxidation of Alcohols at a Nickel Anode in Alkaline t-Butanol/Water Mixtures", Electrochem. Sci. & Tech., 124, 203 (1977)
Fleischmann, Korinek and Pletcher, "The Oxidation of Organic Compounds at a Nickel Anode in Alkaline Solution", J. Electroanal. Chem., 31, 39-49 (1971)
Guzman, Vilche and Arvia, "Nonequilibrium Effects in the Nickel Hydroxide Electrode", Journal of Applied Electrochemistry, 9, 183-189 (1979)
Kaulen and Schafer, "Oxidation of Primary Alcohols to Carboxylic Acids at the Nickel Hydroxide Electrode", Synthesis, 513-516 (Jul., 1979)
Nakagawa, Konaka and Sugita, "Application and Mechanism of Oxidation with Nickel Peroxide", Annual Report of Shionogi Research Laboratory, No. 19 (1969)
Sidney Ross, John E. Barry, Manuel Finkelstein and Eric J. Rudd, "Anodic Oxidations, IX, Anodic Oxidation of 2-Methoxyethanol", JACS, 95:7, 2193 (Apr. 4, 1973)
Vertes, Horanyi and Nagy, "A New Method for the Electrochemical Oxidation of Alcohols", Tetrahedron, 28, 37-42
Vertes, Horanyi and Nagy, "Oxidation of the Nickel Hydroxide Electrode, I", Acta Chimica Academiae Hungaricae, Tomus, 67, (2), 145-156 (1971)

~~~

Longshot: Or the liquid or whole room was charged at the time of the titration, perhaps.

If everyone is still unconvinced, I'll let the idea go and run with the result as true

 

[kinabaloo]

Ok, so we have potentially 90%+ efficiency at getting the nicotine largely unchanged from the e-liquid to our body. So we are looking at perhaps 50% non-absorption because the nic (or alkaloids) is/are dissolved in droplets of glycol; this mostly exhaled and some digested.

In short, for the seemingly important effect of creating a visible fog, we need roughly twice the nicotine that a 'boring' inhalator requires for a similar aborption (though a bit slower). But I, like most I suspect, need that visible fog and feel it's a price worth paying.

 

[UpInVapor]

Complete newbie to e-cigs and have been a bit worried about unknown issues possibly involved with vaping. I love the fact that we have you guys working on some of these (and doing it with so much enthusiasm!).

All I can say is THANK YOU! and keep up the excellent work!

 

[whimzkool]

But I, like most I suspect, need that visible fog and feel it's a price worth paying.

As far as I am concerned, you would be correct on that count.
Thanks exogenesis and those who contributed to this interesting and enlightening thread. Admittedly, I only understood 92%, and my absorption rate was closer 20%, so I hope there isn't a test.

People generally feel better in a surfeit of negative ions; out of the city, by sea or up mountain is best. Sounds like a question on QI: where is negative energy positive?

...or a great geek riddle that I will pose to my chemist son next time I see him!
That mountain air after a thunder storm always makes me feel alive!

 

[kinabaloo]

As far as I am concerned, you would be correct on that count.
Thanks exogenesis and those who contributed to this interesting and enlightening thread. Admittedly, I only understood 92%, and my absorption rate was closer 20%, so I hope there isn't a test.


...or a great geek riddle that I will pose to my chemist son next time I see him!
That mountain air after a thunder storm always makes me feel alive!

I'm wondering if pH is changed by atmospheric charge transferred to the liquid (as it would)? If you've a pH meter and a standard buffer, perhaps you can test out the theory ...

 

[exogenesis]

Got so engrossed in system improvement forgot to come on line.

Got a regulated 2amp max. supply now,
so will be a more controlled/measurable wattage used during auto-vaping.

The longtitudinal electrodes are inside the polmer tube Kin., in contact with the 'vapour',
but yes, I guess the current passed is pretty miniscule in practice.

I think that if any ionisation of vapour component does give rise to basic or acidic species,
the equal and opposite acidity/basicity should also be caused in the vapour, so should even out (probably).
I feel it's unlikely that hydrogen gas is evolved, but can't guarantee that, other chemical processes
could be posited, but early days yet so just going to get the results and see.

Whatever the effect, it's the best I can currently do, without a GC/MS or NMR etc,
maybe there's chemical 'errors' but probably still a good indication of what we're looking for,
even in the worst case.

Welcome to the game UpInVapor & whimzkool_(WMZ), I hope you'll develop the same enthusiasm


Maybe we should hire DVap's lab. out for a GC/MS testing,
or at least use of his accurate balance for the tungstosilicylic acid method.
Pink stuff, - also need to fund a research student to do a project to figure that out.
(how's the knot tying 'arrangements' going ?)

 

[kinabaloo]

The current would be higher than I thought if in the tube. Then no longer just a matter of force field but a certain amount of electrolysis in effect.

But the figures are reasonable so there's probably not any great influence on the result.

Well, the pink tinge is apparently gone from the production line; all clear these days I've heard. Maybe just a matter of purity of the PG ?

I'd be very interested if you could determine (by titration) the nic extractable from say 5 analogs (potentially ~50mg) by a 24 hour soak in PGA + VG. When you have time to fit it in of course

edit : for nic read alkaloids. If only half was extractable, still pretty good and simple to do. And WTA style too. I am confident that by far the nasties are combustion products rather than innates. Might gunk attys a bit, but better that than gunk lungs with smoke debris!

~~~

A tungstosilicylic acid callibration confirmation would be nice

Might be worth a quick try to see if can get preciitation with the electrodes outside the tube (but close; field only).

 

[DVap]

Got so engrossed in system improvement forgot to come on line.

Got a regulated 2amp max. supply now,
so will be a more controlled/measurable wattage used during auto-vaping.

The longtitudinal electrodes are inside the polmer tube Kin., in contact with the 'vapour',
but yes, I guess the current passed is pretty miniscule in practice.

I think that if any ionisation of vapour component does give rise to basic or acidic species,
the equal and opposite acidity/basicity should also be caused in the vapour, so should even out (probably).
I feel it's unlikely that hydrogen gas is evolved, but can't guarantee that, other chemical processes
could be posited, but early days yet so just going to get the results and see.

Whatever the effect, it's the best I can currently do, without a GC/MS or NMR etc,
maybe there's chemical 'errors' but probably still a good indication of what we're looking for,
even in the worst case.

Welcome to the game UpInVapor & whimzkool_(WMZ), I hope you'll develop the same enthusiasm


Maybe we should hire DVap's lab. out for a GC/MS testing,
or at least use of his accurate balance for the tungstosilicylic acid method.
Pink stuff, - also need to fund a research student to do a project to figure that out.
(how's the knot tying 'arrangements' going ?)

My lab doesn't really do "what's in there?" analyses. More set up along the lines of very specific methodologies centered around "Here's what's being looked for".

Knot-tying set for next weekend.

One thing that ought to be tested, that can be done fairly quickly at around 1 mL or so would be to check for coloration in autovaped USP PG. Since the PG represents most of what is being heated and vaped, it makes sense to see if the PG itself contributes to the coloration of the condensate.

 

[exogenesis]

I know that situation very well, most test samples sent by
prospective customers of our equipment (surface science)
have very specific detailed questions they want answered.

Very best wishes for the weekend, hope it goes well & smoothly.
Stag night friday then?, get your running shoes so you can avoid
getting chained to a lampost

Can answer the last one, just finished a USP PG several hour test-run of the
new rig set-up (6ml or so, partly at 3.7 V / 0.96 amp, mostly 6.0 V / 1.41 amp vaping),
crystal clear and totally colourless vapour collectate (is that actually a word?),
same as it went in.

Atty was 3.7 ohms (at room temp) at the finish,
should have measured it at the beginning to see if 6V vaping altered it at all.

Just checked those running figures, they're correct,
implication is resistance is 5.3 ohms when running at 6V.
I'm pretty sure nichrome has a very low temperature coefficient of resistance,
maybe attys have a seperate resistance source when running at high current.

I would hazard a guess at the contact area between tin solder blobs & nichrome wire,
which might get worse as atty get more used (?)
Tin increases resistance with temp. 10 times faster than nichrome (just looked it up).

 

[Vaporer]

The dielectric properties of the tube would be so high it would take a tesla coil to discharge through it. If it wasnt glass, the tube would carbonize eventually on the path of least resistance.

The "dances" are cool. The static discharge is realigning the visible vapor particulate "particles", more in groups prior to reliquifing.

Due to the heat, I'd say the PG will reform darker in color. Similar to sugar being caramelized as a best guess. Nicotine does turn darker towards brown as it ages or from heat exposure and it sure gets that. A few drops of PG could be dripped on a hot piece of aluminum foil and see the residue color for a quick test.

Good Luck DVap, I'm sure it will go well!

edit, Ok, I lose on the PG darkening. Its simple structure stands true then!

 

[kinabaloo]

Exo - the seeming resistance change is mostly not real - it is still ~3.7 ohms (probably a bit less in fact) and the rest is internal resistance of the power supply / battery.

The power in is best measured as current x voltage actually measured across the atty (not supposed voltage).

This will equal the current squared x atty resistance (which will not change, increase, more than 2-3%).

The voltage across the atty '@6v' would actually be 1.4A x 3.7ohms = 5.2v. The voltage of the supply drops under load (higher current).

Vaporer - I don't think actual discharge, or even small-scale current is required to achieve the precipitation, just the field; not certain on that though.

Pg is very heat stable and oxidation resistant; in these ways an excellent choice for e-liquids.

 

[Vaporer]

No, complete discharge isn't necessary. At least on a scale that can be seen. It still has to "see" the other charge and bridge it though.
Wires on the outside put a very heavy insulator into the equation.

 

[exogenesis]

Sorry for pre-empting your idea about posibility of PG charring Vaporer,
get that sometimes with almost simultaneous posting


The power is being supplied by a regulated variable voltage unit (2 amp max),
these are actual voltages and current as vaping occurs.

So I should really drop the 3.7V down to what (?), to be equal to
lithium battery vaping under-load voltage/current ?

Perhaps I can try and measure it by breaking apart an e-cig battery
connection so I can get the multimeter onto/between the contacts.

I see this 5kV thing as just 'applying' an electrostatic charge to the suface
of the droplets, causing them to repel each other & getting 'pushed' onto the tube wall.
The dancing thing may just be a physical collapse, rather than implying any
electrical 'discharge' as such (?).

 

[Vaporer]

Np exo, was thinking out loud. Forgot sugar is way more complex than PG.

I wouldn't deviate from 3.7v. Thats where the battery is set to deliver its maximal sustainable load. In reality, it does start at 4.15v, avalanches down fairly quick to 3.7v, then sustained and eventually falls to cutoff voltage. Your atty is no different than a commercially used one. Chasing a time "falloff" is going to be really tough. No 2 batteries being used are equal and most are so under rated for the load they need at that resistancethey degrade in performance very quickly. It might be easier to pick an oil drop off water with your fingers.
Personally , I'd run with it at what is supposed to be the "ideal" condition they set up for operation.

 

[kinabaloo]

The voltage across the atty will be about 5.2v given the current you stated, even if the supply is set to 6v. Poor connections and thin wires can contribute to the 'internal resistance too. The resistance change in the atty coil will be very small; the joints might contribute something, but should be very small; will be in the supply that the voltage loss occurs.