How much nicotine is destroyed during vaping ?

[exogenesis]

I'd guess a proper study would use more sophisticated means, e.g. GC/MS.
Definately was worth looking though.


Occurred to me that I might be able to drive off the dissolved CO2
(to insignificant amounts) by acidifying and bubbling air through.
Then I could 're-alkalise' and titrate as normal (maybe).

At least I can test this idea by adding sodium bicarbonate to some diluted juice.
Just the right sort of activity for working off the Christmas Day fat,
- after I eaten the duck & fruit pudding and wine & beer & .....

 

[Mister]

Occurred to me that I might be able to drive off the dissolved CO2 (to insignificant amounts) by acidifying and bubbling air through. Then I could 're-alkalise' and titrate as normal (maybe).

You're way past my depth there.

I have been trying to think of what else might cause a problem and haven't come up with anything. (Doesn't mean there isn't of course )

Aside from less O2, nicotine, PG and more CO2 the only other thing I can think of that will differ in the inhale vs. exhale would be humidity, in most conditions more water in exhale.

 

[exogenesis]

It fairly simple school level equilibrium chemistry really,
you probably know/knew as much as I do, but may not remember it well.

The water I'm definately expecting - maybe 10 to 20 ml over the period
of 600 to 700 exhales, hopefully shouldn't be a problem.

Bubbling air through acidified nicotine + bicarbonate solution seems to work
on a test solution, the pH raised by an amount indicating I'd driven off
about 2/3rds of the CO2 after 7 hours (!).

So the nicotine in exhale experiment may well still be a go

 

[Mister]

Bubbling air through acidified nicotine + bicarbonate solution seems to work on a test solution, the pH raised by an amount indicating I'd driven off about 2/3rds of the CO2 after 7 hours (!).

So the nicotine in exhale experiment may well still be a go

That's encouraging news!

 

[exogenesis]

Looks like that worked really well, two halves of the same solution of nicotine:

1 nictotine + approx. equal (molecular) amount of bicarbonate
= really badly affected titration shape , would give a +100% reading on the nicotine.

2 same, but acidified & air bubbled overnight
= clear nicotine titration curve, at the correct titre, all the CO2 was removed

And agrees reasonably well with simulated shapes.

All I've got to do now is find a relation-free day,
to try out exhaling vapour into the collector all day.

 

[TWISTED VICTOR]

Aah, exo.....I knew you'd find a way . Will be interesting to see the results, but good luck on being able to set the required time aside. That may be the hardest chore, yet.

 

[Vaporer]

Nice work exo.
I was trying to think of a way to precipitate the CO2 out as maybe a carbonate.

 

[exogenesis]

, here's hoping there's no other problems.

Yes, good thinking, did think of silver nitrate -> precipitated carbonate,
but would be very fine ppt, & I've got none anyway, or a centrifuge.

But anyway, one day this coming week hopefully....

 

[exogenesis]

Well tried a test run, vaped 1.93 ml of 24 mg/ml in 5 hours,
with the intention of adsorbing as little as possible,
- intake mouth only, with direct blow out to collector.
Took a fair bit of concentration & care.

Feeling a little 'stewed', so quite a bit actually being adsorbed,
have only got about 5ml liquid collected, mostly water I guess - less than I thought.

Design of collector really needs to be a bigger volume (500 ml rather than 200 ml ?)
to be sure I get everything, not 100% sure it's worth bothering with ?

Will remove dissolved CO2 & determine the nicotine collected & post,
if it's of any interest.

 

[TropicalBob]

Oh, it's of interest!

 

[exogenesis]

thanks TB, definitely helps a lot if people egg me on a bit

Not sure I can do an equivalent test with full inhale though
(in the same time frame at least), likely to space me out completely.

 

[exogenesis]

Well, that was not quite a waste of time

After bubbling for 24 hours acidified, the exhaled vapour titration curve had the shape of a
nicotine + (bi)carbonate simulated curve.

For some reason the CO2 removal worked with the test solution of acidified
(nicotine + sodium bicarbonate), but didn't with the actual exhaled vapour
(with added CO2/water from breath).

Only thing I can think of is that bicarbonate or carbonate is 'bound' with the nicotine somehow
in exhaled vapour (in equals amounts?).

Assuming worst case i.e. 50/50 nic/HCO3 & approximating the nicotine as half the nicotine+CO3 titre,
this test gave ~33% of the nicotine from the juice in the exhaled vapour
(~15 mg recovered from ~48 mg nicotine i.e. 2ml of 24mg/ml),
bearing in mind I was drawing in to mouth & exhaling as soon as possible.

Only thing I can say is that : trying not to get nicotine uptake from juice by mouth intake only,
and quick exhale, gives as little as 1/3rd & as much as 2/3rds of the nicotine adsorbed.

Guess I need to design a purpose built 'double exhale-volume vapour collector',
and sort out a definitive 'account for CO2' method, maybe a later project,
unless there's a strong interest in getting further info now.


Otherwise returning to the next of the more-reliable tests,
which will be 6V vaping of 10ml of 36mg/ml PG on 901 atty,
to see if any significant amount of nic. is killed off.

 

[JohnnyVapor]

Only thing I can say is that : trying not to get nicotine uptake from juice by mouth intake only,
and quick exhale, gives as little as 1/3rd & as much as 2/3rds of the nicotine adsorbed.

Exo, correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't it theorized that nicotine adsorption through vaping was most likely to mostly take place by deposition onto mucous membranes? If so, you should still be getting a decent amount of nicotine without inhaling. Either way, be careful, don't overdose. A lot of us less-educated folks out here are excited about the work you're doing, and thank you very much for doing so.

 

[MetalPrincess]

thanks TB, definitely helps a lot if people egg me on a bit

I'm sure there are others like me who are lurking but avidly following this thread (even when it goes whoooshing over my head! 8-o). THANK YOU!!

Not sure I can do an equivalent test with full inhale though (in the same time frame at least), likely to space me out completely.

Just out of curiosity, does it have to be done in the same time frame? Would it alter results or anything to do it over a couple of days?

...
Assuming worst case i.e. 50/50 nic/HCO3 & approximating the nicotine as half the nicotine+CO3 titre,
this test gave ~33% of the nicotine from the juice in the exhaled vapour
(~15 mg recovered from ~48 mg nicotine i.e. 2ml of 24mg/ml),
bearing in mind I was drawing in to mouth & exhaling as soon as possible.

Only thing I can say is that : trying not to get nicotine uptake from juice by mouth intake only, and quick exhale, gives as little as 1/3rd & as much as 2/3rds of the nicotine adsorbed.

Guess I need to design a purpose built 'double exhale-volume vapour collector', and sort out a definitive 'account for CO2' method, maybe a later project, unless there's a strong interest in getting further info now.

I would not have thought there would be that much absorption without fully inhaling.

I hope you eventually do some testing of nicotine uptake for a full inhale but I'm much more interested in a comparison of low and high volt vaping. I already knew vaping was providing "enough" nicotine for me because I don't get dizzy all the time and fall down (chronic & erratic low blood pressure).

Otherwise returning to the next of the more-reliable tests,
which will be 6V vaping of 10ml of 36mg/ml PG on 901 atty,
to see if any significant amount of nic. is killed off.

Very interested in this one! (Oh, finally found an excuse to use the popcorn smiley!)

Thank you!

 

[Vaporer]

I'm hanging tight with you here exo. Great test. Its one of those situations where there is a lot of things you'd like to know, but being unable to do the work myself, you hate to dictate work for others to do to get what you'd like to have.

One would think if you held the vapor long enough in your mouth the PG/VG carrying the nic would condense on the moisture of the mouth 100%. Assuming the PG/VG is the actual carrier so it would appear to be 100% adsorption. The effect time is still out since we have no way of knowing how long it takes for the carrier to be adsorbed. I seriously doubt the nic jumps out of the carrier into the blood stream.

1/3 alone from just mouth draws was a surprize. I'm thinking that 1/3 -2/3 is mainly form condensation in the mouth, which will eventually make it into the body. Not just direct adsorption.

 

[exogenesis]

Some good points

I guess mucous membranes cover a lot of the respiratory area, mouth, nasal, trachea, lungs.
From what I've read, supposedly cigar smoke is acid & mainly gets adsorbed in oral/nasal membranes,
ciggie smoke is alkaline and mainly gets adsorbed in the lungs - not sure what the reason is.

Given vapour is usually alkaline (except maybe some US juices like JC), I thought perhaps
there'd be a relatively smallish uptake in the mouth, compared to lungs, so
really this was just a test of whether mouth area would adsorb quick enough to make a dent in
the nic. in vapour being quickly blown out.
Looks like it's a significant amount was adorbed though, although these are very rough figures.

Hopefully I'll not tempt myself to do any extreme lung-inhale vaping tests JohnnyVapor,
so I'm not likely to keel over if I can help it


You're right MetalPrincess, I agree it doesn't need to be exactly the same time frame really,
but not sure how stable a dilute exhaled solution of nic in water would be, if collected
over say a week (some microbes will probably start eating it!). Couple of days might well be OK,
difficult to know though.
I was suprised by the amount too, though I suspect it's nearer 1/3rd than 2/3rds,
really needs a better test set-up to know for sure.

The 6V tests are purely going to be in the auto-vaper (not going to try vaping 10ml 36mg/ml
in a short time myself), it's just a test for nicotine destruction rate on the hot coil,
not an body-adsorption test.
Sounds like nicotine is your friend for that condition, presumably you have other meds as well though.


I agree Vaporer, if held in the mouth it'd eventually all settle out, but given how
difficult I found it to 'collapse' the vapour, I think it might be longer than would be initially thought.

Also I think most vapers exhale a lot of the vapour with multiple drags, whilst partly exhaling through nose
(I certainly do normally - but not in the last test though, had to pinch my nose for each drag/exhale for 5 hours),
do many people vape by a single long drag, lung inhale & hold ?
So oral/nasal uptake may be more important, certainly than I thought.

Yes, also there's the question of how quickly the nic. on the membranes gets to the blood stream,
found this snus vs ciggie investigation, which definately raises some other questions as well:
Nicotine uptake - Swedish Match

The prolonged elimination <from the body> of nicotine in snus users has been attributed to continued
absorption of nicotine released from the mucous membrane or to absorption of nicotine that has been swallowed

i.e. there's a load of nic. held up in the membranes, being released more slowly than for ciggie smoke in lungs.

Also interesting, maybe more suitable for a snus-forum discussion:

These results show that snus users do not compensate their nicotine uptake upon switching to a snus with lower nicotine content

Implying snus users don't self-titrate nic. intake like smokers (or vapers) ?

 

[TWISTED VICTOR]

Yes, also there's the question of how quickly the nic. on the membranes gets to the blood stream,
found this snus vs ciggie investigation, which definately raises some other questions as well:
Nicotine uptake - Swedish Match


i.e. there's a load of nic. held up in the membranes, being released more slowly than for ciggie smoke in lungs.

Also interesting, maybe more suitable for a snus-forum discussion:



Implying snus users don't self-titrate nic. intake like smokers (or vapers) ?

An interesting topic for smokeless discussion, exo. I reposted in the ST forum, giving due credit, for the inquiring minds that dwell there. Some make it here, some don't and it would be a shame for snus users to miss this. Thank you . .....carry on.

 

[Vaporer]

That sounds like a rough test exo.
I happen to be one of those that long draw into the lungs with diff time holds and then exhale. How many others, idk.
I have to wonder now after your last post if when the vapor condensates in the mouth if the pH of the mouth allows easier faster adsorption of the nic into the mucous tissue fairly quickly away from the carrier and then is stored like a sponge being slowly or at least a regulated release into the system.
With snus and the high concentration of nic it can have, a system low might feel the initial "impact" then the tissue performs its regulated release.
Many things that only a series of timed bloodwork tests could prove.
More questions with lack of resources.......................................

 

[Vaporer]

As whatwould be considered a low nic user, I think that snus users do self titrate. At least from my personal usage.
I don't swap or dispose of a portion after 30min or whatever they say. I'll let it stay in sometimes for 2-3 hrs then removing it and not using another for maybe 2 hrs.
That to me would suport the storage part and since I use low nic normally, there is enough for me to have a saturated level I'm satisfied with over a long period of time.

 

[TWISTED VICTOR]

As whatwould be considered a low nic user, I think that snus users do self titrate. At least from my personal usage.
I don't swap or dispose of a portion after 30min or whatever they say. I'll let it stay in sometimes for 2-3 hrs then removing it and not using another for maybe 2 hrs.
That to me would suport the storage part and since I use low nic normally, there is enough for me to have a saturated level I'm satisfied with over a long period of time.

That's how it works for me if I'm relaxed, a long time on the same portion, then a while without. Now, if I'm busy, excited or anxious I'll follow one after another with an occasional vape.