I use PASCO equipment for the titrations. The HANNA units are out of my price range at the moment, and don't know much about the ease or difficulty of calibrating and using them.
The MS (I assume you want GC-MS) is a nice toy to have, but realize that while it is relatively straight forward to get qualitative analysis of a liquid, to get quantitative analysis of, say, nic level, it is considerably more challenging. Any component you want to quantitatively determine needs a standard to compare peak areas to.
But it sounds like you are on the right track with all this! Are you a chemist? Or will you be hiring a chemist or consult out to one for this equipment, or are you intending to use them yourself? Kudos for the direction you are taking!
Hi Kurt. Thank you for the kind words. The HANNA unit is "self-ceaning" self calibrating. It also allows calibration against a known "good" standard, via your logs. So you can track machine errors and discrepancies. I imagine that, being a closed system, it will be much easier and less frequent of a chore to deal with. I was planning on getting it straight from HANNA, along with a service contract for maintenance. One thing I did like about the unit, was it's ability to "set" the amount of burette cleanings per cycle. I will automatically wash the burette's with it's on-board supply/
tank of HCl, so there is no fear of contamination during clean-up. It seems to be a well thought out unit. I wish it was more within reach (price wise) for all of us. I was considering having the unit set-up in a dedicated environment, and offering analysis services (to offset some of the cost). I just hope that isn't opening up a bunch of liabilities (for me).
I am looking at the MS unit for a very specific chore. I distill/brew my juices. By that I mean I cook off measured amounts of fluids from each batch. I run the distillations in a closed loop, and collect fixed amounts of "burn-off". I do this because of two reasons. Number one I use flavor bases that are dissolved in pure PGA (and I want to remove the PGA, and homogenize the flavor bases back into the new carriers). Number two I want to be sure than any Petroleum Ether and other solvents/extractors, (left over from the nic extraction) are completely removed from my brew. So after I cook off a pre-determined amount of fluid, I then analyze the distillate for color, odor and other tell tale signs that the batch is "finished".
Right now I am more or less guesstimating the contents of the distillate, based on times and temperatures. My hot-plate/stirrer connects to my database via rs-232 (and I wrote a simple protocol to dump XML to my excel chart for each flavor). This way I can regulate cook/distill times and distillate, based on temperature and stir speed (which are very consistent, batch to batch).
So the reason for wanting the GC-MS, is to look for PE and chloroform in the distillate (as these are common chemicals used for extractions). I imagine that doing a full analysis of the distillate is just not timely or productive, but I would like to know exactly what is being removed during distillation. This will be used as a general guideline, to determine cook times for each individual "brew".
I am not a real chemist. I have some basic experience, but am primarily an engineer. I plan on hiring out a local Organic chemist (who I have been working with) to do some monthly/weekly consultation. I will be using the equipment myself, as I learn more about the proper methods for using it. I am going to try to transition my role (within my company) to be more focused on QC/QA and analysis/development.
I hope this isn't all overkill, but my companies primary mission/goal is safety and disclosure. At the very least I will be having some fun playing with the new toys
I am planning on also getting the analytical balance you recommended. I have a found a few units that will integrate into my database/network. My goal is to track each batch, not only for formula, but also for distill times and analyzed nicotine levels. That way each lot/batch will have an associated chart to refer to, showing the mix cycle and that safety standards have been met. So far this hasn't added enough cost to my final product, that I am priced out of the market.
I would be more than happy to offer the analysis to other
e-liquid manufacturers and re-sellers. I think it's smart money for all of us, as it keeps the industry "safe". At the very least we can claim that we have done our best to self-regulate and follow some set of "best practices".
P.S. sorry for the rambling...it's late here.
P.P.S also looking forward to trying out your method for standardizing my HCl. The information you gave me earlier is really going to help me out a lot, and I appreciate it.
