I'm quite confident that it is WAY SAFER than smoking, that's good enough for me LOL. Nothing else could keep me from the stinkies, so I'll stick with it.
New studies find carcinogens in vg and pg at high temps, even in tootle puffers
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Nobody here is suggesting giving up vaping, not a single post has suggested that. Even in the worst of circumstance it far safer than the stinkies.
What is mainly being explored in this thread is identifying the more risky aspects of vaping, and there are some. By learning the what causes the riskier results, we can avoid them if we choose. vaping is so open to customization that if we find we need to reduce one variable to be safer, we can almost certainly adjust other variables to compensate and still achieve a satisfying vape.
With so much "Fake News' anti vaping propoganda, it is hard to know which studies to believe. In this thread we are attempting to do "objective" research to separate the wheat from the chaff.
I'm not giving up Vaping either.
But am Encouraged by threads like this that attempt to More Accurately define just what are the Circumstances/Causes that the Study's Author mentioned in the last line of his conclusion...
"Conclusion: Optimal combinations of device settings, liquid formulation and vaping behaviour normally result in e-cigarette emissions with much less carcinogenic potency than tobacco smoke, notwithstanding there are circumstances in which the cancer risks of e-cigarette emissions can escalate, sometimes substantially. These circumstances are usually avoidable when the causes are known."
I know you don't want to do this with all sorts of coils and temps, but it might be worthwhile to compare different wires at the same temps. There was one line towards the end of Wang's conclusions about the possible contribution of the SS reactor contributing as a catalyst. So even a Ni vs. SS in TC would be helpful, as well as a Kanthal built to operate at wattage that can approximately match the temperature of to those two as well. Just a thought.
Ti is also a popular material for TC coils. In addition, Mike has the ability to measure temperature directly, so testing a Kanthal build need not mean just an "approximate match" of temperature.
I dont want to do this with all sorts of "attys" (like I did with the temp), at least not unless I see that it makes a difference. I do intend to test different wires, but I dont "expect" much difference.
My theory is that any variances in Formaldehyde will be a by product of temperature and juice ingredients.
Still formulating a protocol. Wont be able to nail it down until I get the device though. Since this unit uses soft tubing on the in/out ports I am hoping that maybe I can just put it "inline" while I vape. That would really simplify things if the flow rate isnt severely altered. If "inline" testing doesnt work, then I need to figure out the whole "sample chamber" issue.
Because of the simplicity of measuring with a thermocouple on the Merlin, I plan on using a Merlin for the bulk of the tests.
My initial testing would be with TI since thats what I use anyway. I will test at 400, and then 500. If I see repeatable differences in formaldehyde are measurable I will then chart the 350-550 range in 10 degree increments.
I would then play with different PG/VG ratios and chart them.
Then I would pick a high end result, for example pure VG at 500f, and try different wires, cotton/rayon, and different attys to see if charting those variables is worth pursuing.
Assuming the wick is saturated, I really think it is going to come down to temp and VG ratio (boiling point?).
I am NOT going to get into flavors and additives beyond PG/VG/DW/Nic. Far too many variables there. I may try a Nic Salts sample though.
I suspect formaldehyde per ml of juice consumed in a single hit (at a given temp with all else being equal) will be more/less linear, but I will test that as well.
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I think the same tank and changing the wire alone is the only way to do this without going nuts. Hopefully the 400 and 500 F points will show a measurable difference.
Mike, try a nic salts sample for me please if you can! 
I hope you don't get crazy results on that since I pretty much bought enough to use forever, so I'm crossing my fingers. Though, it would be best to know, is what I'm telling myself, even if it's horrendous. NO rush, I'd need time to collect myself, anyway, if it's bad news... LOL.
Anna
I hope you don't get crazy results on that since I pretty much bought enough to use forever, so I'm crossing my fingers. Though, it would be best to know, is what I'm telling myself, even if it's horrendous. NO rush, I'd need time to collect myself, anyway, if it's bad news... LOL.Anna
My quandary there is that I think nic salts are achieved in different ways. Benzoic acid, citric acid, etc. So I am not sure if one brand will be representative of others.Mike, try a nic salts sample for me please if you can!
Anna
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Hope I am not asking a redundant question, but at what temp does PG/VG vaporize?
PG/VG will start to vaporize a little below its boiling point. At (or above) the boiling point you will have maximum vapor. Note, it will vaporize at even lower temps, but at insufficient volumes of vapor for our intended purpose. Think of water, it will evaporate at low temps (which is a form of vaporization) but you dont get any steam. Steam (akin to vapor like we want) starts a little below the boiling point of water.
Now the specific boiling point of your juice depends on the PG/VG ratio, flavorings, and other additives.
Check out my blog post for specific Boiling Point temp charts and a much more detailed explnation.
Juice Boiling Point and Vaping Temperatures (includes BP Charts)
I know that outfit runs sales all the time, I dont want any more spam than I already get so I am not signing up for their spam list, so if someone could let me know the time they have a sale going on I will buy some of their Nic Salts. I know they are a popular source.Gah. I spent a bit of time searching on Nicotine River to see how mine were made, I really can't find anything... Hmm. I may email them and ask.
Anna
I have made my own nic salts with ascorbic acid before. The downside was that it was a coil killer.Gah. I spent a bit of time searching on Nicotine River to see how mine were made, I really can't find anything... Hmm. I may email them and ask.
Anna
I ordered some Nic Salts from Nic River. Does it gunk your coils?
It plays into a different plan of mine. For some reason I have grown to like the Penguin Pod Mod. It satisfies a stealthy niche in my rotation. An effective ~$25 mod that can be considered a throw away. Anyway, while it does satisfy as is, I am used to something a little stronger, my intent is to try nic salts in the Penguin. Maybe 50mg vs my normal 36mg.
Bottom line is I will have your flavor of nic salts to test with the formaldehyde meter.
Just a thought, wondering what WTA would add to the equation of risk? Not seen any test what so ever on it. Has anyone seen any research on it that is different than regular nic as for the risk factor? Just something that popped into my mind.
I don't use anything else than Nicotine River, no. I have been getting better coil life than I should, lately, mostly using my own juices (light in flavoring).
Anna
I have been getting better coil life than I should, lately, mostly using my own juices (light in flavoring). Anna
Been a bit since I was on ECF, so just now trying to catch up.
Interesting video, and no, I was not aware of these formaldehyde determining devices. That said, even though the experiment was not very rigorously carried out, the results were interesting and perhaps comparable to our published aldehyde study using a 3rd-gen (Subtank, DNA-40) device.
Gillman_Kistler_aldehydes_ecig_RegToxPharm_2016_75_58-65.pdf
This was a rebuttal study to the Hidden Formaldehyde study, and it got a bit of media attention, but not like the original faulty burn-the-liquid-with-a-cranked-up-CE4 study:
Vaping Emits Less Formaldehyde than Previously Thought
What would be better is if he had weighed the PV before and after the puffs, since carbonyls from vaping are generally reported in terms of ug per gram of e-liquid consumed. That said, he got from 5 good puffs about 1% the CH2O aerosol concentration as 5 weak puffs of a cigarette, and at high power, strong enough to give some dry-puff.
For a pretty simple experiment, I would say his results are very reasonable and at least in principle in line with our results, ignoring the fact that much of the aerosol is absorbed by him when vaping, and other limitations of a quick-and-dirty experiment. He makes important conclusions concerning harm reduction arguments and how the media portrayed the Hidden Formaldehyde study. I will talk with my collaborators more involved with the analytical chemistry of our studies about how accurate and precise these devices are. I don't know the answer to this yet.
CH2O = HCHO, both are formaldehyde in somewhat structural organic chemistry shorthand. One and the same thing.
Other issues, besides, as someone already pointed out, that he only measured exhaled aerosol:
1. No info about puff duration. This is important to be able to make comparisons to other studies, and to not have an unreasonably long puff on a high-W device, which a user would not do. His were maybe 1-2 sec. Standard is 3-4 sec puff, and I have seen as much as 9 second puffs. His cig puff was less than his PV puff, but also less than a typical cig drag, since he clearly does not really smoke. Understandable, but his cig formaldehyde for a normal smoker exposure would be considerably higher than what he got, no doubt. Probably about 2x what he got if he used the Canadian Intense puff protocol: 3 sec puff, 30 sec interval, 55 mL volume of aerosol (for mtl hits).
2. The aerosol was puffed into a large fish tank, so the exposure concentration measured would be lower than had that same aerosol amount been puffed into 500 mL (tidal lung volume, about how much we actually inhale into the lungs). Same aerosol amount, smaller volume, so higher actual exposure than in the fish tank. Of course this tidal volume is the same be it cig or vaping, so one can still make rough comparisons in his experiment. OTOH, a direct lung hit is much higher volume, but still not a fish tank.
3. One could argue that what an experienced vaper or smoker is generally after is amount of absorbed nicotine, not amount of vapor. We know this because even with increased power capability of newer devices, vapers on average consume about the same amount of nicotine compared to previous lower power devices. 1 cig smoked with Canadian Intense puffing delivers about 2 mg of nicotine to the smoke, and ideally this is how much nicotine in a vapor that should be compared, and be based on nic concentration and mass of e-liquid consumed. We did not do this in our study, but for my FDA funded cytotoxicity study (in progress) this is very important to predict how much e-liquid would be consumed relative to smoking. Perhaps not relevant to this rough comparison, but something that should be taken into account ideally to really compare relative harm.
4. Mike, you are spot on with thinking an impinger is the better way to go here. This is what we did, using a modified CORESTA method for analyzing carbonyls in cig smoke. We did 25 puffs compared to 3 cigarettes, and measured the CH2O captured in an impinger with a carbonyl trapping reagent, and the product of CH2O with the trapping agent is easily measured with HPLC and UV absorption. We got no dry-puff for that device up to 25W. We also used unflavored e-liquid, which may decompose less than at least some flavored e-liquids.
We advocated in that paper, and in any presentations I have given on this topic, that researchers should realize that the CE4 top-coil is a bad design that tends towards dry-puff even at low wattage, and is largely out of favor with long-term experienced vapers as a result...and not keep making blanket statements about ecigs in general based on the CE4's poor performance. Not that they are not still included with kits, but most vapers move on to a better design that does not give dry-puff so easily.
One might be able to get very qualitative comparisons using this CH2O device in this manner, but it would be nigh impossible to compare to other peer-reviewed studies. But if you are satisfied with just being able to say "much less formaldehyde than smoking", which is as far as you could say, then I would agree with that based only on his fish-tank experiment in the video. But you won't get much quantitative exposure info, since there are too many variables not being addressed, let alone statistics which require multiple experiments of exactly the same protocol. This does not detract from the cleverness of the experiment, which I was impressed with. As I said, I don't know the accuracy or real precision of the device, but my guess is since they are used for workplace air analysis, they are probably reasonably accurate. Precision (significant figures) would only come from the stats and multiple runs.
Many thanks to Rossum who posted the video. This is a fun discussion!
Well, I got the device in the mail today, damn Amazon is quick.
It is going to take some playing around to figure out a reasonable protocol for this thing. First inline hit caused it to error out "over range", they dont specify if "Err2" is temp, humidity, or adlehyde, just that one of them is out of range. The temp limit is 122f on this thing so a direct vape could have been hotter.
Just with casual playing around I was able to drive the formaldehyde reading to its limit of 5PPM pretty easily, even at low DNA settings.
Maybe I need to mix it with 500ml of fresh air (lung volume) as Kurt alluded to.
The fan is so slight that you can barely tell it exists, no way to make it do a direct hit by itself.
Anyway, this is not going to be as easy as I hoped. I will have to experiment to find a way to get repeatable quantitative results. I can vary the results, but that is akin to "what do you want it to read". I need to figure out something repeatable.
Anyone know of a second hand impinger cheap?
It is going to take some playing around to figure out a reasonable protocol for this thing. First inline hit caused it to error out "over range", they dont specify if "Err2" is temp, humidity, or adlehyde, just that one of them is out of range. The temp limit is 122f on this thing so a direct vape could have been hotter.
Just with casual playing around I was able to drive the formaldehyde reading to its limit of 5PPM pretty easily, even at low DNA settings.
Maybe I need to mix it with 500ml of fresh air (lung volume) as Kurt alluded to.
The fan is so slight that you can barely tell it exists, no way to make it do a direct hit by itself.
Anyway, this is not going to be as easy as I hoped. I will have to experiment to find a way to get repeatable quantitative results. I can vary the results, but that is akin to "what do you want it to read". I need to figure out something repeatable.
Anyone know of a second hand impinger cheap?
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