New studies find carcinogens in vg and pg at high temps, even in tootle puffers

[DaveP]

I've always vaped Kho Gen Do wicks in an SS316L slightly spaced (stretched and recompressed) 28ga 2mm .7 ohm coil at 10W, and I usually turn it down to 8W on a new coil and wick until it breaks in. In TC mode my max setting is 400F and I rarely hit cutoff. Mostly, I'm at 320F to 360F.

The vape is cool and rarely gets more than a slight hint of warmth. I vape 60pg/40vg DIY juice with 3mg Nic that I mix myself and those are mostly tobacco flavors. My favorite atomizer is a kayfun Lite Plus V2.

Am I in a relatively safe zone or am I likely getting some products of vaporization that I don't know about? This is interesting stuff.

Thanks MikePetro, for your hard work on this issue.

 

[mikepetro]

I've always vaped Kho Gen Do wicks in an SS316L slightly spaced (stretched and recompressed) 28ga 2mm .7 ohm coil at 10W, and I usually turn it down to 8W on a new coil and wick until it breaks in. In TC mode my max setting is 400F and I rarely hit cutoff. Mostly, I'm at 320F to 360F.

The vape is cool and rarely gets more than a slight hint of warm. I vape 60pg/40vg DIY juice with 3mg Nic that I mix myself and those are mostly tobacco flavors. My favorite atomizer is a Kayfun Lite Plus V2.

Am I in a relatively safe zone or am I likely getting some products of vaporization that I don't know about? This is interesting stuff.

Thanks MikePetro, for your hard work on this issue.

You "sound" like you are in good shape.

Just for giggles, pay attention to what the watts are running the next time you max out in TC mode set at 400f.

 

[DaveP]

You "sound" like you are in good shape.

Just for giggles, pay attention to what the watts are running the next time you max out in TC mode set at 400f.

10w puts me in the 320F to 370F range normally. If my coil is new or freshly cleaned I have to back off to 8W or 9W until it develops a light coating. While it's hard to see the display while vaping with air running through the atomizer I can usually tell if it's running higher. I feel a difference in warmth.

Excessive vape warmth to me is like a hot boxed cigarette. I don't particularly enjoy it.

 

[Islandswamp]

Everybody relax.
Its not like your setup turns into a Carbonyl-spitting monster even if you don't use TC. As long as there is enough liquid on the wick and enough airflow, it cools down on itself without TC anyway.
I have not yet seen a serious analysis (one that does not dry burn the hell out of the atty) that detects more then trace amounts of Form/Acetaldehyde and I work in this field.

That's good.

Am I reading the graphs wrong or are the indicating that the tests were done on 30 second puffs? My device won't let me take a puff one third that duration and I usually take 5-7 second puffs.

Isn't this just the same basic study they did a while back where they burned the !@# out of some coils and wicks and said "look, it made a bad chemical!!!". If that is the case then I am not worried.

 

[440BB]

Aproximate three second puffs with a 30 second break is the default being used, I believe.

 

[DaveP]

Most of us are probably in the green zone. Who likes a hot vape, anyway?

 

[Verb]

Most of us are probably in the green zone. Who likes a hot vape, anyway?

I do, warm to hot provides a nice lung feel.

But, a hot vape has very little to do with a hot coil. The mass of liquid vaporized in a given amount of time along with the amount of fresh air mixed in (saturation or density in vaper's terminolgy) determine how warm a vape feels in your mouth, throat and lungs.

I could easily build an atty that has an overheated coil, but feels very cool to vape, and vice-versa.

 

[Verb]

I've been doing some light chemistry research this morning and may have found an issue with the original study. The very low flow of fresh air into the chamber may effect the reaction in a manner not yet identified in this thread. We have talked about cooling it may provide, but we did not include the effect of oxygen concentration for the production of aldehydes.

What I'm finding, the temperature needed to produce aldehydes will instead produce water and co2 if the oxygen concentration is high enough. The coil can be hot enough to produce aldehydes, but if there is oxygen in the atmosphere surrounding the coil you will get water and co2 absent aldehydes.

 

[mikepetro]

That's good.

Am I reading the graphs wrong or are the indicating that the tests were done on 30 second puffs? My device won't let me take a puff one third that duration and I usually take 5-7 second puffs.

Isn't this just the same basic study they did a while back where they burned the !@# out of some coils and wicks and said "look, it made a bad chemical!!!". If that is the case then I am not worried.

The later study you refer to basically did a bunch of dry hits and said look what happens. It was discarded as unrealistic because nobody would do dry hits consecutively. The reason the levels they detected were so high was because the dry hits generates high coil temperatures. The high coil temperatures caused thermal degradation and generated a lot of nasties.

The Wang study approached it for a temperature POV. It proved that above 420f in pure VG you start generating aldehydes due to thermal degradation, and above about 450f in a 50/50 PG/VG mix. Many people do vape in these temperature ranges, even "tootle puffers".

I put a stock 2.2ohm cartridge in a Protank2 on a 20w IStick and at 6-7w measured 500f at the coil. And I vaped those samples and they did NOT taste burnt.

Forget the micro-grams of formaldehyde per puff in the Wang study, it doesnt correlate to our attys. They exposed 100% to the given temperatures where we expose only ~50% of our juice, because much of our juice never hits the coil but vaporizes off the wick at a lower temp. Nobody has done a study yet, to my satisfaction, that shows the true amount we get per puff. That gets into all of those 18 variables and will differ from atty to aty and from user to user.

What the Wang study showed us is that formaldehyde is being generating when we allow our coils to get too hot. And I have proven that we cant taste "too hot" until you are way past the degradation point.

The point being is that Wang proved that TEMPERATURE MATTERS!

Now, lets keep it in perspective. It is still far safer than smoking cigarettes, no doubt about it. But if we can educate ourselves and adapt our vape styles to safer temperatures, then we expose ourselves to even less potential harm.

 

[mikepetro]

I've been doing some light chemistry research this morning and may have found an issue with the original study. The very low flow of fresh air into the chamber may effect the reaction in a manner not yet identified in this thread. We have talked about cooling it may provide, but we did not include the effect of oxygen concentration for the production of aldehydes.

What I'm finding, the temperature needed to produce aldehydes will instead produce water and co2 if the oxygen concentration is high enough. The coil can be hot enough to produce aldehydes, but if there is oxygen in the atmosphere surrounding the coil you will get water and co2 absent aldehydes.

Then how did Kurt measure so much on the CE4s?

 

[Verb]

Then how did Kurt measure so much on the CE4s?

What was the draw pressure? CE4s have pretty low air flow.

It's the oxygen concentration directly surrounding the coils. A short distance away conditions are cool enough, neither reaction will occur. At different draw pressures eddy currents can set up dead air spaces in different locations and of different size. As said, coil build and atty design matter a bunch.

 

[zoiDman]

I've been doing some light chemistry research this morning and may have found an issue with the original study. The very low flow of fresh air into the chamber may effect the reaction in a manner not yet identified in this thread. We have talked about cooling it may provide, but we did not include the effect of oxygen concentration for the production of aldehydes.

What I'm finding, the temperature needed to produce aldehydes will instead produce water and co2 if the oxygen concentration is high enough. The coil can be hot enough to produce aldehydes, but if there is oxygen in the atmosphere surrounding the coil you will get water and co2 absent aldehydes.

An Interesting Angle to all this.

Can you post some Exploratory reading?

 

[Eskie]

What was the draw pressure? CE4s have pretty low air flow.

It's the oxygen concentration directly surrounding the coils. A short distance away conditions are cool enough, neither reaction will occur. At different draw pressures eddy currents can set up dead air spaces in different locations and of different size. As said, coil build and atty design matter a bunch.

I am probably not understanding the oxygen thing. We know you need oxygen to react in most of the pathways required for most of this stuff to be produced. Assuming we're using room air, under what circumstances of our vaping would oxygen not be available?

 

[DaveP]

What was the draw pressure? CE4s have pretty low air flow.

It's the oxygen concentration directly surrounding the coils. A short distance away conditions are cool enough, neither reaction will occur. At different draw pressures eddy currents can set up dead air spaces in different locations and of different size. As said, coil build and atty design matter a bunch.

Even a Tootle Puffer with a Kayfun V2 or V3 gets a constant stream of air flowing from the air port directly under the coil. AT 10W in TC mode with a .8 SS316L coil I can usually hold down the fire button without vaping and not reach overtemp cutoff boiling it for 10 seconds. It will reach about 370F max. When I vape it cycles between high 200s and the low 300s. That vape is about what I get in wattage mode.

 

[Verb]

I am probably not understanding the oxygen thing. We know you need oxygen to react in most of the pathways required for most of this stuff to be produced. Assuming we're using room air, under what circumstances of our vaping would oxygen not be available?

If there is a space of no movement near the coil. In the initial moments of firing, there could be oxygen present, and no aldehydes produced. But, that oxygen reacts quickly. If there is a dead air space while drawing, a space near a portion of the coil could become void of oxygen as what oxygen was there has formed co2 and water and there is no fresh air mixing in to replenish it.

Fire an atty that gets hot enough for long enough without drawing (no need to totally dry out the wick) and you will smell aldehydes.

 

[englishmick]

If there is a space of no movement near the coil. In the initial moments of firing, there could be oxygen present, and no aldehydes produced. But, that oxygen reacts quickly. If there is a dead air space while drawing, a space near a portion of the coil could become void of oxygen as what oxygen was there has formed co2 and water and there is no fresh air mixing in to replenish it.

Fire an atty that gets hot enough for long enough without drawing (no need to totally dry out the wick) and you will smell aldehydes.

There's so much we don't know about what goes on in the vicinity of a coil at small scales. There's been talk on this thread about a gas layer forming at the surface of the coil, and numerous other such effects. This could be another one.

Unfortunately we have no way of looking at the system at that level. We can only measure what we can. And look at what actually comes out of the drip tip. That's relevant no matter what is happening inside.

 

[mikepetro]

When you start getting down to the molecular level of what goes on in an atty, I dont think science is even close to knowing what goes on yet.

So far atty design has been more/less trial and error. Imagine if an atty were designed knowing all this micro level stuff and built to account for it.

 

[BrentMydland]

Looks like Reddit got a hold of this thread finally and the results are about what you would expect from those guys over there.

Prepare for an influx of troll posts, Mike.

 

[beckdg]

Looks like Reddit got a hold of this thread finally and the results are about what you would expect from those guys over there.

Prepare for an influx of troll posts, Mike.

1st!

[emoji14]

Guns don't kill people, virgins do! -Jim Jeffries

 

[retired1]

Looks like Reddit got a hold of this thread finally and the results are about what you would expect from those guys over there.

Prepare for an influx of troll posts, Mike.

Individuals wanting to participate in the discussion are welcome. Trolls will be dealt with in the usual manner.