Newbie's question about even simpler DIY test for mg/mL nicotine

[Sam79]

Hi.

I stumbled upon this forum while trying to find a way of measuring mg/ml of base liquids and after reading the great thread about it on the main side of the forum a little idea started brewing in my bead...

Since the whole method there is based on measuring the amount of acid needed to neutralize the alkalinity of nicotine. So if you manage measure the PH of the liquid I think you could derive the nicotine mg/lm directly from the PH?

So one could go and get some PH tester slips from say... aquarium shop, and determine the PH of base juice, and check the nicotine level from chart?

Like if liquid is PH8 mg/ml would be 24... if its 9 mg/ml would be 36 and so on...
(pulled theese numbers from my hat, so dont go using them =)

Does this sound reasonable?
Or is the PH effect of the nicotine so miniscule that it wouldn't even show on the PH slips?

Do you know what PH would represent what mg/ml?

Reason why I'd be delighted if this would work is the fact that Finland is apparently the promised land of government control, when it comes to any chemical components in their raw form....

I mean, seriously. I went to the local pharmacy and asked for purified water... they eyeballed me really suspiciously and asked what was it for??? when I told them, they said theyre out of stock... I dont dare to think what kind of "hand to rectum" treatment Ill get if I go around asking .12N Sulfuric Acid and Bromothymol Blue X_x

Im not looking too accurate results, just to tell me if the mg/ml level is about what its supposed to be... I just don´t want to die because of one miscalculation at the supplier's end (50mg liquid really being 500mg etc.).

Thanks In advance =)

Awesome forum and alot of great info (found battery issues very useful)

 

[Hoosier]

I can see why the idea occured, but the math does not work the way you're thinking. It's not linear. Having 10x more nicotine does not make swing the pH very much.

Doing the tritation method has an accuracy in the 5-10% range with the components generally available.

The accuracy range for the method you proscribe with commonly available test strips would be so horrible as to be no better than a sniff-and-guess.

Note I am not a chemist, nor claim to be, but have a basic understanding of the pH scale. This method has been queried before to the chemist on this forum and gotten a much more detailed response than mine, but the basic end meaning is the same.

Shame that getting ahold of fairly innocent components is met with such an attitude there. At least purified water is still pretty common here in the US, but the chemistry sets I used to play with as a child have been off the market here for quite awhile. (Shame there too because I loved that stuff even though I didn't enjoy classes on the subject.)

 

[Sam79]

Thanks for the quick response.

And ya, was hoping for a different ansver, but kindof guessed that its propably a no go =(

I think it wont be impossible for me to get the materials needed, but I will have to go to great lenghts on explaining myself to nosy pharmacists and annoying myself alot =)

I used to have that kind of chemistry set as a child too... until they were banned. Come to think of it maby pharmacists are somekindof a Nemesis profession for me, since I vaguely remember having many chemicals denied back then even when I was acompanied by my father =/ couldnt make smokebombs or any really cool stuff =/

 

[Hoosier]

What fun was a chemistry set without the smoke bombs and sulfur volcanos?

 

[Sam79]

Well evidently not as much, thats for sure!

But you can do some pretty nice stuff as 7y old with just sodium bicarbonate, vineger, food colouring and a bit of imagination =P

Incidently I saw a video of someone using sodium bicarbonate and vineger (without the colouring) to clean atomizers... brought back some memories =P

 

[Malawi]

By some reason it seems to be hard for me to get hold on bromothymol blue. Is there any other PH-indicators that can be used?
(With a different formula offcourse.)

 

[sailorman]

You might look into an electronic ph meter. They used to be expensive, but they've gotten pretty cheap in the last few years, at least in the U.S.. Most people don't even bother with the test strips anymore. I've seen the meters as cheap as $20USD.

As for getting juice that's way over-nic'd, an easy test for that is to drip some. If you get dizzy, it's 100mg. If not, it's not.

 

[Sicarius]

Sulfuric Acid and Bromothymol Blue can be bought at a pool and spa shop. I know it's cold in Finland, but there must be one of those.

 

[ambition]

If you could determine the nic strength from pH then we wouldn't need to go on with the titration.

Any acid will do. It doesn't have to be .12N sulfuric acid. It can be hydrochloric acid and it can be 5mole. As long as you accurately know the concentration of the acid you're starting with, the rest can be worked out easily.
Hell, you can even use vinegar.

 

[ambition]

By some reason it seems to be hard for me to get hold on bromothymol blue. Is there any other PH-indicators that can be used?
(With a different formula offcourse.)

I'm not aware of any common indicators that have a range as tight as bronothymol blue and also have that range in the right place. pH 6-7.6.

If you used the next best indicator which is litmus pH 5-8 you'd never get an accurate result.

 

[Sam79]

Pool & spa shop. that might actually get me around mean pharmacy personell =) Gotta try that out. I allso could go and make up an outrageous lie to feed the apothecary... something like I have very rare and sensitive fish comeing in to my large sweetwater tank, and need optimal PH... or tell them I need it inorder to use drugs or something =P

(weird how I see junkies being able to buy some weird stuff from pharmacies here, but if you are regular person its all about needing to have a viable explanation ;-)

Thanks

 

[ambition]

Why wouldn't you just tell the pharmacist you are doing an experiment and need to titrate to find the concentration of a base?

For your rare tropical fish of course.

Quite often I find that if you just tell people what you want, and ask for it like its nothing out of the ordinary, they give it to you.

If not, I'm sure there are other pharmacists around that will help.

It's not like any of these chemicals are particularly hazardous.

 

[Sam79]

ARGH!

Pool&spa shops here dont sell anything but service... some pH indicators available in aquarium shops probably are bromethymol blue, but they all excell in failing to tell the contents of the bottle in the lable & manual... Allso confirmed that pharmacies in Finland dont pack unprocessed chemicals anymore...

And all vendors in Amazon & E-bay are basically from USA, and dont ship outside...

I found one chemical import company that would sell me bromethymol blue... but in solid form.. wich is not a problem, but the pack size is... 14kg... Frightful thing is, that if I dont find more reasonable way to get that, I might buy that, since its only 50€...

Maybe Ill take like 10g of the stuff aside to last me for a lifetime, and use the rest (14990g) and turn ALL the snow in southern finland blue as one man protest against taking chemicals out of market!

And no.. I dont expect you to fix this, but I have to vent a bit =P

 

[Hoosier]

But the real question is...

Are the children safe from these horribly harmless pH indicator chemicals?

 

[Sam79]

Ya!

You hit the target!

We Finns are apparently all about protecting ourselves to death... especially from harmless substances X_x

And here I was thinking we were all about grumpiness, swimming in frozen lakes and overuse of alcohol (and not nessecarily on separate occasions).

 

[dearme]

Did you try Amazon UK?.........I know, silly question......

 

[stephpd]

Working in a water department, making potable water I can tell you there's a difference between pH and alkalinity. The raw water I test typically has a pH range from 7.0 to 7.6 But mostly it's around 7.2. But I know that after testing water at just the pH of 7.2 alkalinity can vary considerably. I've seen it as low as 30 and as high as 80 just at that one point on the pH scale.

Even when we add feric chloride to form floc, and it lowers the pH to as low as 6.2 there's still alkalinity in the water. It's usually low, 20-40 but still present.

For my pool I have one of the better test kits. For a 'balanced' water chemistry there's pH and temp verses alkalinity and calcium. Normal tap water being too low in alkalinity I have to add lots of baking soda to bring it up from ~60 to around 120. And this still doesn't effect the pools pH significantly.

 

[Sam79]

Ya checked amazon UK too with no success... but i found US vendor that ships 50ml bottle with whopping 108€ to europe... hehe.

But when I came to the conclusion that UK is the way to go i finally found UK based supplier that I got 50ml bottle of bromothymol blue 0.04% solution for 7£+12£ shipping... of all things the site was focused for people making their own biodiesel or something???

Very funky that starting vaping would force me to learn alot more of alkalinity/acidity in relation to pH.. something they failed to get to stick in my head in school =)

Yea, if I now understand it correctly, pH only gives you a real rough hint about alkalinity/acidity, and can in no ways give even roughly accurate readings about it. Further from neutral even the "rough hint" seems to suggest too accurate a result =)

Correct me if Im wrong.. but in my understanding you could have 2 different solutions of pH 12, and the other could need many times more of .0N acid to neutralize the alkaloids...

Funky stuff... Shame that the lil chemistry hobby spark in me will wither and die because its so hard to get equipment and reagents here =/

 

[Spitzz]

Try using an app if you have a smartphone to make DIY thats what I have

 

[ambition]

And that's just succeeded in confusing the living feck out of everyone.

pH is pH, and for nic test purposes it is only used as an indication that you've hit the equilibrium point.

OP, acid is not a problem, any acid will do, as long as you know its concentration.