Nicotine Extraction Experiment

[dohsma]

Ok so I have read most of the threads regarding extracting nicotine from tobacco, and most seem like they would be too dangerous, or yield little to no nicotine. So I decided to do an experiment. I am currently soaking 1 snus pouch in about 1 ml of distilled water. I'm starting this out very small scale to minimize risk.

In theory snus may yield more nicotine when soaked in water because essentially this is how snus is designed to work. You put the pouch in your lip and the nicotine is absorbed through saliva. Another factor in using snus is that you have a known quantity of nicotine. Depending on the manufacturer each pouch contains between 5-15 grams of nicotine per gram (according to the small amount of research I've done). I realize that you would not be able to extract all of the nicotine from a snus pouch, but you could always scale up or down the amount of snus used, water used, etc.

Currently I have my snus soaking, and after just a couple of minutes the liquid inside became a dark brown color, so something is happening. I'm going to let it soak for several hours, then mix it with VG and give it a whirl. I will update this thread throughout the process and let you know of my results.

Any thoughts on this?

 

[Wildsky]

I'm trying myself, but with tobacco, not sure how well it will work and no way for me to know how much nicotine is in it. LOL
I hope your experiment works out - I'll be watching!

 

[dEFinitionofEPIC]

Ok so I have read most of the threads regarding extracting nicotine from tobacco, and most seem like they would be too dangerous, or yield little to no nicotine. So I decided to do an experiment. I am currently soaking 1 snus pouch in about 1 ml of distilled water. I'm starting this out very small scale to minimize risk.

In theory snus may yield more nicotine when soaked in water because essentially this is how snus is designed to work. You put the pouch in your lip and the nicotine is absorbed through saliva. Another factor in using snus is that you have a known quantity of nicotine. Depending on the manufacturer each pouch contains between 5-15 grams of nicotine per gram (according to the small amount of research I've done). I realize that you would not be able to extract all of the nicotine from a snus pouch, but you could always scale up or down the amount of snus used, water used, etc.

Currently I have my snus soaking, and after just a couple of minutes the liquid inside became a dark brown color, so something is happening. I'm going to let it soak for several hours, then mix it with VG and give it a whirl. I will update this thread throughout the process and let you know of my results.

Any thoughts on this?

No idea man... but I'm interested in hearing your results. I would love to know there is an easy way to extract nicotine in case they ban the sale of e-juice. I have no desire to be in my kitchen with all kinds of dangerous chemicals like some kind of mad scientist.

 

[dohsma]

No idea man... but I'm interested in hearing your results. I would love to know there is an easy way to extract nicotine in case they ban the sale of e-juice. I have no desire to be in my kitchen with all kinds of dangerous chemicals like some kind of mad scientist.

That's why I wanted to try snus. I have no interest in boiling anything on my stove like I got some kind of .... lab going on. If the nicotine can be extracted just with water it would be a cheap easy way to make juice. That is until snus gets banned

 

[dEFinitionofEPIC]

That's why I wanted to try snus. I have no interest in boiling anything on my stove like I got some kind of .... lab going on. If the nicotine can be extracted just with water it would be a cheap easy way to make juice. That is until snus gets banned

Haha... I hear you. I just started using snus too after hearing about it on this board. It's great but you don't get that whole oral-fixation thing from it. If what you're doing works that would be extremely convenient in case of a ban.....

 

[dohsma]

Haha... I hear you. I just started using snus too after hearing about it on this board. It's great but you don't get that whole oral-fixation thing from it. If what you're doing works that would be extremely convenient in case of a ban.....

Yeah, snus just started becoming regularly available in my area in the last few months. I just wish I had more options as far as brands. The only ones I can find around me are Camel, which I didn't really like b/c I thought it was way weak. And the other brand available is Tourney, but it's only sold at Speedway convenience stores.

 

[dohsma]

Update:

Ok the snus has been soaking for 2 hours and the liquid is definitely a heavy brown color. I smelled it and it definitely smells like tobacco. My unknowns here are 1) how long to soak for. In the snus world they say most of the nicotine is gone after about an hour. 2) Is there anything else in saliva that activates the snus as opposed to using just water. No idea here. 3) It would be impossible to tell how much nicotine is in the liquid. But again I think this is more controlled than using loose tobacco if we know the amount of nicotine per gram.

I will keep everyone updated in this process.

 

[b00stzx3]

Email the makers. Probably Phillip Morris. Sounds like a good idea, but with the whole soaking thing, I worry were getting "contaminated" e-juice. I hate tobacco, just love nicotine, but these DIY methods seem to be tobacco even when its extracted.

 

[dEFinitionofEPIC]

Email the makers. Probably Phillip Morris. Sounds like a good idea, but with the whole soaking thing, I worry were getting "contaminated" e-juice. I hate tobacco, just love nicotine, but these DIY methods seem to be tobacco even when its extracted.

I hear you... the only thing I'm interested in is the nicotine. The good thing about doing it with snus though (versus regular smokeless tobacco) is it has the lowest carcinogenic levels out of any tobacco product. So that combined with the fact that you're not burning anything and you're not getting any of the other chemicals they put in cigarettes leads me to believe it would be pretty safe.... though I'm no scientist

 

[b00stzx3]

Ahhh I didn't even condiser that. My apologies! Keep going, were gonna need to figure out the juice when the FDA bans it!

 

[dohsma]

I think I may be on to something here. After just shy of 3 hours I extracted some of the liquid. I mixed it half and half with VG and dripped some on to my 401. I got a decent throat hit (although I never seem to get as good of a throat hit with VG as with PG) and plenty of vapor. The taste was pretty good. I did not add any flavor to it, but I used wintergreen snus and it tasted kinda like that. Overall pretty good. I think if I ramped it up a little and used 2 pouches, plus a little more water it might give it some more kick. Plus I'm working on getting some PG and that may help some too. Colorwise it looks almost identical to some tobacco flavored juice that I have. If nothing else I could mix this with some of my other homebrews to kick the nic up some. Let me know if anyone else decides to try this.

 

[TropicalBob]

Very thoughtful experiment. Now, to take this one step further, consider this:

The measure of acidity of a substance is known as pH. Pure water, which has pH of 7, is neutral. Substances with a pH less than 7 are considered acidic and substances with a pH of greater than 7 are considered basic.

The normal pH of blood running through arteries (large elastic-walled blood vessels that carry blood from the heart to other parts of the body) is 7.4; the pH of blood in the veins (vessels that transports blood to the heart) is about 7.35. Saliva has a pH between 6.0 and 7.4.

Ergo: Saliva is slightly acidic. Your mouth is slightly acidic. The snus might release even more nicotine if the water in which it dissolves is made acidic by adding say, vitamin C crystals.

Plus, you'd end up with "healthy" vitamin C e-liquid with some nicotine.

Get some Thunder at 15mg per pouch or Odin at 17mg per pouch. And tread carefully when you vaporize the result.

 

[dohsma]

Good idea on the Vitamin C crystals Bob, any idea where I'd find something like that. Plus I'm stuck (for now) using snuses available locally (have not ordered any online lately). So that leaves me with Camel or Tourney. Both are pretty mild, but I think the tourney has slightly more kick.

 

[TropicalBob]

Oh, okay. I order snus from The Northerner in Sweden. Online.

I also mix vitamin C crystals with fruit juice daily. You can buy them in any health food store. Be sure to get crystals, not tablets. And there's a hard-to-find fat soluble vitamin C that you don't want to use in water (but can be sprinkled into gravy, etc). I always have vitamin C crystals, tablets and powder on hand ...

 

[dohsma]

Thanks again Tbob. I'm gonna have to try the Vitamin C crystals. And I'm planning on placing a snus order one of these days.

 

[yvilla]

What about soaking the snus directly in PG to eliminate the water?

 

[MARK4567]

Ok just to throw a wrench into things..
Pure nicotine is a yellow crystal, even a 3.6% mix (36mg nicotine liquid) is almost clear. So what is making your extract dark brown?!?! I think your getting close to a cigarette as far as unwanted chemical compounds go.

 

[2kool2]

I think you are right Mark4567.

 

[shakey ceasefire]

Watching this thread. The corner store down the street from me sells snus. I can get Loranns and VG in my neighborhood. Only thing missing is the nic. This sounds easy and could be a real money saver.

 

[fenez]

man you guys are chemists