Nicotine in atmosphere?

[xxJ6xx]

Reading the warnings strewed about this section, the one that stands out the most is (with my concerns in red)

"Never allow nicotine to touch your skin or allow it to build up in the atmosphere. Always wear suitable protective clothing and keep workspaces well ventilated."

Ok, so let's say you have 100mg/ml PG nic base. Does this stuff evaporate in such a way that even having it in a room is dangerous (other than unprotected physical contact, obviously), or is that part of the warning more geared towards people who are using PURE nicotine or are extracting their own nicotine?


Any knowledge passed my way would be helpful, thanks!

 

[AuBadge]

I take those warnings literally, regardless of nic strength... but that's just me.
The nic I have currently is far less than 100mg/ml, but I only keep the bottle open only long enough to draw what I need, then re-cap immediately and put it back in the mini-fridge where it lives. No point in asking for trouble.

 

[Kurt]

In theory nic will evaporate out of an open bottle of PG or VG liquid. More for PG. But it is slow, and there is no reason to leave a bottle open anyway...this will also promote oxidation.

The max most people work with here is 100 mg/mL liquids. When processing mine from a large bottle to smaller glass storage bottles, I do have a window open. Some nics are worse than others. If you can really smell the nic, its escaping into the air. I did work with a 300 mg/mL liquid once, and had to use a fume hood. The stuff reaked, and would have probably gotten me woozy without good ventilation. But having a bottle of up to 100 mg/mL nic open for a short time is not an issue. Many here, however, use a septum or eurodropper insert to avoid evaporation, oxidation, spilling, and allow syringe access. As Aubage says: why ask for trouble?

Pure free-base nic, OTOH, is pretty volatile and MUST be worked with in really good ventilation. But then again, other than some vendors, no one here is working with pure nic.

With high-nic (>36 mg) liquids, anything that eliminates exposure to air or body or prevents spills is very important. And syringe dispensing through a septum (MyFreedomSmokes has them) or a euro dropper (SpecialtyBottles.com) will go a long way to solving all of the above.

Stay safe!

 

[xxJ6xx]

@Kurt: Thank you, that was a very useful response! I'm somewhat shocked that more people didn't chime in on this, unless it's a topic that has been beaten to death before.

 

[Kurt]

It has, to a good extent. It is important enough that repeating it is a good thing. easy to forget that we are working with a very toxic substance, and DIY can be very messy, especially in the beginning.