silica wicks danger

[AussieGeek]

There are two kinds of silica--amorphous and crystalline. The amorphous silica, still used in vaping (mostly in initially in cigalikes), is perfectly safe and OK to be used as a wick. The dangerous kind is the crystalline silica--the kind that causes silicosis.

The discussion about safe and unsafe silica started after Aspire introduced a mystery "ceramic" wick (ca 2014) that crumbled to dust when touched (Busardo showed it in his video). There was a suspicion that those tiny, respirable fiberglass particles (under 5µ) could get into our lungs. This chart made by @Boden shows the size of amorphous silica fiber used in silica rope (22-32µ)--the safe kind--in comparison to the unsafe, crystalline silica fibers.

http://srs.unm.edu/industrial-hygiene/media/docs/silica.pdf (sorry, the link doesn't work anymore, I'm copying and pasting from my old posts )

"Amorphous Silica: Multiple studies have found amorphous silica to be biologically inert when ingested and inhaled, with the exception of extruded fiberglass and ceramic fibers (which have been designated as carcinogens by the National Toxicology Program), which are hazardous due to their very small size and their high length to width aspect ratio. Because of this inertness, the US Food and Drug Administration permits the use of amorphous silica (not fiberglass or ceramic fibers!) in food and medicine. "

This issue has kept me up at night a bit, ive been vaping since 2010 and a bunch of stuff I used over the years had silica wicks. I actually did used to cut and re-wick some of them myself. This is the most comforting seemingly well founded response I have seen on this matter so far. Thank you for sharing and I hope its right that the devices we used were of the inert type.

 

[Katya]

This issue has kept me up at night a bit, ive been vaping since 2010 and a bunch of stuff I used over the years had silica wicks. I actually did used to cut and re-wick some of them myself. This is the most comforting seemingly well founded response I have seen on this matter so far. Thank you for sharing and I hope its right that the devices we used were of the inert type.

Thank you for your kind words and yes, I'm 99.9% convinced that there no danger from the silica rope wicks we've been using for years now.

 

[damachine]

I think I'm a paranoid person. But are we sure those silica wicks back then are truly silica and not something worse...like asbestos fiber? They look similar (white silicate fiber).

Has anyone sent those to a lab and confirmed that they are silica?

 

[440BB]

I don't know of anybody that's had them tested. Perhaps you should avoid them if you're feeling that suspicious.