I pointed out before that 1) most alkaloids are solids at room temps with high BPs; and 2) most will at least partially decompose rather than become a gas (or even a liquid).
Though oxidation is likely involved too, even nicotine (a liquid at room temps) is mostly lost in the atty.
I also pointed out that while these considerations suggest looking to misting rather than vaporisation as a far more efficient delivery method, the profile of alkaloids would be very different without the heat mediated filtering that applies with heater coils and analogs.
For now I am sticking with beta carbolines as the key players, but that is an hypothesis designed to facilitate experiment and debate.
I have previously prposed that a certain level of misting occurs in attys as vaporisation pressures churn and bubble out a spray of fairly fine neat liquid droplets (think salty sea spray through mechanical churning).*
I have been giving a lot of thought to whether WTA or designed e-liquid with selected alkaloids would be best. My current thoughts are: while there is more risk with WTA, I don't see it as high relative to smoking or even snus use. Increased knowledge will lead to redesigned formulas being the better option; but there will always be the chance of missing some subtleties in flavor, hit and phisiological effect. However, 2 or 3 well chosen other alkaloids added to nicotine might provide an e-liquid closer to WTA than existing e-liquids. We are just at the beginning of this jurney of discovery and I can see it running for some time.
Perhaps a curry analogy: basic must have ingredients for curry are cumin, chilli, ginger; but there is a large variety of minors that provide depth: coriander seed, bay leaf,star anise, black pepper, papriks, cardamon, ...
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* It would be a good idea to think how this activity could be enhanced by changing the atty design. Indeed, I have thought about using distilled water as the vaporisation agent and using the generated steam (the pressure of phase change) to power a misting of the e-liquid.
Some might remember some videaos of experiments I did months ago with atty coils heated outside the atty casing; high speed close up filming of the bubblin of the e-liquid might be able to show this effect taking place.
In a kettle, say, this effect would be minimal because the bubble size is large because of the containing pressure of the liquid. In an atty, however, the volume of liquid is very tiny and this effect (the 'kina effect' if it doesn't yet have a name) could well be very significant (perhaps 10%, 20%, or more of the emitted total). The expanding gas at the heated surface forces drplets of liquid into the air.
The boiling of tiny volumes of liquid like this is very unusual and might well have been little studies so far. At this scale, the misting effect, normally trivial, could well be significant, with this being a new are of science. The key conditions being tiny liquid volumes (and hence tiny liquid pressures leading to very small gas bubbles), fast heating. A variety of science in involved: surface and colloid behaviour, thermodynamics, etc.
A very primitive experiment that could somewhat approximate these conditions would be to spray a salt solution through a zozzle onto a pre-heated hot-plate and check for saltiness in the surrounding air.
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In smoking the non-volatile alkaloids are carried on smoke particles.
