so whats this whole oxidation business about?

[hazarada]

Referring to the process done to SS meshes to make them non conductive. Does it actually create a layer of iron oxide? Somehow i don't think so since it requires juice to do. So i'm guessing burning the juice on the surface of the mesh actually leaves a layer of some waste product.. but what is it?

afaik when burning pure glycerol some of the compounds it produces are water, hydrogen and carbon dioxide. None of them are any good for an insulating layer. It also produces acrolean and propargyl alcohol which can produce a solid layer and make excellent insulators but are also both very toxic.

When burning pure propylene glycol, aside from the same basic products as glycerol it produces various aldehydes some of which are toxic but none that are good candidates for insulation layer.

So what is actually going on there, does anybody know? Who came up with the word oxidation for this process?

 

[SilentScreams]

The oxidation is building up a layer of carbon on the mesh. It does not require juice to do this. Just burning it will oxidize it. The juice part at the end I'm not to sure exactly what that's for except maybe to just burn it a bit more. The oxidation is to keep the mesh from causing a short. Most rebuildables do not have an insulated wick hole. If you don't oxidize the wick then if it touches the sides it will cause a short. Oxidizing is to stop that.

 

[Blix]

Actually the only part of a wick that needs to be oxidised is the part touching the coil, as long as the coil have oxidized mesh under it , it will be isolated electronically from the rest of the atty and can touch wick hole sides and the bottom without any problem.

 

[hazarada]

The oxidation is building up a layer of carbon on the mesh. It does not require juice to do this. Just burning it will oxidize it.

But afaik, carbon is an excellent conductor, how does that make sense? Also i still don't see where the oxidation comes in.

 

[volume control]

Im pretty sure its not carbon, its some sort of oxide obviously, and it forms a protective and non conductive layer

 

[hazarada]

But what kind of oxide? SS is by default already covered by chromium oxide (which makes it "stainless") and all quenching would do to it is harden it. How is it possible that nobody knows this...?

 

[IntelligentDesigner]

How is it possible that nobody knows this...?

We're vapers, not electrotheoretical chemists/physicists.

But from what I do know, electricity follows the easiest path to ground. Even if the carbon/oxide layer is conductive, if it has a higher resistance than the metal in the coil, and the coil has adequate conductivity, the electricity will follow the coil and have no need to jump.

 

[JBL-37]

It's not a secret, google it... ss is not the same as carbon steel. I don't understand the burning of juice, you can't season ss. Once you burn it it creates a bonded layer on the ss.

Here is some from wiki, there is more info to be found. First thing I ran into.
Stainless steel differs from carbon steel by the amount of chromium present. Unprotected carbon steel rusts readily when exposed to air and moisture. This iron oxide film (the rust) is active and accelerates corrosion by forming more iron oxide, and due to the greater volume of the iron oxide this tends to flake and fall away. Stainless steels contain sufficient chromium to form a passive film of chromium oxide, which prevents further surface corrosion and blocks corrosion from spreading into the metal's internal structure, and due to the similar size of the steel and oxide ions they bond very strongly and remain attached to the surface.

 

[Kemosabe]

OP, i tend to think that Intelligent nailed it. but once the mods bump this thread into the rebuildable section youll get more than enough info. you might even want to check there now as there is a wealth of knowledge to be had.

have at it:
Rebuildable Atomizer Systems

 

[hazarada]

We're vapers, not electrotheoretical chemists/physicists.

it's quite a large forum though, surely there is at least one rocket scientist around here

Also from what i remember from the electronics course in school, electricity doesn't just take the easiest path but all paths to a degree. For instance if you connect a 10 ohm and a 5 ohm resistor in parallel they result in 3.3 ohm resistance together with first resistor getting 1/3 of the current and second 2/3

JBL-37:
has nothing to do with this mysterious "oxidizing" process, chromium oxide is naturally present on SS anyway

 

[steved5600]

The oxide acts as an insulator so the coil does not short out on the mesh and also allows appears to help the mesh wick the juice better. From what I can tell. I got shorts when I did a pour job of oxidizing. That caused the coils to burn out or the battery to get errors.

 

[JBL-37]

The black layer were trying to achieve is chromium oxide and that's our barrier. That's what's actually going on, this happens before you burn juice. I do not believe burning juice has any benefit, I don't do it and I have no problems. So it's still no mystery imo

 

[hazarada]

i know what it does, the question is what it is?

The black layer were trying to achieve is chromium oxide and that's our barrier.

again, chromium oxide is the layer that is there to begin with, if it were non conductive then all stainless steel would be non conductive

Anyway i found this: content.rolledalloys.com/technical-resources/other/Oxidation.pdf

Expansion and contraction, as the result of heating and cooling, will “pop” the oxide layer,
because the base metal and the oxide expand and contract at different rates. The more
rapid the rate of expanding and contracting, or the more quickly the metal is heated and
cooled, the more hazard there is of the protective coating flaking off.

If im getting this right, the quenching process actually destroys the chromium oxide layer. This would theoretically leave the door open for iron oxide to form.. however there must be another mechanism here since left by itself SS would regrow the chromium oxide layer well before the rust. Wonder if the oxidation process would be more effective if after heating the mesh is doused in salt water instead?

 

[AttyPops]

OK, so if I'm tracking what you guys are saying, it's not carbon (I thought it was)....

A) I have to "worry" about silica shards, so I switch to SS mesh.
B) Now I have to "worry" about chromium oxide flaking off SS mesh?

Where are those ceramic wicks when you need them. P.S. Someone please research what deposits form from ceramic wicks ahead of time.....



P.P.S. Still gotta be better than smoking....
Groan

P.P.P.S. Gotta be some carbon there...if from nothing other than the flame/fuel deposits...I would think.

 

[AttyPops]

A lot of wire we use is Kanthal:
Kanthal - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Kanthal FeCrAl alloy forms a protective layer of aluminum oxide

So now I have to "worry" about aluminum oxide......

Sigh. It's always something. I think I'm changing my sig:
"He died. We all do. He died vaping...with a smile."

Grrrrrr.

 

[hazarada]

AFAIK it was established a while ago that since the synthetic silica strands in silica wicks are of the amorphous kind then the flakes that they do shed are way too big to make it past your throat.

There has been little study into chromium oxide since its quite rare for it to be airbourne but no toxicity claims have been made.
Iron oxide has been found to be mildly encouraging of lung damage.. to one out of 17 subjects after 30 years of exposure in a low tech iron smelter. Cant find the pdf report of that study..
Aluminum oxide is reportedly non damaging to lungs but is suspected of causing damage to the sympathetic nervous system, also cant find that study, stumbled on it days ago.

Anyway I'm not worried but rather curious or at this point i guess i'd qualify for obsessed? I'm ok with that.

also i agree that there has to be some carbon in there, both chromium and aluminum oxides are transparent or in heavy layers milky white and iron oxide is red.

 

[RT88]

so how do they avoid burnt taste if they coat the coil in burnt material?

 

[JBL-37]

You know I looked into this for myself a couple days ago and can't find what I had originally read. But after reading today on ss I do believe it to be carbon from our torch's. So I did a little experiment. I have a pocket microscope that's 100x in power. I unrolled a used ss wick screen and found a bunch of burnt on crusty stuff towards the outer part. I thought it to be burnt juice or something. Towards the center was the same but patches of shiny gold colored screen too. This led me to cut a piece of new screen and burn one side of it 3 times no water and the other side 3 times with water. Both sides looked identical under microscope and both sides were covered in a black flakey deposit. For argument sake I soaked both halves in juice and burnt 3 times. Both sides looks like before with no added deposits. Then for argument sake again I took a clean piece of ss and deposited a drop of oil and burned. Where the oil was stayed clean the the surrounding area changed from blue to gold in color with no deposits. (edit) Burned it 3 times with juice btw.
With all that said and done I do believe it to be our torches, at least for now...

 

[hazarada]

well unfortunately carbon is about as vague as oxide as there are many different carbon compounds left over from burning various stuff. Could you maybe try and scrape off some of the crap from the SS mesh you burnt and see if theres any red or brown underneath?

 

[440BB]

There's an extensive post about the chromium oxide created when a stainless steel wick is torched, and it a concern for some. Here's the link http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/fo...xidization-chromium-iv-vi-deposits-uh-oh.html

As the effects are cumulative over time, it's hard to be certain whether the harm is significant in the short time genesis attys have been in use, but there are a number of vapers moving to alternatives that don't require oxidization.

The designer of the original genesis atty only used a lighter to do this, and my take is that if you are oxidizing, don't get it red hot while heating it up as it can create more dangerous byproducts.