Generally when I see the question what water is good for in e-liquid it comes to responses like "it makes the juice thinner, wick better, it improves the taste in some cases etc." I've even seen cosiderations that it might counter the hygroscopic properties of PG and VG. But recently I've see some strange effect with my DNA40 device that made me wonder if water can improve the safety of vaping with regards to temperature?
So to shortly explain what I saw. I was vaping 50/50 juice on my VaporShark rDNA40 set to 200*C (about 400*F) with a Ni200 coil and each time I took a longer draw the "Temperature Protect" message showed on the display, so nothing special here. Then I wanted to change flavors and what I do then, is rinse the coil in water for a minute or so until I can't smell the previous flavor anymore. After that I just put in the wet coil again and filled up the tank with the new flavor juice.
Then usually it takes a couple of draws until the water vaporizes and is replaced by PG/VG again so you can vape normally again. So I took draw after draw and I noticed that I could simply not get the "Temperature Protect" message to show. Even when the vapor startet to show normally again, I had to take huge draws to get into "Temperature Protect". But at some point the water must have been completely gone because I started to get the message sooner, as usual.
I looked up the temperature conduction values for PG, VG and water which are:
Glycerine 0.285 W/m K
Propylene glycol 0.147 W/m K
Water 0.609 W/m K
Source: http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/thermal-conductivity-liquids-d_1260.html
So as you can see water is probably a much better coolant fluid than PG or VG. This might also explain why the Ni200 coil did not hit the temperature limit as long as it was saturated with water. So what do you guys think? Could water (as it is usually at 10%) keep your coil cooler regardless of Kanthal/Ni200 etc. and even out hot spots (in a certain limit) to reduce any chance that e.g. formaldehyde is ever formed during normal operation?
So to shortly explain what I saw. I was vaping 50/50 juice on my VaporShark rDNA40 set to 200*C (about 400*F) with a Ni200 coil and each time I took a longer draw the "Temperature Protect" message showed on the display, so nothing special here. Then I wanted to change flavors and what I do then, is rinse the coil in water for a minute or so until I can't smell the previous flavor anymore. After that I just put in the wet coil again and filled up the tank with the new flavor juice.
Then usually it takes a couple of draws until the water vaporizes and is replaced by PG/VG again so you can vape normally again. So I took draw after draw and I noticed that I could simply not get the "Temperature Protect" message to show. Even when the vapor startet to show normally again, I had to take huge draws to get into "Temperature Protect". But at some point the water must have been completely gone because I started to get the message sooner, as usual.
I looked up the temperature conduction values for PG, VG and water which are:
Glycerine 0.285 W/m K
Propylene glycol 0.147 W/m K
Water 0.609 W/m K
Source: http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/thermal-conductivity-liquids-d_1260.html
So as you can see water is probably a much better coolant fluid than PG or VG. This might also explain why the Ni200 coil did not hit the temperature limit as long as it was saturated with water. So what do you guys think? Could water (as it is usually at 10%) keep your coil cooler regardless of Kanthal/Ni200 etc. and even out hot spots (in a certain limit) to reduce any chance that e.g. formaldehyde is ever formed during normal operation?
