I've been noodling around with making my own e-liquid for a couple weeks without any serious incident. Up until this point I've avoided working with nicotine, mostly because I wanted to get the feel for the practice before I started handling nicotine. However, last night in a "Rob Ford" style drunken stupor I decided to purchase 10ml of a 99% pure nicotine solution. I woke up this morning and did some quick math regarding my purchase. 4th grade arithmetic reveals that a +990mg/ml nicotine comes out to roughly 50mg/drop of fluid. I'm sure I don't need to tell you that the low end of fatal nicotine toxicity begins at around 60mg. I haven't been able to find a reliable LD50 in mg/kg, but for the record I'm about 120-130lbs (~57kg), which would definitely put me on the lightweight end of the spectrum.
I had always planned to work with gloves, eye protection, and a surgical mask, even before I bought the 990mg/ml solution, although given the absurdly strong concentration of nicotine I ordered, I wonder whether these precautions will be enough to prevent me from dying of seizure activity on my kitchen floor. Admittedly I'm not all that interested in my life, but still that seems like an unfortunate way to die.
Does anybody in this forum have firsthand experience working with nicotine in these concentrations, and if so, can you give a professional assessment as to whether or not consumer grade saftey precautions are likely to be sufficient?
Thank you for your time.
Edit: I forgot to mention this, but the liquid has already been shipped. Thanks to all the concerned redditors who suggested cancelling, but unfortunately this is not an option.
Dude, don't even try. Please. That's death waiting to happen.
You mentioned you don't have a lot of spare dough in another comment. To handle that material, you'd need a fume hood...entire ventilated lab...chemical PPE. Can you afford that? No.
Stop. Cancel the order. If you can't cancel it and they deliver, please call your local poison control center, explain that you're a moron, and let them take it and dispose of it properly.
Wait, I'm not done because I'm getting sort of angry writing this.
In your responses you keep using terms like "roughly" and "about" in reference to your measurements. Those are not terms to use when you're dealing with a poison in this high of a concentration. Are you trolling? You clearly know it's dangerous but you're asking for help on how to do something enormously risky. You're "not all that interested in your life"? Come on.
If you're that broke and need a safe nic concentration, just PM me.
Mate, anything above 150mg/ml and it needs to be handled in a properly ventilated lab wearing a fume hood with built in face protection, full chemical apron, gloves and protective clothing.
And you're talking about 990mg/ml.
Do yourself a favour. Ignore the people here telling you that it's OK. It's not. It's lethal. Don't go near it.
Where were you able to buy that saturation of nicotine? Highest level usually sold to peeps like you and me is 100mg/ml, IIRC. Have you talked to the vendor and confirmed it's 990mg/ml? A lot of times "99% pure" is just used in place of "no additives" and may not be meaningful for the actual concentration.
Assuming there nic base is 1gram per ml; you will need to dilute it with 89ml of PG to achive 100mg/ml. 89ml is roughly 3oz of PG. Honestly I wouldnt touch that stuff as it has chinese nic written all over it. I imagine 1 drop of that nic on your skin will cause you to become deathly sick. I would cut my losses and get rid of it.
I'm strongly considering that. It would be embarrassing to die from accidentally touching a $12 bottle of nicotine. Unfortunately, I'm at that uncomfortable level of poverty where I have limited ability to buy my way out of stupid mistakes. If its a matter of certain death, I'd probably just toss the bottle where nobody would accidentally be exposed to it and suck up the cost of a second purchase, but if there's any way to salvage the first one, I'm ready to try it.
I wish. It was specifically marketed as being 990mg/ml. [Here's the link.] (http://www.hiliq.com/pure-nicotine-10ml) You can tell by the 2 separate stages of disclaimers you have to click through just to see the product. I wish I could pin my cavalier clicking on being brought up on breezing through endless 30 page terms and conditions, but in truth I'm just kind of a moron.
Well then. Damn, personally I'd try and cancel. If you're committed to using it I wouldn't deal with it directly, I would get 90ml of PG (or VG, though it may be more work to mix) and immediately dump it into that (in a well ventilated area with all precautions). Then you have 100ml of less toxic stuff (though still dangerous, I want to say you'll be sitting on 99mg/ml at that point). Honestly, that concentration is a little above my pay grade, sorry.
Thanks for the response; really any information helps me make an informed decision. I'm pretty confident in my ability to not spill any on my skin/get any in my eyes, but what really worries me is the risk of accidental inhalation. Do you happen to know how much nicotine is released per square foot of liquid per second? If I knew that I could do a better job of estimating how much I would expose myself to when diluting/mixing.
I was thinking the same thing, but the problem I was having in my head is what the fuck do you do with the container and the PPE that may have become contaminated?
It becomes like getting rid of a body. It's easy to get rid of the body, but you can't risk tertiary contact.
If you seriously found something that is 990mg/ml, and you already know it is extremely unsafe to handle, why would you even consider it? Let's ignore the fact that working with something of that high concentration would be such a pain in the ass it wouldn't even be worth it, you'd have to dilute the heck out of it and then your mixing wouldn't be as accurate as it should be.
> Admittedly I'm not all that interested in my life, but still that seems like an unfortunate way to die.
I hate to be the jerk here but it sounds like you're just pining for attention. You know it's impractical and unsafe, and youre already stating you need to excise extreme precaution, so what are you here to ask? Cancel the order, or dont use it. This is such common sense.
I actaully don't value my life as being worth very much, but that's not really a conversation to bring into this thread. In my head it sounded kind of flippant, but in retrospect your right that it was just melodramatic. Anyway, I've decided to dilute the solution down to 100mg/ml, which, while still dangerous, is at least possible to work with safely over long periods of time. I plan to do the dilution in an open garage with some kind of forced airflow, using gloves, long sleeves, a mask, and eye protection. I don't imagine I would want to do this everyday, but I think my setup is safe enough to use once. If you have any other advice that might be useful for reducing my nicotine exposure during dilution, I would be very grateful. Again, sorry if the original post came off as too angsty.
Just dilute the whole bottle at once, as others have said. 100mg/mL is really not deadly, it's what the majority of diyers use. I've gotten it on my skin multiple times and I'm alive. Just be sure to mix the hell out of the bottle once you dilute it so you know it's evenly diluted.
Ok, so now we have a handful of experienced mixers who are strongly encouraging you to get rid of it.
I don't think people realize how deadly the stuff you ordered actually is. There's enough nicotine in there to kill several full sized adults multiple times. Not sick, not dizzy, fucking dead.
I hate to be -that- guy but.....this is the kind of shit that WILL make vaping in general look bad. It's appalling that HiLiq is even selling stuff like that to the public.
I looked over your post history, you seem fairly intelligent. Follow your gut instinct and get rid of the stuff. If you need nicotine that won't require you such obscene safety protocol and can't afford, Fizz and I could help you out. Last thing I want to hear about is something awful happening.
I've done as much research as is available on the internet, and to be honest I'm torn. I showed some of the math in the original post, but I calculate there to be enough nicotine in two drops to cross the threshold for lethal toxicity in humans, assuming 60mg is a potential death threshold (source) (990mg/ml x 20 drops per ml = 49.5 mg/drop = ~100mg/ 2 drops). I'm not trying to impress anyone with my math skills, but I just want to impress upon you that I don't take this lightly.
That said, it seems like using basic PPE, like gloves, mask, eye protection and long sleeves, one can prevent transdermal contact with the solution. This only leaves the risk of passive inhalation. This is what I'm hung up on. I obviously don't own a fume hood, and I don't have any idea how volatile nicotine is. Unless I can find some sort of data that talks about mg released per square centimeter of liquid per minute, I can't do enough math to determine what sort of risk I'm taking in exposing myself to the vapors.
As for the PR issue, I get that vaping has an image problem. It it certainly not my goal to contribute to it. That said, and this is admittedly a little cynical, my death/hospitalization is unlikely to make serious news. In the same way that the media cares a lot when little upper-class white girls go missing, but not at all when street kids are kidnapped or killed in drivebys, I'm just not the sort of person that anyone would want to write a story about. I'm not trying to be melodramatic, it relevant that I mention the risk of a PR fiasco is slim to none.
Morbidity aside, I'm currently leaning towards diluting it, although I need to do more research on freebase nicotine volatility before I can decide definitively. It might make sense to react the solution into a salt before even trying to dilute it to reduce the risk of inhalation.
At any rate, I thank you for your concern and time. I hope your convinced that I'm not some backwoods yahoo casually juggling lethal chemicals.
You do realize that a "drop" is not a well-defined unit of measure, right? It depends on the substance and application what constitutes a "drop." We can play fast a free with drops when talking about flavorings because those won't kill you. 99% Nicotine will.
Basic PPE will not be sufficient to handle this stuff. Long sleeves are useless. Nicotine is quite volatile in a 99% solution and presents a serious inhalation risk. You see that blue 4 on the NFPA 704 guide for Nicotine? That's the highest rating for health hazards, and you're what, planning on diluting this in your kitchen with consumer grade tools? I still don't think you're grasping the severity here.
> I hope your convinced that I'm not some backwoods yahoo casually juggling lethal chemicals.
Backwoods yahoo or not, you are juggling lethal chemicals.
> I'm not trying to impress anyone with my math skills, but I just want to impress upon you that I don't take this lightly.
Good, because you aren't impressing anyone and you are taking it lightly. Your back of the envelope calculations are akin to a baking recipe calling for "3 scoops of sugar" but not specifying the size of the scoop.
I work for an juice manufacturer and we dilute 99% nic on a weekly basis. We have invested close to 7 grand in safety equipment to handle this shit. Cancel your order, refuse shipment, its seriously not worth it to save a few bucks when you can buy pre-diluted 100mg nic for not that much money. I can tell by reading your post you are not capable of handling this stuff in a safe manner. I'm not worried about you killing yourself, I'm worried about anyone who might come into contact with it accidentally due to your negligence. Seriously, cancel your order. You are a fool. Plain and simple. If you really want to do this I suggest you first take a couple classes to learn how to handle this stuff properly and then invest in the proper equipment to include full protective clothing and vent hood. And to answer your question 99% will eat through nitrile/latex gloves after prolonged exposure.
Thanks for the response. I wasn't aware that nicotine could dissolve latex in any concentration or duration. It seems like the thread is shifting towards the consensus that 990mg/ml cannot be handled safely by an amateur, and the fact you regularly work with nicotine in similar concentrations gives serious weight to your input.
It's being marketed for DIY, even though it says not for beginner DIY. If you're really that scared just dilute it outdoors. These people in the review sections are talking about smelling it to detect its purity and flavor; they probably survived to be able to write the review. One of them just straight up dropped it into his juice and vaped it.
Yes, nicotine is toxic, but you will be okay as long as you don't do it when you're drunk again. The whole process should take a few seconds, nowhere enough time for you to inhale anything but trace amounts. Unless you accidentally dump it onto a firing atomizer... If you're paranoid, have access to running water nearby. I believe in you!
Thanks so much; I posted my question because I wasn't sure if it was possible to do safely. And yes, I don't plan to get drunk and play with poisons again. Once should be enough.
Edit: I actually looked through the reviews, and it looks like their all shillings. It's all in poorly translated English by people with names like "Jacob Brown" who imply that they are not Chinese, and are only tentatively ordering nicotine from China. For example, "Jerry Smith" had this to say; "I have ordered from China twice ever, this order from you is the 3rd one. The previous nicotine from China was yellow and strange tastes. But I changed my mind till I got yours. It is transparent and smells like the exact nicotine". I suspect most, if not all of the customer reviews are fake, and so its probably not safe to assume that their stated lack of safety precautions is a good guide.
If you are committed to using it. I would suggest getting a 250 ml bottle, add PG and VG and finally dump the enture 10ml of nicotine into the bottle. Cap it and shake it. A suggestion for a base would be:
Ingredient|ml|g|% :---|---:|---:|---: Nicotine juice 990 mg (100% PG)|10|10.36|4.5 PG dilutant|100|103.6|45.5 VG dilutant|110|138.71|50 Totals|220|252.67|100
Final strength: 45mg/ml
PG/VG: 50/50
Mix it in a WELL VENTILATED place. Nicotine is highly volatile and breathing that stuff is bad.
Personally, I would not buy stuff like that. I am perfectly happy with max 72 mg/ml. I use 52 mg/ml myself.
While I would never recommend anyone do this, I did. I actually bought 230ml of 99% nicotine. I bought a 1 gallon plastic jug from US Plastics and filled it with 2070ml of PG . I then cleaned my kitchen sink out with bleach and placed the gallon jug in the sink.My kitchen sink has a window by it, so I opened it. I put on big rubber gloves, the kind you wash dishes with. I took a deep breath then opened the 230ml bottle of nearly pure nic, and poured it in the gallon jug, put the top on the gallon jug, then put the empty bottle that had previously contained the nearly pure nic under the running faucet on the other side of the sink. My risk lasted for about 3 seconds, the amount of time it took to pour one bottle into the other. I shook the now 100mg/ml nicotine really well in the gallon jug and transferred it into multiple 250ml glass bottles and froze most of it. That was a little over 2 years ago and I still have a shit ton of nicotine. At my age, I figure I have enough to last me the rest of my life!
Like I said, I wouldn't recommend it, but I did it...
Please take some real precautions. Safety glasses, rubber gloves, preferably respirator. I've been lead to believe that 99% nic is serious, and inhalation poisoning is a real threat. If you are safe and smart and careful, it shouldn't be too tough to mix it to sane(r) levels. You might try asking nudenicotine about any necessary unforeseen precautions.
Ld50 of this chemical is 4 ML's for an average sized human of 150 pounds. Extremely toxic, and due to the low vapor pressure I was pure nicotine, extremely volatile. Please do exercise extreme caution and handle only with a UL approved full body suit :-) if unavailable, phone facial mask and arm protection are needed in case of a splash
Cheers for the recommendations. If I do decide to handle it, I would definitely do so using a full body covering and eye protection. On a slightly different note, I'd just like to acknowledge how rare and pleasant it is for a company rep to be such a prolifically active and helpful member of a consumer forum, especially in threads that do not directly concern their product.
Wow. So 4ml. That's pretty hardcore. Not to hijack or get all technical, I'm just curious... Do you happen to know how quickly that ~4g would be absorbed if topical contact was made? I would image even 1g would make for a bad day, potentially very very bad, if 4 is the ld50.
99% pure nicotine solution does not mean that the solution is 99% nicotine. It means that the purity of the nicotine itself is 99%. I'm pretty sure you couldn't order the assumed strength (990mg/ml) of a nicotine concentrate and legally have it shipped through any conventional means. Could you imagine if a small bottle of it burst in transit on a USPS UPS or FedEX worker?
Some else thought that as well. Unfortunately, its the real deal; 990mg/ml. Here's a link. http://www.hiliq.com/pure-nicotine-10ml
You should really cancel the order. I don't want to read about you in the news.
Beleive me, I don't want to be a news story. I think I'm going to dilute it down to 100mg/ml in an open garage using gloves, eye protection, and possibly a surgical mask, then find a safe way to dispose of the bottle. Based on what I'm hearing in this thread, that should be enough to protect me from passive inhalation and transdermal absorbtion, short of some catastrophic mistake. Thanks for the concern.
Make sure it's really as strong as you think it is. For $12 a 10ml, it sounds like it should be a 100mg/ml mix.
Sadly not; its 990mg/ml. I link the vending page in two other responses. My laptop died and I'm on mobile, so I lost the link, otherwise I'd link again.
I think throwing it away is stupid and paranoid. If you contact it, then it's deadly, sure, but using proper PPE, there's no reason you can't safely dilute it all at once by emptying the entire container into your diluent. Just don't try to measure it or do anything where it could spill onto yourself or a contact surface. Measure the PG/VG you want for the base, and dump the whole thing in there to achieve the desired concentration.
Use your apron, elbow-length gloves, and a face shield, and dump your entire 10ml vial into a clean container with 89ml of PG/VG diluent somewhere outdoors. You now have 99ml of 10%, or 100mg/ml solution. This is the high-end dilution of working stock that most DIY'ers get and use, so continue to use appropriate PPE whenever handling this solution as well, and always work close to a source of running water in the event that you do have skin contact.
Myfreedomsmokes.com recently started selling this kind of pure nicotine by the liter on the very pages it sells our normal everyday $diy solutions. I hope that vendors maybe start a wholesale section and only allow people (maybe just other eliquid vendors) purchase this high concentrate.
So I've read this whole thread and I have a question that I'm curious about.
Why not like a reputable dealer who sells a reasonably proportioned solution like the many listed in the sidebar or that are talked about in this subreddit or even the one who came into this thread to answer your questions?
It can't be because of price, as you've seemed to reach the conclusion that you'll dilute it, which will cost more money than what you've spent.
The only logical conclusion I can come to is that it really is just because you were drunk, which hey I have a set of metal chopsticks, a wire saw, a skull whiskey glass and some wool gloves laying around, none of which I use because that same thing has happened to me, so I'm not judging, I'm just wondering if that really is the event that lead you to decide on this purchase?
But even if it is, like how did you find it? Like you decided you needed some nicotine, how did you end up there?
Please note I'm not trying to make a judgement call on anything that's transpired here, I'm just really curious as to the how of it, cuz you've said you've been mixing for a little bit and taking that super seriously (with all the protective gear) so why not take that decision, the decision that involves the only dangerous component, and go with a trusted source?
Don't worry about offending me; I try not to take myself too seriously, mostly because of situations like this one. To honest, I'm not really sure I can give you an accurate account of what lead me to making such an ill advised purchase. I type at around 80-90 words a minute, so my Google searches tend to run only a few seconds behind my train of thought. I did a quick scan through my history, and apparently I searched "pure nicotine" at around 2 a.m. that night I bought the solution. The hiliq listing is the first result. I can only imagine that drunk me went through a 2 second evaluation and decided that the "woah pure nicotine!" spoke louder than the "holy shit certain death". I've always erred on the side of riskiness, particularly when intoxicated, and it's gotten me into deeper trouble than this. My sober and well slept self almost certainly would have just bought some nude nicotine 100mg/ml and been completely fine with it. I'm not sure if you were looking for a more complicated and philosophical answer than this, but the truth is that the whole situation is completely explainable without looking any farther than my computer side bottle of Jack Daniels and a chronic case of insomnia.
Edit: I also have a couple psychiatric conditions, if that helps.
No this is a good answer, "pure nicotine" is the root of how you got there and like it's not even really an unreasonable thing to think of to search for while looking for components, especially considering the intoxicated state.
Hope you don't get injured or die, sincerely. If it works out you'll have a shit ton of nicotine like the other guy in the thread who has done it, which will be nice.
I've actually decided to not work with the 990mg/ml solution after all. I just asked out a girl who I've had a thing for for a couple years, and I really want live long enough to see what happens between us. I posted a pity thread in r/vaperequests, and /u/darkfiremoon very generously offered to send me a 60ml care package to tide me over until I can get workable nicotine. At least for now I think I'm going to cut down my daily insanity, starting with the cessation of working with lethal chemical solutions.