I got some great feedback from you guys when I shared the Science of Flavorings episode of my show MakerTalk, with Brendan of Flavorah as our guest. I really appreciated that, especially the suggestions for the Flavor of the Week segment, a new community-oriented, DIY recipes & craft e-juice segment. Since then, I implemented a form for submitting your recipes or favorite craft juice makers for a future Flavor of the Week feature/competition. A good number of you all have already responded, which I really appreciate, but if you haven't yet, please take 2 minutes to submit a killer recipe you make or a small-scale entrepreneur's craft e-juice line that deserves some publicity. The first segment using community submissions will air November 12, but I wanted to get some feedback on another element of Flavor of the Week: DIY experiments.
Last week, I announced our first DIY experiment, which is explained in full in the OP's link. Basically, it's about testing Juul's claims about converting nicotine from freebase to salt form. I originally posted about this in /r/Deeper_DIY in early September, but last week I actually got around to running a small-scale blinded experiment on whether or not acidifying e-juice improved nicotine absorption. I don't think it should, given that freebase nicotine is better absorbed & more potent in the body than nicotine salts, and Pax never responded to my queries for their data, so I decided to try and research it myself.
Obviously, this is just a puny little 4-person case study without much statisitcal significance and weak single-blinding, but it's the best I can do. If you have some time tonight, I'd appreciate it if you watch the episode -- flavor of the week comes on early in the show, so you can tune out after that if you want. I'll post the results in a new thread tomorrow with the video, but I'd really like to see a broader experiment on this subject happen in the DIY community if the results of this initial inquiry are promising in any way. Thoughts?
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It sounds like an acid base extraction. There are a few DIY recipes like this but trust me it's challenging to say the least. I've tried it, vaping some now actually, and it relaxes me in a way that I don't get from straight nicotine.
There are a few companies that offer this, and I've never tried this particular one but I'm very familiar with the product.
Thank you for your efforts and the show. I watched and it got me thinking. If the eliquid did not oxidate why not add some citric acid to our nic base to prevent unwanted oxidation? May not add it to all the nic, but that which is out of the freezer maybe? Also how much citric acid did you add to the eliquids? Did you add it to the nic itself and let the chemical reaction occur or just to the final mix?
I added the citric acid to the final mixes, as I wanted to mix identical liquids besides the citric acid added to half of them, so I couldn't alter the liquid. As far as adding citric acid to the nicotine itself, that's an interesting thought, and I'm honestly not sure what the disadvantages or drawbacks to such an approach would be. Maybe Jake at /u/NudeNicotine can chime in on the chemistry of food preservatives like sodium citrate/citric acid (more commonly for foods, it's sodium benzoate/benzoic acid like Pax uses for their Juul e-liquids)? I can't think of any obvious risks or reasons not to give it a shot, though, besides the fact that you'd end up with citric acid (in a very small, possibly negligible amount) in your mixes.
I've been slammed with some pretty serious health issues this past month & I'm really at my limits just keeping on top of my business at Cloudmaker Tech and my neuroscience thesis work, so I haven't been able to pursue this further in my spare time.
Hopefully this will help you if you decide to pursue it before I can? The e-liquids used in this test were produced to have equimolar amounts of citric acid & nicotine freebase, based on an amateurish presumption an ideal reaction in which one molecule of nicotine reacts with one molecule of organic acid. I used a stock 10% (w/v) solution of citric acid in PG for my mix (instructions for making this std solution are easy to find so I won't repeat them here), and that solution concentration also coincides nicely with the fact that 100mg/mL nicotine base is also a 10% nicotine freebase solution (w/v). Of course, you should compensate for the molar weights of your acid vs. nicotine, because 10% citric acid and nicotine solutions will NOT be the same molarity, and moles are the important measurements to use when considering reagent amounts for intended chemical reactions. I'm not defending my methodology as particularly scientific or even claiming the chemistry basis is 100% sound, and in fact, I'd really like for some other DDIYers to point out sources of error/bias and help devise a better experiment we can do on a bigger scale as a community, because it doesn't look like NJOY or Pax intend to give me their data or corroborate their claims any time soon.
Wow thank you so much for the reply. I was wondering why no one was interested in that little tidbit. I will follow your lead and try some in some base(*Edit: but try adding the citric to the base hoping for a more noticeable reaction). I have the 10% Citric in pg made up and 250mls of 100mg base set aside ready to try it out. This reply gives me the motivation, why not? The win could be twofold: one we may find a great way to extend Nic base life and two if the nic base with the citric does change to make itself more available/quicker absorbing that would help many to quit smoking. As you said I highly doubt big tobacco will share their results or process.
So 10% to 10% by weight? I think even as you say adding 10% Citric(10% solution in pg) to 100mg/10% nic the result may not be ideal/exact but should show some sort of reaction even if it is off a few %s? No chemist or scientist here just interested.
ascorbic acid is your friend here.
i thought about doing something along these lines, but never pursued the final SKU because of the "citrus" taste. You still get that zing in any final product for those super tasters out there.
The protective effects of ascorbic acid on oxidation in medical-grade solutions has been used time and time again. I used small additions to the non-biologics in my biotech career pre-Nude Nicotine in most solutions as a preservative, others as buffers for reactions.
I would be wholly supportive of ascorbic acid additions, but not sure how to deal with the public wrath of "why is my shit all sour?"
any thoughts?
I've been waiting for your part 2 to this since October. Looking forward to more work, and maybe even a trial juice line.
Heh, I've been dealing with some serious medical issues, but I'm getting back in the groove finally. Planning to drop my initial juice line in April, so I'll be looking for testers in the very near future.
I'll be a tester. I was looking forward to the three flavors I "almost" got a few months ago but curious what you got brewing now. Wayne spoke of you in one of his last videos too how you very good at your mixes.
I'm sorry I flaked on you before, I was just overwhelmed by the whole mess at CMT & my inability to resolve things... I had a bit of a nervous breakdown & quit in December, so I had to go dark for a while to recover all that. I'm finally working on my DIY-centric juice project these days, and I'd be glad to send you some juice this week! Send me a PM.
Trial juice line is about to happen, and I've got part two loaded up but I just haven't had the time or motivation to send out a bunch of bottles of experimental juice. I felt like the flavor of the citric acid I used was a bit too perceptible, so I want to tinker with other organic acids like benzoic too. Glad to know people are still interested in this stuff, I've missed posting about it. Expect some new stuff in the next few months for sure!