TL;DR
A) Is there a problem I'm not seeing with using the gas product I have on hand (25% CO2, 75% argon) to inert the headspace in my containers of nicotine base?
B) Is it worthwhile?
I did find one relevant prior discussion, but there has been a lot of turnover in this sub in the last two years, and I wonder if the thinking has changed any.
Details
I won't beat around the bush here: I have a cylinder of "C25" shielding gas intended for MIG welding, and I would like to use it to displace the oxygen-containing air in my stockpile of 100% VG nicotine base. I understand that this gas is not food or medical grade! In the process of trying to determine whether this was a foolish endeavor, I learned that the process of extracting my nicotine from tobacco leaf involved using either nasty chemical solvents, or supercritical CO2 (not that I pay for such fancy stuff). In light of the fact that I know that my nic likely has some trace amounts of extraction solvent in it, the risk of contaminants introduced by the welding gas seem reasonable to accept for me, personally.
I do not expect the presence of CO2 to be detrimental to the shelf life of the nic base, as it is considered the cleanest and best agent for performing the original extraction, but I'm willing to concede that I'm making a fairly naive assumption there.
Which leaves the question of whether it would even be beneficial to attempt to drive the air out of the headspace without proper production/lab equipment in the first place. I haven't come up with any idea better than simply doing the inerting in a windless room, using low gas flow rates, and quickly capping the containers. If the consensus is that it's "probably better than just leaving non-cleanroom air in the bottles but likely insignificant" then I plan to do it, as there is literally zero cost to me.
If this turns out to be worthwhile, would it by extension be useful to use an inert-ish gas in any bottle I'm going to shake the everloving shit out of? Even mixed juice? As I've thought this over for the past couple of weeks, I've had a hard time seeing any reason not to exclude as much air (oxygen) as possible at every stage prior to aerosolizing the liquid in an atomizer.
Your thoughts and opinions would be greatly appreciated.
If it is inert and heavier than oxygen, it will sit on top of the nicotine, preventing oxygen from reacting with it. CO2 isn't exactly inert, but it also doesnt react with nictoine, so your gas displacement is definitely beneficial.
I've had a really hard time finding a document confirming that CO2 doesn't react with nicotine, but, as I alluded to, the fact that it's actively used in the cleanest at-scale extraction process seems to indicate that it shouldn't degrade the nicotine. (As an aside, supercritical CO2 is neat shit.)
With the argon being like $12 on Amazon for a can of it, is it worth taking a chance over $12?
We had a discussion about this once and an honest to goodness chemist dropped by to say, yes, CO2 is fine.