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If you bought salt nic it already has the benzoic acid added.
Oh so I don’t have to add additional benzoic acid? I thought juul juice has nicotine salts with extra benzoic acid added?
The benzoic acid is used to make the nicotine salts. They have several patents covering different methods but only seem to advertise one of them.
If your nic salt isn't made with benzoic acid, it's made with another acid. You aren't gonna convert one salt to another just by adding another acid to it. You'd have to start with freebase, and honestly my chemistry isn't sharp enough, but you'd need to know how much freebase you're converting and thus how much benzoic acid to get a complete conversion. You likely don't want to be vaping unreacted benzoic acid, but again, I'm not a chemist or a doctor.
Exactly. The acid is used purely to convert the free base to salt so there shouldn't be any left over. If there was it would cause a lower pH and impact the flavour profile. Titration can used to find out how much is needed to mop up all the base without residual acid left overs.
Yup exactly what I was thinking. I don’t think it’s a good idea. I’m kinda bummed now that I believe this juice won’t be as good as I thought. I wonder how close to juul juice I can get without making my own salts?
I'm not sure where to buy it, but Chemnovatic's NicSalt-B is Nicotine Benzoate, so that'd be something to look into.
You would add benzoic acid to freebase nicotine to get nicotine benzoate - that name literally means 'nicotine salt based on benzoic acid'. You already bought nicotine in salt form, so don't add more acid to it.
As for making the juice smoother, the acid makes freebase nic smoother by converting it to salt.
Clearest answer I’ve gotten all day. Thanks.
I said the same thing as everybody else lol. But yeah, you should put the benzoic acid away, use the nicsalt solution as it comes and focus on getting the flavorings right. Good luck!
Sigh
Just use the nic salt
Dammit did I buy benzoic acid for no reason?
Hey so I called the vendors of my salt nicotine and they told me there is no benzoic acid added to the salts. I’m not sure if you would know but would the acid mix with the solution and dissolve completely? Or would I need to heat it up or something?
ask them what they have used. I'm guessing citric acid.
Note to people getting into this - once you start adding chemicals to other chemicals it's chemistry. That's a complex field.
Essentially this all depends on the acid you use, but given 1ml of 72mg nic base, add 54mg of benzoic acid. Heat to 60c for about an hour to allow it to protonate. While doing that, Google the word protonate.
Ok so I just did some research and Benzoic Acid makes the hit smoother. It dissolves easier in PG than it does water. So I’m thinking about just adding it in and shaking it up for a couple minutes. And I ordered my salt nicotine from liquidnicotinewholesalers and when I called them they said that there is no benzoic acid in the salt nicotine. If this information doesn’t sound right to anybody let me know. The reason I am not testing this right now is because my materials did not come in yet.
Ok... Some lesson time. I will dumb this down to what I suspect is the appropriate level. Nicotine exists in nature as a molecule known as a nicotine salt. Through chemical processing, this is converted to freebase nic which we use. This processing also is needed to purify the nic so we don't get contaminants. Freebase nic is a base, kinda like caustic soda. The throat prefers a more neutral-acidic pH range. For this reason, when acids are added to freebase nic, it is easier on the throat (aka smoother). Also, when you mix acid+freebase nic+ heat, you end up with a chemical reaction which forms nicotine salts. Numerous acids will work (but lsd probably won't) to form nicotine salts, although hydrobromic acid would be a poor choice. Adding more acid than is required will merely shift the pH of your finished juice, which may have a result in the taste, but is so long to have a few other effects on your respiratory system. However, a systematic test vaping.juices across a range of pH values would be a useful experiment for us to have results from.
So your saying I should have bought freebase nicotine to convert it to my own nic salt? Now I’m thinking I should have bought a pack of pods and a pH tester.
I don’t know, have you considered just vaping nic salts? At maybe a lower level than you’re used to and then getting used to it? Seems much more reliable in every way imo
I live on a college campus with everybody wasting money on juul pods. So I’m going to sell bottles of vape juice with the same concentrations as those juul pods. I also just want to make my own juice it sounds fun to me.
Edit: I’m privately selling them to my friends by the way. Not making a business out of it.