Nowadays, food flavorings are increasingly being used in everyday life. Often they are used in foods such as bread, sausages, cheese and butter. However, there are cases when flavorings are also found in the non-food industry (for example, in the automotive industry), household chemicals, and cosmetics (shampoos, creams, or toothpastes). Why at the very beginning of this article we started talking about flavorings? After all, it is them that are used as the basic components by the production of liquid for electronic cigarettes.
Main components
The main components that Russian-made electronic cigarette liquid contains are propylene glycol, glycerin, distilled water, food flavorings, and nicotine.
All of these components are quite widely used both in the food and household industries. Let us dwell on some of them.
Propylene glycol is a colorless, viscous liquid with a rather faint, almost elusive odor and a sweetish taste. As a result of scientific research, it was proved that this chemical is non-toxic and accidentally inhaling it inside does not cause poisoning. Propylene glycol uses the food industry as a water-retaining, emollient and dispersant.
Glycerin is also a dietary supplement that is allowed in other countries. This component can be attributed to the group of stabilizers. It has the property of preserving and increasing the degree of viscosity of various food products.
The food industry has found use for it as an emulsifier, with which you can mix different substances. Glycerin passed all kinds of scientific studies, the results of which proved its harmlessness to humans.
The production of liquid for electronic cigarettes can not do without distilled water. It should not contain any impurities.
Production of liquid for electronic cigarettes as a business
The production process itself depends on its type. This is sulfation, extrusion and desulfation. In the Russian Federation there are not many business entities with the type of activity under consideration. However, several companies have already been registered that use foreign brands and produce liquid for electronic cigarettes (St. Petersburg, for example).
For the manufacture of such liquids mainly used components of German quality with a high degree of purification. In addition to the production itself, there is also a laboratory at such domestic enterprises, which allows meeting the needs of the growing Russian market quite efficiently and quickly. Constantly work is underway to expand the range and select the best flavoring components for adherents of electronic smoking.
Sulphation
The first method to produce liquid for electronic cigarettes is sulfation.
In this case, the tobacco chips are to be treated with sulfuric acid. Next, nicotine sulfate must be dissolved in water, filtered and evaporated to a certain concentration in a saturated solution (40%). Despite the fact that this type of production allows you to get a larger amount of the finished product than any other method (this explains its cheapness), it is characterized by pollution. In other words, this production of liquid for electronic cigarettes allows you to get a kind of organic substance, which is “charred” by sulfuric acid.
Extraction
This is the second method, which is a dissolution followed by freezing. Such production of liquid for electronic cigarettes in Russia is carried out using propylene glycol and glycerol, as well as other polyhydric alcohols that can dissolve in water and to some extent destroy nicotine.
In this case, nicotine is made from tobacco chips. It should be heated in a thermostat with glycerin or propylene glycol. The resulting solution is filtered and combined with water. Thus, an aqueous solution containing nicotine and glycerol should be formed.
However, this solution does not go into the production of liquid for electronic cigarettes in a pure form, since it can be a danger to human health. This is expressed in the content of more than 2.5% nicotine in evaporating water vapor, so even a few breaths of this vapor can lead to death of a person.
In order to make such a solution suitable for use, it is necessary to freeze nicotine. Only in this way the production of liquid for electronic cigarettes (business) allows you to get a solution with a content of 0.5% water and 99.5% nicotine. The cost of nicotine of this kind is quite high and is about 350 US dollars per kilogram.
Desulphation
Due to the low efficiency of obtaining nicotine during the dissolution process, the combined method, known as desulfation, is widely used.
Such production involves the extraction of nicotine from tobacco chips with glycerol, and the solution itself is obtained through sulfation. Practice has shown that about 1 kg of nicotine can be produced from 1 ha of tobacco using the dissolution method, and then the same amount is also extracted using the desulfation method.
Comparison of types of production
Comparing the above types of production, it should be noted that the highest quality of nicotine is obtained using the extraction method. In this case, this component contains the least amount of impurities, which is ensured during the production process by exposure to sulfuric acid.
However, manufacturers still need to work on the quality of nicotine, since it contains a large amount of tobacco alkaloids, which are not destroyed by cholinesterase and destroy nicotine in the human body when extracted from tobacco leaf. In other words, such nicotine, when ingested within 30 minutes, can be half destroyed, causing a desire to smoke again. At the same time, the alkaloids in the body remain intact and can be excreted much more slowly, which leads to their concentration with each smoke break.
Conclusion
Summarizing the above material, it should be noted that smoking electronic cigarettes is a great alternative to regular smoking. Therefore, the production of liquids for such electronic counterparts is a fairly successful business.