Nic Salts & Juul - The Technology And Truth

The news media have dropped a step behind improvements in e-cigarette regulation. While they still focus on taste buds.

What You Need to Know About Nic Salts and Pods

Many expert vapers have a firm understanding of the science behind nic salts and pod systems. Nevertheless, the subtle differences between vaping devices are not widely understood by enormous swathes of the population. Sadly, lots of the politicians and regulators that will be inventing e-cigarette regulations are relatively unaware of these distinctions. Below is an extensive breakdown of the differences between nic salts and regular (freebase) e-juices. Besides, we look into what makes the Juul device a comparatively unique innovation.

Juul Fueled By Nic Salts

A prefilled cart e-cig and prefilled pod system are more alike than different. Both use high resistance coils and are used for mouth to lung vaping. They should mimic the action smoking, along with the consumer experience being far removed from sub-ohm box mods.

Rather than being refilled, the mouthpiece of a prefilled pod and timeless e-cigarette function as an e-liquid reservoir. When emptied from e-juice, they are just phased out. No spillage, no hassles and it is all self-contained. Stylistically, a timeless e-cig may resemble a combustible cigarette and a Juul just like a USB drive, but also in execution, they are pretty similar.

The huge difference between a classic cartridge e-cig and Juul's prefilled pod is your e-juice inside. Conventional e-liquids use freebase nicotine. Juul's prefilled pod system is fueled with smoking salt e-juices, often referred to as nic salts.

Regular E-Juice?

The timeless e-juice that's been around for years uses freebase nicotine. For their countless consumers, it's nic salts which are "routine e-juice" and freebase nicotine e-juice that is different.

Nic Salts

The title nic salt comes from the molecular structure of nicotine. Nic salt can make you believe Epsom or salt, but "salt" really refers to a compound formed when an acid reacts with a base.

The nicotine within tobacco leaves is present in two kinds: mono protonated and deprotonated. For our purposes, it follows that the nicotine has bonded with amino acids to create a more stable molecule. Acid bonded nicotine is nicotine salt. There are several different types of nicotine salts, contingent on the type of acid included.

Nicotine salts occur naturally in the tobacco leaf but they are not so bioavailable, which is a fancy way of saying easily absorbed. A compound process that converted the naturally occurring nicotine salts in tobacco leaves into freebase nicotine. Using ammonia, these naturally occurring nicotine salts and the result was that the nicotine in cigarettes was freebase, which is no longer bound to a molecule in the kind of salt.

The procedure for removing the nicotine salts increased the pH level of freebase nicotine. This resulted in, "A larger physiological (throat and chest) impact and toxicity." This large pH level is what restricts the total amount of nicotine you can put into a freebase nicotine e-liquid.

Despite this drawback, freebase nicotine is what is seen in cigarettes and until recently all of the Cheap e-liquid available on the market. Compared to naturally occurring nicotine, the reduced vaporization stage and ease where freebase crosses the blood-brain barrier outweighed the drawbacks.

And if you vape using a sub-ohm box mod, then there are no disadvantages whatsoever to freebase nicotine. Possibilities are, you are using a nicotine strength well below the level in which the higher pH level begins to make itself known in the form of throat burn. Medium freebase nicotine strengths to 1.8%, also benefit since the throat burn adds credibility to the experience.

Juul Turns Nicotine Strategy Upside Down

As nicotine salts in leaf tobacco with ammonia make freebase nicotine. Juul has taken this nic salt-free, freebase nicotine, and additional benzoic acid to create the modern nicotine salt e-juice.

It was suddenly discovered herein that certain nicotine salt formulations offer satisfaction in a single superior to that of freebase nicotine, and more comparable to the pride in an individual smoking a conventional cigarette.

The harshness brought on by the higher pH level restricts freebase e-liquids into 1.8 to 2.4% nicotine. Juul's original nic salt formula includes a nicotine amount of 5%. Other nic salt producers have pushed that level to 6& and above.

Concerning look, nic salt e-juices resemble the conventional freebase e-juices. The viscosity is dependent on the same mix of propylene glycol and vegetable glycerin employed in the formula of freebase nicotine e-liquids.

Benzoic Acid Innovation

Naturally occurring nic salts were lost by cigarette makers a half-century ago since they were less bioavailable, but the introduction of benzoic acid has proved to be a game-changer.

Juul found that not all of the nic salts are the same and the acidity used makes a huge difference. They discovered that unlike naturally occurring nic salts, freebase nicotine operated with benzoic acid has very useful properties for an e-cigarette manufacturer.

Benzoic Acid Provides Nic Salt E-juices Three Use Properties:

- Benzoic acid reduces the alkalinity in freebase nicotine. This allows manufacturers to increase the nicotine level in nic salts well beyond the point where a conventional e-juice would be excruciating to vapers.

- It permits the nicotine salt to inhale at a lower temperature. This allows for a smoother neck strike.

- Nic salt e-juices may be vaped at a lower temperature too. So cheaper and less powerful apparatus were back into the match.

You will find DIY nic salt recipes on the internet. We recommend leaving this to professionals, but the science is simple where home chemists have taken a shot at producing their nic salts with the addition of citric acid to freebase nicotine.

Juul Design

A classic e-cigarette using a prefilled cartridge and a Juul pod system share lots of the same principles. Both are small, use a slick pole battery and rely on a readily affixed pre-filled capsule or pod which also serves as the mouthpiece. They don't use much power due to their high resistance coils, and so do not need a massive battery.

Juul utilizes silica wicking material instead of cotton.

Contrary to the cotton wicks from prefilled cartridges, silica does not deteriorate as fast.

Silica was broadly used in the first days of vaping. A silicosis scare and the superior flavor supplied by cotton set an end to this. But silica has properties that could enhance the consumer experience too.

A Juul that was on the shelf plays as well as it did when new from the factory. It isn't like cotton deteriorates immediately, but silica does have an edge in longevity.

Silica does not dry burn in precisely the same way that cotton does. This means you can empty the pod of e-juice rather than worrying about burning the coil. The burnt taste of cotton is something which experienced vapers try to avoid, and may conceivably chase off somebody new to the vaping universe.

Salt Nic E-Juices

Juul might have explored the use of nic salt pod systems, but there is a lot of competition now. Not merely are there any similar prefilled pod systems available on the current market, but now you can find a refillable nic salt pod strategy as well.

Banning a class of e-cigs can result in a flurry of lawsuits, but there's another issue worth contemplating.

Nicotine Levels Not Flavors Driving Teen Epidemic?

There's nothing particularly revolutionary about Juul's device. The big change was the use of nic salts. In the United Kingdom, nicotine amounts are confined to 1.8%, or not much more than a third of a standard Juul's nicotine level in the US.

At the same time, the UK has a much more liberal perspective on e-cigs and actively promotes them as alternative smoking. Yet their adolescent vaping speed is far lower than in the United states. The case can be made that it was never on the tastes, the thumb drive form, or societal media influencers.