Nicotine Storage Bottles and Caps

Mods, my appologies for the VapeMail spam, could we move ALL of the NIC Bottles/Caps posts here ?

Very cool!! I’m getting myself all worried. Labeling on the nic has a “best by” one year date. I’m hoping to get a decade of storage on this. I also looked up freezing temps of pg and vg and can’t really get a single answer. Some of the published temps are pretty high. Can you hurt it if you freeze it solid?

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Well I’m no scientist here, and let’s see if we can UNworry you a bit. As far as the best by dates, I don’t know how they come up with those personally. My job, is to see how long I can extend whatever NIC I have, JUST in case, but, I don’t want to spend a shit ton to do it.

Pure PG has a melting point of -74 degrees F, so a freezing point is going to be much lower than that. VG freezes at -36 degrees F, with a melting point of 64 degrees F.

From MigVapor

If you take the NIC out of the plastic bottles, go to glass with good seals (I wrap white tape for extra comfort), maybe even top off with a shot of Argon, and keep it as low as you can, that’s about the BEST way to extend your max life and/or freshness.

I believe most NIC suppliers Cryo freeze/store their NIC (assumed pure, not cut with PG/VG), but that’s what settled it for me. I can’t afford to Cryo freeze.

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Everything I’ve read or been told, is about SLOWING everything down. Chill = Slow IMO. I don’t think any of us will be solid freezing our NIC. If we COULD, I’m guessing NO air would react with it ??

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I don’t get it. Different substances may or may not (ever) develop crystalline lattice structures at low temperatures - but I know of no (and have seen no references to) phase of matter existing between “freezing” and “melting”. This causes me to really question the info source. What am I missing here ?

The temperature transition points according to chemistry literature:

Nicotine: approximately -79 *C (-110 *F)

Propylene Glycol: approximately -60 *C (-76 *F)

Glycerin: approximately 18 *C (64 *F)

Glycerin seeming to be the one to worry about (due to its much, much higher temperature transition):

Crystalline Glycerol:
In spite of the tendency of glycerol to supercool, it can be crystallized by the use of seed crystals, or by cooling to -50 °C or below, and then slowly warming to about 0 °C. Approximately one day is required for crystallization to be completed. The crystals are orthorhombic and very deliquescent.

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(1959): Nicotinic acid, oxynicotine, nicotyrine, cotinine, and myosmine have been isolated and identified from the oxidation products of nicotine by aeration at 30 *C. … The presence of methylamine and ammonia in the same oxidation products has been established …

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I know little about the technology involved - but it would seem that (if and when) the ambient temperature becomes lower than that which a temperature controlling chamber regulates to, then the device would have to flip from “cold pumping” to “heat pumping”. It (might, possibly) be a damaging or destructive condition for some temperature control chamber devices ? Such situations (might, possibly) be a reliability concern ?

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@SmilingOgre For science and shit …

Took me FOREVER to lock in the time stamp for Dr. Kurt’s discussion of storage, but I did it !!! 52:44 if you’re impatient.

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I wish I could answer that. LIke Ogre said, the interwebs are all full of different (wrong) information as well, which leads to more obfuscation.

Agreed.

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Note that It is quite hard to cause Glycerin to form crystalline lattice structures (where one might possibly wonder about destructive intermolecular forces, dunno). From the quoted text in my post above, such crystals only form when slow warming from around -58 *F (-50 *C) to around 32 *F (0 *C) - probably only if the solution is not physically disturbed by motions. Other than that case (with Glycerin), I do not perceive any “solidification” concerns. In your referenced video, no mention about specific storage temps per se (general info about Nic shelf-life in freezers at 1:28:00). Plastic porosity is stated to allow gas exchange (1:38:30). HDPE preferrable to LDPE (PE is polyethylene). Neither of them contain the plasticizers that PET and polycarbonates do. Probably should get some effectively-sealable glass containers for my Liter of Nic.

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Wow! You found one great video. All my questions were answered and my worries gone. I am going to have to buy a shit load of glass bottles however. I can live with that.

Thank you!!!

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Ogre, please do let us know what you decide to pick up as far as effectively seal-able glass containers !

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I’m thinking these:

I’ll probably look into some of the lour lock (misspelled, I’m sure) caps that @woftam was writing about when I find out the cap size.

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Ooorah Walt.

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Thank you, thank you, you’ve been a wonderful audience. Don’t forget to stop by the merch table on the way out!!!

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I have a bit more than 1 Liter total, have a rather small old fashioned “icebox” type freezer unit in my refrigerator in which storage space is at a premium, and probably prefer to “parse” things out a bit:

Same basic product type and quantity (a few bucks less expensive):

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@SmilingOgre don’t make the mistakes I did. Think about how you are going to store, how much, and how you will use it to dictate what you buy. I have a shit ton of 60ml bottles and that works pretty good, but lots of bottles. I also have larger 500ml bottles for longer storage. It depends on how you want to use, or how much hassle it is. Technically if you break down into all 60-120ml bottles, and freeze all, you only have to open 1 small bottle as you use, all others undisturbed. Or maybe deal with it later, and only get 500ml bottles, and say break every liter into 2 big bottles, then as you get to them, break one of them down, into smaller 60ml bottles for useage.

Your bottles look good, with Polycone lids. Don’t be afraid to get a little wine saver can of Argon gas, and leave 1/2" of gap (or a little more), top off with gas to prevent ANY air, cap, even wrap with a few wraps of white tape for super secure.

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Groove!!! I think I’ll end up three stage. 32oz in the freezer, 8oz (glass) in the fridge, and finally a little 20ml squeeze bottle for mixing.

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I’m on it.

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CC: @Raven-Knightly

Ok, per your advice, which makes a hell of a lot of sense, I’m going with these:

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You can gas and tape the bottles, if you’re insane like I am.

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Finding several complaints in reviews regarding poor quality, defects, leaks with the caps provided:

(Perhaps) we really should consider some separately acquired caps that are higher quality, then ? :thinking:

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