3 ms·

For completeness, one of the issues with e-cigs is that it heats a hydrocarbon by passing it over a poorly-regulated heating element. That's a recipe for creati

For completeness, one of the issues with e-cigs is that it heats a hydrocarbon by passing it over a poorly-regulated heating element. That's a recipe for creating random organic molecules, many of which are most definitely harmful. Probably not as harmful as old-school smoking, but definitely a case of "do not use around others and do not use except as a substitute for smoking."

gugagore 9y ago
can you explain how that's different from toasting bread or roasting vegetables to someone who has a weak understanding of chemistry and what makes molecules harmful?
- WorldMaker 9y ago
  As someone with a smell allergy, my first approximation to a guess (I am not a chemist), please correct me if I'm mistaken, is something to do with the alcohols contained in most e-cig recipes and borrowed from the perfume industry. Alcohols when aerosolized tend to travel farther than most other smell carriers (that's why perfumes use alcohol) and more directly enter the bloodstream, skipping the body's filters (which makes it particularly useful to e-cigs as a carrier). I'd suppose other chemicals in traditional cigarettes fill very similar roles.
- dgfgfdagasdfgfa 9y ago
  Well, humans have evolved to eat cooked nutrition. We did not evolve to inhale that cooking smoke.
- cjensen 9y ago
  E-cigs involve direct contact with the heating element at a much higher temperature than food would normally be exposed to. A quick google shows that the element can be as hot as 500F, and the fluid will be in direct contact. Also, the organics used in e-cig fluid are smaller and more easily ripped apart by heat. Imagine you want your house to smell like coffee. So you heat a baking tray until it is white hot. Then drip coffee onto the tray (don't actually try this). Much of the coffee will be vaporized with the water in it providing a nice aroma. But some of it will be in direct contact with the tray and will burn and have a nasty smell. The hotter the tray is, the more the coffee gets burned and transformed into not-coffee. E-cigs are like that, except one doesn't notice the nasty aroma of the accidental chemicals.

gugagore 9y ago

can you explain how that's different from toasting bread or roasting vegetables to someone who has a weak understanding of chemistry and what makes molecules harmful?

WorldMaker 9y ago
As someone with a smell allergy, my first approximation to a guess (I am not a chemist), please correct me if I'm mistaken, is something to do with the alcohols contained in most e-cig recipes and borrowed from the perfume industry. Alcohols when aerosolized tend to travel farther than most other smell carriers (that's why perfumes use alcohol) and more directly enter the bloodstream, skipping the body's filters (which makes it particularly useful to e-cigs as a carrier). I'd suppose other chemicals in traditional cigarettes fill very similar roles.
dgfgfdagasdfgfa 9y ago
Well, humans have evolved to eat cooked nutrition. We did not evolve to inhale that cooking smoke.
cjensen 9y ago
E-cigs involve direct contact with the heating element at a much higher temperature than food would normally be exposed to. A quick google shows that the element can be as hot as 500F, and the fluid will be in direct contact. Also, the organics used in e-cig fluid are smaller and more easily ripped apart by heat. Imagine you want your house to smell like coffee. So you heat a baking tray until it is white hot. Then drip coffee onto the tray (don't actually try this). Much of the coffee will be vaporized with the water in it providing a nice aroma. But some of it will be in direct contact with the tray and will burn and have a nasty smell. The hotter the tray is, the more the coffee gets burned and transformed into not-coffee. E-cigs are like that, except one doesn't notice the nasty aroma of the accidental chemicals.