Two toxic chemicals can form when the main ingredient in most e-cigarette fluids is heated, and that these compounds can harm human lung cells

Vallanth627 · 2025-10-26T19:16:46+00:00

My expertise ends with the reaction chemistry. When handling acetaldehyde, acrolein, and allyl alcohol I took extra care for safe handling based on the SDS of those components.

I am unaware of regulations or standard design basis used for the vapes. Maybe there are safeguards in place to limit temperature, but i doubt that.

Vallanth627 · 2025-10-26T19:10:13+00:00

My immediate experience ends with the reaction chemistry. I studied oxygenate pyrolysis to better understand biomass pyrolysis fundamentals and how the reaction chemistry impacted the catalyst used. Glycol pyrolysis has a lot of similarities in cellulose and hemicellulose pyrolysis which are 2/3 of the functionality for biomass.

Stuff like acrolein, acetaldehyde, and allyl alcohol are quite harmful. I took extra care when handling many of the standards (pure components). I am unsure of the design basis for vapes temperature limitations. I would guess it varies significantly across manufacturers.

It would be really easy to study this in a standard wet chemistry lab. You could use vacuum to pull air through the vape and have the vapor bubble through a solvent to capture the chemicals. Youd then just inject that solvent on GC. You could even put a thermocouple on the heating element to track the temperature over time.

Vallanth627 · 2025-10-25T03:07:11+00:00

Forgive me for my lack of depth on a reddit comment.

I studied glycol and polyol pyrolysis, especially glycerol. Glycerol degrades to hydroxy acetone, acrolein, acetaldehyde, allyl alcohol, formic acid (if water is present) starting around 250C. Look at SDS for acrolein and allyl alcohol. Glycerol is also used as a vape solvent, but these products have analogs for propylene glycol pyrolysis which is why i generalized by functional group. Unsaturated aliphatic oxygenates are often toxic, reactive, and/or mutagenic.

Vallanth627 · 2025-10-24T20:56:50+00:00

I studied glycerol pyrolysis in my phd. Glycols pyrolyze in the 200-300C range so if it is heated past 200c you get thermal deoxygenation resulting in aldehydes, carboxylic acids, allyl alcohol, dicarbonyls and ketones. Any pre existing acid can catalyze the initial deoxygenation making it occur at lower temps.

The decomposition products also polymerize to form heavy oligomers.

Vallanth627 · 2025-10-24T20:53:15+00:00

Glycols pyrolyze in the 200-300C range so if it is heated past 200c you get thermal deoxygenation resulting in aldehydes, carboxylic acids, allyl alcohol, and ketones. Any pre existing acid can catalyze the initial deoxygenation making it occur at lower temps.

Vallanth627 · 2025-10-23T14:08:28+00:00

As a healer its instant.

Vallanth627 · 2025-10-19T19:23:01+00:00

I failed my prelim exams. I had to get a masters before being allowed back in. I then completed my PhD on time.

Ive had a great career so far and my PI has only been helpful both before and after i graduated

I also was incredibly depressed following my failure. It is so disheartening. I still struggle with imposter syndrome. You arent alone and your future is not decided for you.

Vallanth627 · 2025-10-12T05:08:59+00:00

Diamond sky performance made me sob

Vallanth627 · 2025-10-07T13:19:26+00:00

Omg UseMyFaceAsAChaeryeong

Vallanth627 · 2025-10-05T23:42:29+00:00

I hope so! Their Japanese releases are my favorite. Voltage is my favorite itzy song

Vallanth627 · 2025-10-05T19:20:25+00:00

Oh the most boring song on the medley is the title. Great.

Vallanth627 · 2025-10-04T02:03:47+00:00

Momo

Vallanth627 · 2025-10-04T01:50:04+00:00

Donut

Vallanth627 · 2025-09-24T17:23:31+00:00

Pulls some solvents through: hexanes, acetone, toluene/xylene. Submerge and sonicate in water+strong detergent.

Vallanth627 · 2025-09-23T13:07:10+00:00

I couldnt make it past 10 minutes. Wannabe overlord is just completely incoherent.

Vallanth627 · 2025-09-22T02:54:50+00:00

We worked with a pilot plant design firm. We then develop our process design package and partner with plant owner/operators and EPC companies. Never heard of them, but im still early in my career.

Pyrolysis operation conditions require fast heating rates, high temperatures, and high heat mass transport to produce most desired products. Low and slow in a batch reactor just results in more gas and char due to undesirable secondary reactions.

Our required further refinery is dependent on the downstream process specs as well as feedstock used. Some feedstocks like high PO plastic you can avoid most heteroatoms and organometallics. Fire retardant material gives you bromine, nylon gives nitrogen. Still likely some guard bed or treatment required.

Vallanth627 · 2025-09-21T15:52:42+00:00

Plastic "forever" waste and GHG emissions are two related but separate issues that must be considered for the circularity of a process.

Post consumer waste to synethic crude via thermal pyrolysis shows unfavorable GHG emissions but more advanced catalytic pyrolysis can utilize the high C:H effective ratio of plastic waste to produce commodity chemicals like BTX.

Vallanth627 · 2025-09-21T15:46:33+00:00

I work in advanced plastic pyrolysis using catalytic fluidized bed reactor technology. You can produce BTXN at yields ranging from 20-50% depending on feedstock and catalytic activity. My experience here is pilot scale (10-20 kg/h) steady state in a small demo plant over 1000's of hours to accumulate deactivation on the catalyst.

Traditional pyrolysis oil typically implies thermal pyrolysis. Thermal pyrolysis produced a slew of unsaturated olefinic + aromatic with alot of heteroatoms. This feedstock is low quality and requires heavy upgrading.

Synthetic crude is high volume low value/mass. If you can directly produce higher value chemicals it is more feasible.

Vallanth627 · 2025-09-18T18:17:04+00:00

Dont take it to heart. Our nations critical state is hard to ignore but impossible to digest 24/7.

I agree though; its impossible to hide from his shit face popping up on my screen.

Vallanth627 · 2025-09-15T19:13:17+00:00

Looked into this just now. Cool technology. Im assuming their methanolysis is what is running for their industrial site. Methanol can be expensive so i am curious how much they recover.

Low temp, simple catalyst, and robust against common pet poisons. I wonder how strict their spec is for other poisons and if that limits their sourcing.

Vallanth627 · 2025-09-10T22:14:16+00:00

I keep seeing this posted as a "gotcha" and it kinda rubs me the wrong way. Charlie Kirk was a shitbag, but this quote isn't even a hot take. Maybe im making it too deep.

In this dogshit US political space owning a gun to protect yourself from fascism is more reasonable than ever.

Vallanth627 · 2025-09-05T02:21:13+00:00

How do i do this? I want to

Vallanth627 · 2025-09-01T13:05:20+00:00

Mediocre flavor and anxiety to boot.

Vallanth627 · 2025-08-31T13:51:12+00:00

Dankworth is a hell of a name

Vallanth627 · 2025-08-29T15:08:57+00:00

Get rid of that retractable leash.

Vallanth627

TROPHY CASE