What Is Salt Nicotine?
In its natural form in the tobacco plant, nicotine is a pronated salt Nicotine is not particularly unstable in its salt form, making it difficult to obtain high yields in the extraction process. Therefore, tobacco processors wishing to extract nicotine – for example, for e-liquids and nicotine replacement products – often use solvents to increase extraction yield.
Ammonia is probably the most popular solvent used in nicotine extraction, but many high pH solvents can be used in this process. Exposure of tobacco to an alkaline solvent breaks down the proton that binds nicotine to salt, and the result is a more unstable version of nicotine called free base nicotine.
Ground nicotine is the most common form of inhaled nicotine. Serves as a base for all e-liquids; even nicotine salt e-liquids start with freebase nicotine. Freebase nicotine is also used in most over-the-counter nicotine replacement products. The nicotine salts e-liquid, on the other hand, is basically baseless nicotine vapor with a slight modification — that's okay, right?
However, it turns out that the experience of using freebase versus nicotine. nicotine salt can be quite different. First, let's go into more detail about the pros and cons of freebase nicotine. After that, we'll talk about what nicotine salt e-liquid is and discuss its unique benefits.
What Is the Benefit of Salt Nicotine Vape Juice?
So far, this article has addressed one of the biggest benefits of freebase nicotine, which is that it is more readily available—and therefore more satisfying at a given nicotine strength—than nicotine salt. We also discussed one of the main disadvantages of freebase nicotine e-liquid, which is that some people find the throat hit too strong to be overwhelming and unpleasant with high levels of nicotine.
The issues with freebase nicotine VAPE e-liquids are most apparent with smaller vaping devices. With a very small e-cigarette, you will need an e-liquid with a nicotine content of about 50 mg/ml to get as much nicotine per puff as if you were smoking a cigarette. However, it is almost impossible to get hits that strong with freebase nicotine because the throat hit is so extreme. With freebase e-liquid, most people can tolerate nicotine levels of up to 18 mg/ml.
The reason freebase nicotine e-liquid is so irritating to use in high concentrations is because of nicotine's alkalinity - and that's the problem that nicotine salt e-liquid solves. Since nicotine salt has a more neutral pH, it does not cause throat irritation that freebase nicotine e-liquids do at higher concentrations. With a nicotine salts e-liquid, it is possible to have a vape liquid with a nicotine concentration of 50 mg/ml or more - approximately the same nicotine intake as a cigarette that remains perfectly smooth and pleasant to vape.
Nicotine salts e-liquid is perfect for most new vapers as it provides a cigarette-like vaping experience and eases the transition from smoking to vaping. In markets that do not limit the nicotine content of e-liquids, liquid nicotine salt is available in very high concentrations that free base nicotine cannot match.
While freebase nicotine is more readily available than nicotine salt, the fact that nicotine salt e-liquid is available in higher nicotine concentrations overcomes this difference. Regardless of the type of nicotine, a stronger e-liquid will always be more satisfying than a weaker e-liquid.