Study of Various Vaporizer Brands....

TboneToker

Well-Known Member
Another thing that should be taken into account, is the fact that the lungs would most likely absorb the vapor from the plenty, and volcano, better then the smaller vapes. When there is less restriction on the respiratory system, the more it can relax, and allow more absorption of gas, plus more air in general. So, even though the numbers may be high for the portables, how much of that is actually getting aborbed into the body. Its like joints, they give the highest thc percentage, but most of that is going to the air, and exhaled, because its so thick.

When I read the study, it states that a vacuum was used to pump the air for extraction. I highly doubt we know someone who can inhale for 3 minutes straight using the Arizer solo. Something else to think about.

This is making me think the "plenty" vaporizer must be a beast when it hits you. All that thc going straight to your system. DAMN!


The Plenty is definitely named appropriately. It feels like a bong rip more than any other vape. God there are too many nice vapes.. I have the Solo, Aromed, Volcano, but I still want a LSV/Evo(for water pipes) maybe a herbalizer and definitely a Plenty or maybe Mighty or .... Damn these things :D
 

lwien

Well-Known Member
The Plenty is definitely named appropriately. It feels like a bong rip more than any other vape. God there are too many nice vapes.. I have the Solo, Aromed, Volcano, but I still want a LSV/Evo(for water pipes) maybe a herbalizer and definitely a Plenty or maybe Mighty or .... Damn these things :D

Oh oh.....Do we another VAS outbreak in the making?
 

Derrrpp

For the world is hollow and I have touched the sky
Did I read this right...they did this with concentrates?
From what I understood anyway, they tested each vaporizer with a "THC-type" cannabis, a "CBD-type" cannabis, and a sort of concentrate they prepared called "cannabinoid standards". The cannabinoid standards was their control sample. Here's a few quotes from the study:
All standards were diluted in MeOH to obtain calibrator and control samples of the desired concentrations.
A methanolic solution containing THC and CBD 40 mg/mL each was prepared for the validation of the vaporizers with cannabinoid standards. The resinous THC was carefully heated at 60°C with a hot air blower and weighed directly into a 5-mL volumetric flask, combined with CBD and dissolved in MeOH-CHCl3 9:1.
A THC-type cannabis with 4.61% total THC (THCtot: THC + THC formed by thermal decarboxylation from THC acids during GC/MS analysis) and a CBD-type cannabis with 2.60% CBD (CBDtot: CBD + CBD formed by thermal decarboxylation from CBD acids during GC/MS analysis) and 0.53% THCtot were used for the vaporization experiments. Experiments were performed for each device with 50 mg of plant material in triplicates for both cannabis varieties. The same number of experiments was conducted with 2 mg of THC and CBD standards (50 μL of THC and CBD, 40 mg/mL each in MeOH-CHCl3 9:1).
 
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WoodyWeedPecker

Well-Known Member
I too am wondering where the hell the THC/CBD is being lost or perhaps not produced in the DaVinci ?
According to this study, the THC/CBD is not in the ABV (residue) and didn't convert as honey oil in the DaVinci device. Less than 5% of the THC/CBD was left in the ABV (compare with 15.0% in the Volcano, 2.1% in the Plenty, 1.8% in the Solo and 16.2% in the Vape-or-Smoke*). So the DaVinci is good at extracting THC/CBD from the herb. If the THC/CBD is not in our lungs, in the ABV and not on the vaporizer itself as honey oil, where is it? The study doesn't know for sure but it propose the THC/CBD was leaked from the device because it's not properly sealed.

From the study: The overall recovery as the sum
of all fractions was lower than that obtained with the other vaporizers, being between 56.7%
and 71.5%. This may be the result of a limited sealing of the sample compartment.


*THC numbers from THC-type plant (red bar)
 

srama21

Monotonous Botanist
There is a wealth of information in this paper. It's like every question answered leads to at least 5 new questions. I agree that the references section is gold.

Edit - had no idea there was a Journal of Cannabis Therapy

Here's another interesting article that is referenced a lot in the introduction titled "Cannabis vaporizer combines efficient delivery of THC with effective suppression of pyro-lytic compounds"
http://www.canorml.org/healthfacts/jcantgieringervapor.pdf
 
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stickstones

Vapor concierge
From what I understand, the compounds effect each other, and the type of heating effects the way they react (all of this understanding is anecdotal, btw). The differing amount of compounds detected doesn't surprise me at all, given what we have experienced as vape signatures. I have long felt differing effects from mostly conduction vapes vs mostly convection vapes, etc.

I for one, have never had any vape give me an effect that I thought was 150% stronger than the same amount of herb in another device, especially the Solo. I'm with @srama21 --great study that poses more questions that it answers, but it's a great start!
 

fubar

Ancient and opiniated inhaler
From what I understood anyway, they tested each vaporizer with a "THC-type" cannabis, a "CBD-type" cannabis, and a sort of concentrate they prepared called "cannabinoid standards". The cannabinoid standards was their control sample. Here's a few quotes from the study:

Mass spec standards have to be liquids and are usually pure chemicals dissolved in methanol - yuck - don't vaporise methanol - it's really, really bad for your optic nerve!!! They report collecting vapour from both raw materials and also from the "standard" materials *after* blowing off the solvent methanol with a stream of nitrogen.

You need to calibrate a mass spec with known concentration standards to get reasonable quantification estimates from the signal peaks. Typically, a slightly heavier molecular weight standard is used (they mention deuterium or "heavy hydrogen" incorporated into THC and CBD) so that peak is slightly delayed and can be recognised (and compared) to the naturally occuring normal weight molecule (eg THC with normal hydrogen) on the mass spec output. For the record, mass spec involves a fair amount of voodoo in my experience with proteomics and lipidomics - but it's the best measurement method available for many molecules....

AFAIK they used two types (CBD/THC rich) raw cannabis material in the vaporizers. To quantify those two raw materials, they extracted some of the pre-prepared doses (0.1g dry weight) of each type into methanol for mass spec quantification against the heavy hydrogen "standard" CBD and THC, so the raw material now has known CBD/THC content before vaping.

After vaping, they extracted both the vapour and the residue (ABV) separately in methanol and quantified those (again, against the deuterium standards) to see what was left and make sure it all added up without mysterious amounts missing.

Being that this was published on Jan 16, 2016, this has got to be the most recent and most comprehensive study that I have ever seen on vaporizers. Not only that, but it was published by the US National Library of Medicine/National Institute of Health..
Um, no.
It was *published* by PLOS one. NLM/NIH run Pubmed where most biomedical publications are all *indexed* (using specialised vocabularies like MESH keywords eg) so it's easy to do searches of the scientific literature. They'll index anything published by a decent (and quite a few indecent - I'm looking at you, Elsevier) journals. PLOS one is well regarded and pretty tough to get published in FWIW. Impact factor is around 3.2 or so. Not quite Nature (IF = 41.4) but pretty good.

Did I read this right...they did this with concentrates?
Well, yes, they do report vapourising methanol based concentrates of known concentration. Easy to get confused because the mass spec calibrating standards were made with "heavy hydrogen" so the peaks would separate but be very close. I think the more interesting results are from dried raw plant material because they tested dry herb vapes. I think the bit about evaporating methanol in nitrogen and then vaporising the known amounts of THC/CBD left are not so interesting for those of us who use raw herb. Please don't ever inhale methanol based extracts...
 
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fubar

Ancient and opiniated inhaler
this isnt based on fact at all, but I would venture to guess 20-35% by combustion.

tl;dr: combusting is just an extremely crude way to heat the herb to liberate THC/CBD vapour which is only acceptable if you are willing to inhale all the additional toxic products of combustion and perhaps some modest loss of efficiency.

This is a really interesting issue with remarkably little published empirical evidence - but the general subjective view seems to be that your estimate is in the ballpark.

What I find surprising is that so little THC is destroyed by the heat of the combustion zone which is going to be +1200C - so it's probably mostly vaporising in the hot gases being sucked through the joint/bowl before the burning cherry gets to it and destroys it!

If you think about the physics of the situation, the ONLY way that combustion can liberate THC from weed is by the same mechanisms a vaporiser uses - convection, conduction and radiation of heat. So there's direct radiation/conduction from the combustion zone acting on surrounding unburnt material, and there's convection from the hot gases being sucked through the unburnt material, vaporising the THC and friends. Once a speck of weed starts burning, any remaining THC in that plant matter is going to either sublimate (ie go from solid to gas/vapour state) or oxidise (char or burn). Nothing magical happens - at least not until the THC hits your bloodstream :)

None of the burned/oxidised THC/CBD is going to get you high - but the ratio of vapourised to burned THC is probably going to vary wildly depending on (eg) the shape of the joint/cone/bowl; the shape of the burning "cherry"; the interval between "tokes" (no vapour if no air flow between tokes - just burning!); the rate of air flow through the burning zone during tokes; and lots of other variables....

When all you have is a match and a bowl, it might make sense but there are now plenty of good choices for less dangerous options.
 
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fubar

Ancient and opiniated inhaler
It's misleading. The Solo is a great little vaporizer but it can't compete with desktops.

Oh. I must be doing something wrong then :)
An old solo (M1A...serial) model with the old pass through PA is my daily driver. IMHO it's effectively a desktop - pretty much indistinguishable from my EQ in terms of extraction power - when plugged in.
OTOH: you're right that extraction efficiency when it's not plugged in or for more recent models where the PA doesn't pass through depends on the battery status and condition - and it is never quite as good as from the PA in my experience - but the older solos can definitely compete with desktops when powered with the PA. I'd really like to see Arizer give us back the pass through option. The Air would be a beast on a PA!
 

Spocks_Katra

Well-Known Member
Oh. I must be doing something wrong then :)
An old solo (M1A...serial) model with the old pass through PA is my daily driver. IMHO it's effectively a desktop - pretty much indistinguishable from my EQ in terms of extraction power - when plugged in.
OTOH: you're right that extraction efficiency when it's not plugged in or for more recent models where the PA doesn't pass through depends on the battery status and condition - and it is never quite as good as from the PA in my experience - but the older solos can definitely compete with desktops when powered with the PA. I'd really like to see Arizer give us back the pass through option. The Air would be a beast on a PA!

Agreed with Fubar, I actually like my air over my nano a lot of the time. I just use my nano a lot because its quick and easy
 

Poostuff

Please delete
You really have to qualify that statement i.e., in what way can't the Solo compete and please explain how that study is misleading.
If bong smokers knew they needed to buy desktops & joint smokers knew they needed session based portables, then a lot of the teething problems we see with new vapers would be sorted making the transition to vaping easier.
Reading this study would lead someone who has a high tolerance but is unfamiliar with vaping to purchase a vaporizer that probably won't satisfy them, in turn putting them off vaping & sticking with the familiar, which is why I say again this study is misleading.
Here is a smiley face in case my post sounds cranky because it's not it's just my opinion is all :)
 

fubar

Ancient and opiniated inhaler
Iwhich is why I say again this study is misleading.

I'm willing to disagree with that sentiment but I imagine that readers unfamiliar with the style of this kind of scientific publication might very well allow themselves to be mislead - and sure, bad things might follow - but that's hardly the fault of the authors or the paper. This science stuff turns out to be complicated. Wasn't it Oscar Wilde who said "the pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple"

I've had a career in academic biomedical science. The paper was written so people familiar with this stuff would review it and say it was good enough to publish. For someone not familiar with all the specialised jargon and gamesmanship involved, it is inevitably going to be heavy going but FWIW I think it's a pretty interesting publication addressing a topic I care a lot about using unusually high quality methods.

That does NOT mean I think it answers all the questions or contains all that is true about vaping - in fact quite the opposite. In order to make something worth publishing in PLOS one, you have to addresses a very narrow question and avoid getting bogged down in the details - it's just a necessary evil to avoid getting overwhelmed. The methods used are all very good but not necessarily ideal - eg continuous mechanical ventilation is a convenient but hardly representative way to generate an air flow in a vaporiser. Running a solo at 7 is not my cup of tea either. However, the perfect is the enemy of the good. This is definitely good - not perfect....
Even better, the findings support my prejudices!! :)

tl;dr under this necessarily artificial and limited but objective and repeatable testing, the solo stands out in efficiency from 3 other popular vaporisers.
I don't think I'm misleading anyone when I conclude that from reading the paper, but to be on the safe side, I look forward to empirical evidence that the statement is false - and when I see that, I'll change my views.
 
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Poostuff

Please delete
I'm pretty sure I vape more than most biomedical scientists @fubar but I respect both your & @Spocks_Katra opinions. All I was saying is that I can use the solo or nano all day & still be functional, that's a lot harder to do with the Evo or Volcano. I've done it but it's harder. I think I'm qualified to give an unscientific opinion because I own them all, but it's just an opinion.
 

fubar

Ancient and opiniated inhaler
I'm pretty sure I vape more than most biomedical scientists @fubar but I respect both your & @Spocks_Katra opinions. All I was saying is that I can use the solo or nano all day & still be functional, that's a lot harder to do with the Evo or Volcano. I've done it but it's harder. I think I'm qualified to give an unscientific opinion because I own them all, but it's just an opinion.

You may well vape more than many but getting high is definitively a subjective experience. Scientific, objective measures like "fraction of THC extracted under artificial conditions" cannot address subjective complexities.
If I had funding to do something like they did for this paper, I'd choose the change in THC blood levels from start to end of the session as the outcome measure, and let folks have at a measured dose of material in as many devices as we could assemble. What fun that would be.
Hmmm, kickstarter anyone?

The good news is that this paper is the best I've ever seen on efficiency. It looks like serious science is starting to start to appear which will help us all make better informed decisions.
 
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Spocks_Katra

Well-Known Member
Though my namesake was a well respected science officer, I am by no means a scientist. I just know, as a sufferer of chronic nerve pain, what works best for me. it may very well be the matter of conduction vs convection, or other variables I am unaware of, but When I am in pain, I do not reach for my nano, only my air. I know that I will get a nice, pain relieving high every time, given the bud is quality
 
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