Delivery capabilities of a Vaporizer
October 29, 2007
The tests conducted on various vaporizers indicate that the choice of vaporizer is a very important factor in determining extraction and delivery efficiency. Also the amount of harmful byproducts produced, or not produced as in the case of a superior system depends upon the choice of vaporizer. In many medicinal plants the components responsible for the aromatic nature of the plant often vaporize at a low-end temperature which is in the range of extraction temperature values for all the bioactive components. For a plant material named cannabis, the temperature ranges across which the actives will vaporize is at least one hundred and thirty two degrees Fahrenheit. Aromatic compounds of minimal bioactivity release at around two hundred and sixty degree Fahrenheit and go all the way up to three hundred and ninety two degree Fahrenheit temperature. The higher end of this range represents where the active components of higher bioactivity appear to be released. It is observed that the total amount of actives delivered and the breadth of spectrum delivered per inhalation is critical in determining the value of the delivered dose and, thus, systems that deliver the highest amount of actives and broadest spectrum of actives per inhalation are believed to be the most effective for medicinal applications.
The factors on which output of a vaporizer depends include temperature, specimen density, weight, content of water and essential oils, consistency of material in the filling chamber, variety and potency of cannabis used, different preparations such as crude flower tops, hashish, hash oil, etc., storage time of the vapor and proportion of THC exhaled that is the breathing technique. All of these factors have not being tested scientifically. Thus there is no statistical data to prove their influence. But it has been suggested by researchers that vaporizer efficiency is maximum at around two hundred and twenty six degree Celsius which gets reduced to almost half at about one hundred and fifty to one hundred and eighty degree Celsius. Also it has been noticed that purest preparation produce the highest efficiencies that is about fifty four percent for THC in comparison of twenty nine percent for plant material that is for female flower tops with twelve percent THCA content. Along with THC, several other cannabinoids as well as a range of other plant components including terpenoids were detected in the plant material. By usage of pure THC in the Volcano vaporizer, the degradation products, cannabinol (CBN), or unknown compounds were negligible in HPLC analysis. More THC is lost as it condenses on the surface of the vaporizer or the balloon as the time of storage of vapors increases. Losses are negligible over a few minutes increase to about fifty percent after one and a half hour or so.
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