can you vaporize caffeine?

[Elite Engineer]

That is..could you subject caffeine to a vaporized state, and then inhale it, in order to hasten its effects on you, rather than wait fo ti took take affect via liquid?

[Enthalpy]

At 1 atm, coffeine sublimates at +178°C instead of melting at +230°C, apparently without decomposition.

You still have 20hPa vapour pressure at only +80°C.

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caf%C3%A9ine

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffein

(sorry, no such data in the English article)

 

- BUT -

 

You won't keep the air hot right to the nose, nor will the nose be warmer than +37°C (and even less, since +37°C is deep in the body).

So the vapour formed at +80°C would condense on the way or at the nose, yuk.

The molecule looks also pretty flammable.

 

Can a lower temperature work? For the above reason, coffein should be vaporized at <35°C. Extrapolated from 1000hPa @+178°C and 20hPa @+80°C, it leaves 330Pa @+35°C or 0.3% in air. Inhaling 40mg needs to breathe 1.6dm³ only which I strongly doubt.

 

Maybe someone else could check this? Such an effect would be long observed. Maybe the 20hPa from de.wiki are wrong.

 

Then, it needs caffeine to work through the nose, which I can't tell.

 

If you make the experiment, please remember caffeine is a poison and a drug. To the very least, start at a lower temperature and have friends with you. Compute also the lower explosible concentration and keep the solid temperature low enough not to reach this concentration.

[CaptainPanic]

Enthalpy, at first glance, your estimate does not look too far off if you have pure caffeine at your disposal, which you don't.

 

According to this source, the concentration in coffee can be (max.) 180 mg per 5 oz, or 180 mg per 150 ml, which I will approximate as 1 gram per liter. Since the vapor pressure of any chemical is roughly proportional with its concentration in the liquid phase (disclaimer: we're doing a crude order-of-magnitude estimate here, not a detailed analysis of caffeine distillation), that vapor pressure must be divided by 1000, meaning that the actual caffeine concentration in the vapor phase over cold coffee at 35C is 3 ppm (vol).

 

Caffeine in roasted coffee beans can be as high as 3% (wt). If we completely ignore the fact that a some of the caffeine will be enclosed in a solid (and may not be able to evaporate), the vapor pressure could be as high as 0.009% (vol), which is still not so high. To get the equivalent of 1 cup of coffee (containing 100 mg caffeine), you would have to inhale approximately 1 m3 of air.

 

However, we must note that coffee roasting happens at approximately 180 C or more, at which temperature the vapor pressure of caffeine approaches 1 bar. Despite this, there is caffeine left in the beans after roasting. This may be because the caffeine is locked up inside the beans (inside the structure of the beans). After grinding it becomes more available, but there is probably still some diffusion limitation for the caffeine to leave the coffee bean.

 

Disclaimer: I may have made a bit of a mess of the molar/volume/weight percentages, but I'm too lazy to fix it!

 

Note: as Enthalpy already mentioned, too much caffeine can be fatal. If you do have pure caffeine available, be very careful with it.

[Moontanman]

You use liquid CO2 to dissolve the caffeine, freeze the CO2/caffeine solution then take the dry ice and inhale it as it sublimates.. then you suffocate in a huge caffeine rush...

[EdEarl]

You might dissolve the caffeine in an oil used in aroma therapy, e.g., bay oil or carrot seed oil, vaporize the oil and inhale it along with the caffeine.

Edited September 23, 2013 by EdEarl

[CaptainPanic]

You might dissolve the caffeine in an oil used in aroma therapy, e.g., bay oil or carrot seed oil, vaporize the oil and inhale it along with the caffeine.

 

Before you do that, make sure that your lungs can handle this oil (that the ability to absorb oxygen is not destroyed by a thin layer of oil on the inside of your lungs!!)... you don't want to drown in oil that you inhaled yourself. I am no doctor, and I am not sure that the lungs can absorb oils like your skin can (like with lotions and stuff). If the lungs cannot absorb it, you're pretty much gonna drown in it.

 

Both oils and caffeine have a really low vapor pressure, so you don't evaporate much. However, you can spray it into a mist which you can inhale. But if you really must do something that stupid, then please put that caffeine in water. (Make really strong espresso). At least your lungs can breathe that water back out, because it will evaporate back into the air you breathe.

[Enthalpy]

Caffeine can be isolated, possibly synthesized. Some cheap supermarket drugs contain it, associated with vitamin A for instance. So it looks pretty cheap to obtain pure. As its vapour pressure seems to suffice, sniffing it should be possible.

[EdEarl]

 

Before you do that, make sure that your lungs can handle this oil (that the ability to absorb oxygen is not destroyed by a thin layer of oil on the inside of your lungs!!)... you don't want to drown in oil that you inhaled yourself. I am no doctor, and I am not sure that the lungs can absorb oils like your skin can (like with lotions and stuff). If the lungs cannot absorb it, you're pretty much gonna drown in it.

 

Both oils and caffeine have a really low vapor pressure, so you don't evaporate much. However, you can spray it into a mist which you can inhale. But if you really must do something that stupid, then please put that caffeine in water. (Make really strong espresso). At least your lungs can breathe that water back out, because it will evaporate back into the air you breathe.

People do smoke another kind of aroma therapy oil, but I didn't want to suggest something illegal in some parts of the world. The amount should be small and the oil should be thin so it absorbs into ones blood or evaporates as one exhales.

[CaptainPanic]

People do smoke another kind of aroma therapy oil, but I didn't want to suggest something illegal in some parts of the world. The amount should be small and the oil should be thin so it absorbs into ones blood or evaporates as one exhales.

 

!

Moderator Note

As you say, we are bordering on the illegal things here. So, I want to ask everybody posting in this thread to quickly check the forum rules, and specifically section 2.3. Among other things, it says:

 

- References to drug use are not permissible unless the references are scientific or otherwise useful as part of a discussion.

 

- Descriptions of the construction or synthesis of illegal or hazardous devices or chemicals are subject to removal at the discretion of the staff. Remember that many SFN readers do not have the scientific background to know the appropriate precautions and safety procedures; all posts should contain a warning of the potential hazards and safety considerations of any dangerous procedure.

 

As far as I am concerned, nobody broke the rules yet. I just thought I'd make sure everybody knows.

 

(Also, since I participate, I should not moderate this thread, but a reference to the rules cannot possibly do much harm.)

[John Cuthber]

You use liquid CO2 to dissolve the caffeine, freeze the CO2/caffeine solution then take the dry ice and inhale it as it sublimates.. then you suffocate in a huge caffeine rush...

No, you suffocate in very nearly pure CO2.

 

According to this the vapour pressure of pure caffeine can be modelled quite well by saying the log of teh vapour pressure falls linearly with the reciprocal of the temperature

http://www.chemie1.uni-rostock.de/pci/emelyanenko/publications/33.pdf

 

Near the boiling point of water it's about 0.1Pa

That's about a millionth of an atmosphere or about 1 ppm.

So a solution of caffeine with a concentration near 0.1% i.e a mole fraction of about 0.01% would have a vapour pressure of about a tenth of a part per billion.

[EdEarl]

There are dry power inhalers. I assume caffeine could be powdered and inhaled in that manner.

[CaptainPanic]

There are dry power inhalers. I assume caffeine could be powdered and inhaled in that manner.

Make sure not to catch Pneumoconiosis (a "miner's lung"). Those powder inhalers are used for very specific powders that can be absorbed entirely by the lungs.

[John Cuthber]

Caffeine would dissolve in the moisture in the lung and be absorbed. If you insist on doing this I suggest that you "dilute" it with glucose.
But it would still be dumb, I strongly suggest that you simply don't do this at all.

What's the point?

[CaptainPanic]

Caffeine would dissolve in the moisture in the lung and be absorbed. If you insist on doing this I suggest that you "dilute" it with glucose.

But it would still be dumb, I strongly suggest that you simply don't do this at all.

What's the point?

 

Coffee with sugar is better than without.

I totally agree with the fact that is all seems rather pointless. Inhaling would be just to get the effect of caffeine quicker. However, effects of coffee can be felt within 15 minutes. I know from experience, but this link also supports that.

[Enthalpy]

According to this the vapour pressure of pure caffeine can be modelled quite well by saying the log of teh vapour pressure falls linearly with the reciprocal of the temperature

http://www.chemie1.uni-rostock.de/pci/emelyanenko/publications/33.pdf

 

Near the boiling point of water it's about 0.1Pa

That's about a millionth of an atmosphere or about 1 ppm.

So a solution of caffeine with a concentration near 0.1% i.e a mole fraction of about 0.01% would have a vapour pressure of about a tenth of a part per billion.

Such vapour pressures in the cited paper make more sense to me than the ones in Wiki. Thanks!