Food-grade N2O impurities?

[Jabbawaya]

Many people inhale food-grade nitrous oxide (the type sold at head shops) for its effects. However, food-grade is not medical-grade, and doctors would certainly not give that to their patients.

So how safe is food-grade nitrous N2O as compared to medical-grade N2O?

How unhealthy is it to inhale? What kind of impurities would exist, and just how harmful are they?

 

[BilZ0r]

It's an interesting question. I'm not sure. Small nitrous canisters contain all kindsa gunk in them.

I imagine that if it's like other bulk gases, you'll get small quantities of argon, methane, hydrogen, CO2, oxygen, nitrogen, some other hydrocarbons.

This site has some interesting stuff.

 

[Jhon]

The main impurity seems to be some sort of oil, probably from the manufacturing process of the cartridge, rather than the source of the gas itself. I don't imagine it to be amazingly toxic, but whereas eating the oil is taken into account by the manufacturers, inhaling it won't be. Perhaps passing the nitrous through some sort of filter before inhalation would be a good precaution.

 

[-=navel=-]

the vaporising gas and the canister becoming cold might prevent a lot from the oil escaping though..

 

[Jabbawaya]

After emptying about 20 nitrous oxide canisters into a balloon, one can see that this unfortunately isn't the case. However, some food-grade N2O canisters appear to be "cleaner" than others. I've seen some leave nasty residues while othes leave a lot less.

Perhaps it varies a great deal (what that shows about food safety standards I don't want to speculate). But I'd still love to see some data on it if there is any. Or if anyone knows something about this.

 

[redeemer]

Here's something about the oily residues from N2O: http://www.erowid.org/chemicals/nitrous/nitrous_info5.shtml

 

[EpicureanDream]

I've always wondered whether putting a piece of cotton wool in the spout of a whipped cream dispenser would work.

 

[Jhon]

^I think that's a very good idea.

 

[Sl33p3r]

I've always wondered whether putting a piece of cotton wool in the spout of a whipped cream dispenser would work.

Yea i bet this would work, wouldnt the oil just get stuck on the cotton and the nitrous pass through?

 

[subdefy]

You should ALWAYS cover the top of the bulbenator / dispenser if you are using that. I have heard of many horror stories of small bits of the nitrous bulb going in there, think when it cracks open the part that is "shaved" off and people end up hitting that and it flies into their mouth. Very unpleasent and easily avoided if covered with a piece of clothe.

 

[Jabbawaya]

Would it even be worth the effort, though? How effective would cotton be at filtering any of the bad stuff? Worth the risk of inhaling the cotton?

 

[chugs]

Wouldn’t it come down to how big the oil is and how fine your cotton wool is? If the oil is vaporized in the nitrous then wouldn't the molecules be far too small for a wool filter to block?

Hell how big is a average "oil" molecule and are there filters on the market to filter it, when in aerosol form?

For that matter would a filter work with the nitrous being shot out, from under pressure, from the dispenser on the bulbinator?

I don't think many manufacturers design filters to work whilst the material is being shot at it from under pressure

 

[frizzantik]

i've used various things to try to filter the gunk coming out of a cannister.. it does catch a lot of the gunk but truthfully seeing it all on the filter made me not want to keep inhaling that shit

 

[gloggawogga]

Any oil that is vapor is going to pass right through any filter. The filter will only catch droplets.

 

[redeemer]

If you unload the nitrous into a balloon and let it sit for a while, wouldn't the oil condense on the inside of the balloon and then (most of it) wouldn't be inhaled?

 

[Fried Man]

the actual whip cream cans seem alot cleaner than the nitrous bulbs to me. Could be placebo.......

 

[redeemer]

^Ingesting and inhaling a substance probably doesn't carry the same health concerns.

I bet there's a lot of nasty oils in whip cream cans that isn't healthy to inhale while the oil in a bulb probably isn't dangerous to ingest in the amounts you would get when eating whipped cream.

 

[drug_FUCKED]

I put some tissues as an extra filter into the NOS machine. Works well

 

[seep]

Anybody know if lead is still used as solder in any cannery anywhere in the world?

 

[/navarone/]

A friend of mine, thinking he was a genius tried to spray nitrous straight from the whip cream can into his 1 liter engine with some weird ghetto setup ("since only gas comes out if you hold it vertically", yes vertically but not in motion).

He fucked up his car for good..LOL!!