"L-nicotine or D-nicotine", Zinwi takes you to understand the truth behind nicotine

Since the birth of the electronic cigarette industry, it has only 20 years of development history. From savage growth to the landing of regulatory boots, the electronic cigarette industry has gradually moved towards standardized and orderly development. In just two decades, electronic cigarette companies have blossomed, and various technological innovations have emerged one after another. Whether it is the birth of "nicotine salt" or the breakthrough and innovation of various vaping devices, innovation has always been the ultimate proposition of the industry.

As the world's leading e-liquid technology company, Zinwi Biotech focuses on R&D and innovation, and pays more attention to the development trend of the industry and the truth behind technological innovation. In this issue, we will take you to find out about the technical topic of "L-nicotine".

1. Understanding L-Nicotine from Chemical Concepts

What is nicotine?

Nicotine is a naturally occurring alkaloid in plants of the nightshade family. Nicotine accounts for about 0.6-3.0% of the dry weight of tobacco, and is also present in edible plants of the Solanaceae family at ppb levels, including potatoes, tomatoes, and eggplants. Nicotine is a hygroscopic, colorless to yellow-brown oily liquid, which is one of the important components of various tobacco products.

What is L-nicotine?

Before understanding L-nicotine, we first need to understand some chemical concepts: chirality, enantiomers, L-isomers/D-isomers, and racemates.

Chirality

In chemical terms, a molecule or ion is called chirality if it cannot be superimposed on its mirror image by any combination of rotation, translation, and certain conformational changes. Most biologically relevant substances are chiral, such as carbohydrates (sugars, starches, and cellulose), amino acids that make up proteins, etc. In living organisms, one usually finds only one of the two enantiomers of a chiral compound. Therefore, the two enantiomers of a chiral substance often have different potencies or effects.

Enantiomer:

Enantiomers, also known as optical isomers, are one of two types of stereoisomers that are not superimposed on their own mirror images. Enantiomers are much like human left and right hands, viewed from the same surface, they cannot overlap. No amount of reorientation in three dimensions could bring the four unique groups on the chiral carbon into an exact alignment. The number of stereoisomers a molecule has can be determined from the number of chiral carbons it has.

L-isomers/D-isomers

Polarized sources and polarimeters are used in chemistry to measure the optical activity of substances. When linearly polarized light passes through a chiral material, the direction of the polarization plane is rotated about the optical axis. Compounds that cause dextrorotation are called dextrorotatory, while those that cause left rotation are called levorotatory.

Racemates:

A racemate (or racemic mixture) is a chiral enantiomer with equal amounts of left and right chiral molecules or salts. Racemic mixtures are rare in nature, but many compounds produced industrially are racemates.

The racemates are not optically active, which means that such materials do not rotate plane-polarized light. Although these two enantiomers rotate plane polarized light in opposite directions, the rotations cancel each other out and they exist in equal amounts of the negative (-) anticlockwise (levorotatory) and positive (+) clockwise (dextrorotatory) enantiomers.

L-nicotine:

Nicotine is a chiral compound and therefore optically active. It has two enantiomeric forms, L-nicotine (S-enantiomer) and D-nicotine (R-enantiomer). Studies so far have shown that the physiological activity of L-nicotine on nicotinic receptors is much higher than that of D-nicotine, which can cause stronger sensation or stimulation.

Among the nicotine extracted from natural tobacco, the content of L-nicotine is 99.3%, which is the enantiomer form of nicotine naturally present in Solanaceae plants.

2. Zinwi Biotech focuses on nicotine salt to achieve technological upgrades

A. Nicotine salt

Nicotine salt is one of the main components of current e-liquid, which is a compound formed by combining nicotine and acid. Nicotine salt itself exists in natural tobacco leaves, and various organic acids can also be used to protonate the amino group of nicotine with different conjugate bases to form nicotine salt.

Currently, the three most common acids used to form nicotine salts are lactic acid, benzoic acid, and levulinic acid. Benzoic acid is the most commonly used acid to make nicotine salts.

In e-liquid, replacing nicotine with nicotine salt can make the pH of the whole system closer to the normal value of the human body, which can provide higher levels of nicotine without irritating the throat. At the same time, nicotine salt can speed up the transmission rate of nicotine in the blood and improve the utilization rate of nicotine. And nicotine salt has obvious softness, compared with free nicotine, it is less irritating to the throat.

B. Zinwi Biotech focuses on R&D and innovates to create ZTouch-J Salt Technology

Zinwi continues to focus on R&D and innovation, focuses on the research of the components of the e-liquid, and takes the lead in achieving technological breakthroughs in the field of nicotine salts.

ZTouch-J

During years of basic research, Zinwi's R&D team found that different nicotine salts have huge differences in transmission efficiency, and also cause different degrees of throat hit experience. In the end, relying on strong scientific research strength and rich development experience, Zinwi Biotech successfully developed ZTouch-J salt. Compared with traditional benzoate, J salt has the characteristics of low concentration and high activity, which can increase the release and transmission efficiency of nicotine at 20 mg/g on average by about 75%, and obtain higher bioavailability throat hit.

ZTouch-T

To obtain a more realistic tobacco-flavored e-liquid, Zinwi Biotech focuses on the composition of tobacco leaves, and compounds levulinic acid, lactic acid, and other acids present in tobacco leaves into the development of nicotine salts. Based on the research basis of L-nicotine, the final Launched ZTouch-T bionic salt to restore the existing state of nicotine in traditional cigarettes and create a tobacco-flavored e-liquid with a more realistic taste.

ZTouch-S

To meet the needs of the international market and give products in the international sweet field a more realistic flavor experience, Zinwi Biotech launched ZTouch-S salt. According to the flavor characteristics of different products, adding traditional organic acids and flavor substances is optimized to highlight various flavor characteristics and restore a more authentic flavor experience.

Actual R&D, preserve the original intention

The technical subject of "L-nicotine" is no longer mysterious. Among the two enantiomers of nicotine, L-nicotine has the stronger physiological activity. In the e-liquid industry, nicotine extracted from tobacco can and can only be used, and its main component is L-nicotine. Therefore, Zinwi focuses on the application and development of L-nicotine.

What Zhenwei Biotech continues to do is to stick to the original intention of the industry, break through technical blind spots and knowledge barriers, provide consumers with a more transparent and fair choice path, and bring truly high-quality e-liquid solutions. On the road to globalization, Zinwi Biotech will promote the standardized and healthy development of the industry, and insist on "Driven by Innovation, Exploring the Future".