Inside the e-liquid manufacturing process

Why is a “home-made e-liquid” so difficult to produce? Quite simply because the manufacturing techniques go well beyond mixing a few ingredients together. Would you like to know how e-liquids are made? Follow the guide.

Before mixing: the checks

Factories take delivery of raw materials in bulk. Stored in holding areas, they wait to be analysed so that their composition can be verified in due form. A faulty base inevitably means destroying the finished product, so checking upstream is essential if losses are to be avoided.

The same applies to the making of the flavourings. These are developed in dedicated laboratories with remarkable precision. Some flavours require up to a year of testing before they reach the intended result, and they have to be analysed before use.

Nicotine, finally, arrives at the factories in concentrated form. Handling it calls for full protective equipment to avoid any danger. Sealed pumping systems allow it to be incorporated into the e-liquids without any oxidation.

Preparing the e-liquids

Once the propylene glycol, the vegetable glycerine, the flavourings and the nicotine have been approved by the laboratory, production can begin. The drums are made to order and automatically. A simple barcode tells the robotic arms the composition of the e-liquid required. What follows is a concerto of automated mechanisms that assemble the mixture with great care, under the watchful eye of an operator. The precision scales confirm the composition, since it is determined by the weight of the raw materials.

Each drum is then sent along a new line so that the familiar e-liquid bottles can be filled inside a glass enclosure, to prevent dust particles from finding their way into the bottles.

Last comes packaging, also automated to save time. This is likewise the moment when the analysis laboratory carries out unannounced tests, taking a sample from every production run to check that the composition is correct. The e-liquids are then stored while they wait to be shipped.