Deposition of Cigarette Smoke

[sysD]

Hey all,

 

 

I want to collect, in a chamber of some sort, the secondhand smoke of many smokers.

The goal of this is the deposition of most, if not all, chemicals and tar.

 

How can this be readily achieved? (And yes, I have used google.)

 

Are there certain substances that will not deposit? I'm not asking for a complete list, seeing as how there are myriad substances within cigarette smoke, but a few examples would be handy. Also, why would they not deposit?

 

The goal is to render as pure of a deposit film as possible. Can this be achieved?

[Mr Skeptic]

Use two filters, one to filter the air going into the cigarette, one to filter the air coming out. Substances that are not solid nor liquid will not deposit, so make sure the smoke is cooled sufficiently before passing through the filter.

[tomgwyther]

I'm not sure if this is of any help but:

 

I smoke; I also play the saxophone (Every day). Approximately once a month, I clean the mouth piece to remove tar from the mouthpiece chamber. I guess I could mail you a sample?!

The mouthpiece is solid silver (not sure if that would have a good or bad effect on the tar deposit) And the mouthpiece is only every blown into, not inhaled through. So, presumably any deposits within the chamber must have come from my lungs.

I don't necessarily inhale smoke, then blow it through the saxophone, but I've noticed that non-smoking wind/brass instrument players don't have a tar residue on there mouthpiece.

There are quite a lot of smoking wind/brass players to get a reasonably large sample of exhaled muck.

Edited January 11, 2011 by tomgwyther

[insane_alien]

it'll be filled with bacteria and phlegm and spit. hardly a pure sample.

 

does it have to be from a smoker, i mean, you get a chamber, 500 cigarettes and light them all. it should provide a significant amount of smoke, you'll want to do it outside in a well ventilated area though. i imagine the smell would be particularly pungent.

[sysD]

I'm also a smoker and got this idea as I watched the bottom of my cotton filter turn a steadily darker color

 

 

Use two filters, one to filter the air going into the cigarette, one to filter the air coming out. Substances that are not solid nor liquid will not deposit, so make sure the smoke is cooled sufficiently before passing through the filter.

 

Ah, but here's the catch - Some particles have been vapourized. Such as nicotine.

 

Engineering a device to depose the vapour back into a solid (including minimal leftover nicotine from the secondhand smoke) seems to be possible via supercooling these vapour particles within a vacuum.

 

I was wondering if there was an easier way to achieve this.

 

 

The mouthpiece is solid silver (not sure if that would have a good or bad effect on the tar deposit) And the mouthpiece is only every blown into, not inhaled through. So, presumably any deposits within the chamber must have come from my lungs.

 

I wasn't able to find any information on why brass would turn silver. My guess is that your mouthpiece is made of nickel with a brass coating (or laquer), or some type of brass/nickel alloy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

it'll be filled with bacteria and phlegm and spit. hardly a pure sample.

 

does it have to be from a smoker, i mean, you get a chamber, 500 cigarettes and light them all. it should provide a significant amount of smoke, you'll want to do it outside in a well ventilated area though. i imagine the smell would be particularly pungent.

 

 

This would work, but by this exercise I also hope to discover the measure of chemicals absorbed through the lungs per second. Obviously this will only focus on a few of the many chems within ciggys (ie. arsenic, CO, CO2, and nicotine).

 

I hope to achieve this by first taking a control sample - the measure of chemicals emitted by a single cigarette at different stages of its burn cycle.

The smoke will ideally be inhaled through various filters via suction.

i. Samples with recirculation will be differentiated from those without in order to better measure the effects of smoking indoors vs outdoors.

ii. (As a cigarette is inhaled, resin collects closer to the base of the cigarette, which, when smoked, tends to be stronger than the rest of the cigarette. Therefore, I hypothesize whether or not people finish entire cigarettes is indeed a factor in health applications.)

 

Each sample will be collected for 60 seconds. This will make it easier to find how many chemicals have been deposed, per second.

Edited January 11, 2011 by sysD

[tomgwyther]

I wasn't able to find any information on why brass would turn silver. My guess is that your mouthpiece is made of nickel with a brass coating (or laquer), or some type of brass/nickel alloy.

 

My bad.

I neglected to mention some definitions

Brass: A continuous piece of pipe lengthened or shortened by adding other bit of pipe

Wind: a piece of pipe with holes in it

Silver: The metal such a pipe (Or mouthpiece) is made from.

 

I was also under the impression that the second hand smoke residue you were after might include phlegm, bacteria etc. In which case there's an abundant supply of second hand smoke residue from many different smokers.

[sysD]

I was also under the impression that the second hand smoke residue you were after might include phlegm, bacteria etc. In which case there's an abundant supply of second hand smoke residue from many different smokers.

 

This is true. A filter would be used to seperate solids and junk like that.

What I'm after here is a feasible technique to turn vapours back into liquids or solids.