Chemical Composition of Aerosol from an E-Cigarette: A Quantitative Comparison with Cigarette Smoke

[Alex]

Chemical Composition of Aerosol from an E-Cigarette: A Quantitative Comparison with Cigarette Smoke

Jennifer Margham, Kevin McAdam*, Mark Forster, Chuan Liu, Christopher Wright, Derek Mariner, and Christopher Proctor

Research and Development, British American Tobacco Investments Ltd., Regents Park Road, Southampton, Hampshire SO15 8TL, U.K.
Chem. Res. Toxicol., Article ASAP
DOI: 10.1021/acs.chemrestox.6b00188
Publication Date (Web): September 18, 2016
Copyright © 2016 American Chemical Society
*E-mail: kevin_mcadam@bat.com.

ACS AuthorChoice - This is an open access article published under an ACS AuthorChoice License, which permits copying and redistribution of the article or any adaptations for non-commercial purposes.

Abstract

There is interest in the relative toxicities of emissions from electronic cigarettes and tobacco cigarettes. Lists of cigarette smoke priority toxicants have been developed to focus regulatory initiatives. However, a comprehensive assessment of e-cigarette chemical emissions including all tobacco smoke Harmful and Potentially Harmful Constituents, and additional toxic species reportedly present in e-cigarette emissions, is lacking.

We examined 150 chemical emissions from an e-cigarette (Vype ePen), a reference tobacco cigarette (Ky3R4F), and laboratory air/method blanks.

All measurements were conducted by a contract research laboratory using ISO 17025 accredited methods. The data show that it is essential to conduct laboratory air/method measurements when measuring e-cigarette emissions, owing to the combination of low emissions and the associated impact of laboratory background that can lead to false-positive results and overestimates.

Of the 150 measurands examined in the e-cigarette aerosol, 104 were not detected and 21 were present due to laboratory background. Of the 25 detected aerosol constituents, 9 were present at levels too low to be quantified and 16 were generated in whole or in part by the e-cigarette.

These comprised major e-liquid constituents (nicotine, propylene glycol, and glycerol), recognized impurities in Pharmacopoeia-quality nicotine, and eight thermal decomposition products of propylene glycol or glycerol.

By contrast, approximately 100 measurands were detected in mainstream cigarette smoke. Depending on the regulatory list considered and the puffing regime used, the emissions of toxicants identified for regulation were from 82 to >99% lower on a per-puff basis from the e-cigarette compared with those from Ky3R4F.

Thus, the aerosol from the e-cigarette is compositionally less complex than cigarette smoke and contains significantly lower levels of toxicants. These data demonstrate that e-cigarettes can be developed that offer the potential for substantially reduced exposure to cigarette toxicants.

Further studies are required to establish whether the potential lower consumer exposure to these toxicants will result in tangible public health benefits.

full text link - http://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/acs.chemrestox.6b00188
ActiveView pdf link - http://pubs.acs.org/doi/ipdf/10.1021/acs.chemrestox.6b00188

 

[Anneries]

Thank you, again a very interesting read. I had this discussion with my mother the other week. She hates smoking, but did not mind the fact that we (my wife, brother and brother's girlfriend) where vaping in the same room as she was.

But then she asked the question, is vaping really healthier than smoking and what about secondhand "vape"? At least now I can backup our argument with some scientific studies.

 

[Soutie]

The most interesting thing about this entire article is this bit

Research and Development, British American Tobacco Investments Ltd., Regents Park Road, Southampton, Hampshire SO15 8TL, U.K.

 

[Warlock]

Nicely done again @Alex You really do an admirable job keeping us informed about all the ins and outs about smoking verse vaping. Thank you

 

[RichJB]

@Soutie, most vaping research is conducted by big tobacco. They are gearing their business towards vaping taking over from smoking, so it is natural that they would want to quantify and showcase the benefits of the new product line.

The problem with current vaping research, as I've noted on other threads, is that it is geared almost exclusively towards cigalikes. That is to be expected as big tobacco produce cigalikes so that is what they research. This study is no different. The methodology for this study assumed 20 cigarettes per day consumed by smokers, and one cartomizer (1.6ml) of juice per day consumed by vapers. Would the "emissions of toxicants identified for regulation were from 82 to >99% lower on a per-puff basis from the e-cigarette compared with those from Ky3R4F" still hold good if the e-cigarette was a Smok TFV8 running an octuple-coil head at 120W?

The "per puff" comparison was based on the 1.6ml cartomizer taking 200 draws to drain, for an average of .008ml per puff. The TFV8 has 6ml capacity. Do you get 6/0.008 = 750 DTL hits from a TFV8 before needing to refill? A "per puff" comparison might be valid between a smoker and a cigalike user in terms of toxicant emissions produced. Is it valid between a cloud chucker and a smoker?

 

[Soutie]

I totally agree with you @RichJB, scale does play a huge role especially considering how little we do know i the grand scheme of things.

I was referring to the fact that big tobacco research seems to be promoting it. I would have thought that they would be trying to stifle the vaping market as much as possible. I don't know of any Major big tobacco product lines available at the moment (maybe i haven't looked hard enough), most hardware seems to be Chinese made and juices are usually mom and pop, craft or unaffiliated companies. It really seems that them promoting reports like these they are helping dig their own graves.

 

[RichJB]

Big tobacco is a massive player in the cigalike field and now own most of the cigalike brands on the market. They are buying out the smaller cigalike manufacturers by the dozen. The notion that big tobacco is trying to discredit vaping "so that people stay on cigarettes" is a myth perpetuated by the vaping industry. Big tobacco are the biggest proponents of vaping and are doing the majority of the research work that supports vaping as a healthier alternative to smoking. Why wouldn't they? They see vaping products as their future core business. So, just as Sony and Philips sung the praises of CD and DVD to wean their customers off "old technology" like LPs, audio cassettes and Betamax/VHS, so the tobacco companies are singing the praises of vaping to wean their customers off "old technology" cigarettes.

They are playing a double game, continuing to support cigarettes in developing world markets but transitioning their developed world markets to cigalikes. I don't think they can punt vaping in developing world markets yet because they don't have an affordable vaping solution. Manual labourers in the developing world can afford cigarettes but they can't afford vaping. However, big tobacco is working on that and they will eventually have a vaping model that is affordable for the poorest of the poor.

So they are not anti-vaping. They are, however, anti-competition. Vaping manufacturers from China provide that. So big tobacco is planning on eliminating them. They will do that by regulatory measures such as the exorbitant cost of pre-market FDA approvals, which big tobacco can afford but Kanger, Aspire et al can't. However, big tobacco is not going to diss vaping. It's their future, they are going to promote it like crazy.

 

[RichJB]

Just to clarify my earlier post, I'm not suggesting that vaping could be as harmful as smoking. The complete absence of many toxicant emissions in vapour takes consumption out of the equation for those chemicals. If carcinogen x is present in tobacco smoke but not in vapour, it doesn't matter if you vape 500ml of juice a day, you're not going to get that carcinogen. So it's still a huge win for vaping.

However, for those chemicals present in both smoke and vapour, we need some estimation of how much more harmful it is to vape 50ml of juice per day than the typical 1-2ml per day used in these studies. We know now that vapour contains far fewer harmful chemicals than smoke, we don't need more studies confirming this. What we need is studies which take 30ml or 50ml of juice consumption per day, and analyse whether (and if so, by how much) this affects the Royal College's estimation of vaping being 95% safer than smoking.

Yet nobody seems keen on doing these studies. Big tobacco won't do them because that level of juice consumption is way beyond what their cigalikes will use. And the medical fraternity don't seem to know about gear that consumes high volumes of juice. Dr Siegel is seen as one of the most pro-vaping researchers and one of the most informed about vaping. Yet when he did his analysis of diacetyl in smoke v vapour, he assumed a pack of cigs a day for a smoker and 1ml of juice per day for a vaper. That is insane. There is no vaper (as opposed to cigalike user) who is vaping 1ml of juice a day. We need more realistic figures.