Dangers Toxic elements in tobacco smoke

Toxic elements in tobacco smokeHeavy metals such as arsenic, cadmium, and lead have been detected in tobacco smoke, by showing that the toxic elements could propagate to distances varying natural airflow.A burning cigarette produces more than 4000 chemicals, many of which are toxic and about 40 cause cancer. These compounds remain in the air as environmental tobacco smoke is inhaled by others in the region. There are two types of cigarette smoke, the cigarette smoke that comes out of the mouth of the main smokers and sidestream smoke from the burning end of the cigarette.

When researching heavy metals in tobacco smoke byproducts, researchers at the tobacco company Philip Morris, U.S., found arsenic in chimney stacks used in the first phase at their equipment. This phenomenon was not found for cadmium or lead. They assume that the cause for this is that the arsenic could be liquid vapor, while cadmium and lead is solid particulates.Michael Chang and his colleagues used a device called chimney "fish tail" to channel the smoke from a burning cigarette to get a jet of smoke as an impactor that collects condensate. Remaining smoke is passed through a mixed cellulose ester filter to try to capture the remaining smoke. Some ways of trying to prepare for the smoke that has been condensed in different parts of the tool. The best method is sampling slurry, which involves the use of detergent Triton X-100 and nitric acid to make a slurry with smoke condensate. Inductively coupled mass spectrometry is used to analyze the slurry.Percentage of the total deposition of arsenic greater (20 percent), compared to cadmium or lead (less than 5 percent) in the stack shows that toxic elements in cigarette smoke can propagate differently in airflow and can deposited at different points. The researchers suspect this behavior is caused by the difference between the elements of a solid phase (particulate) and liquid (vapor). Adapted from: http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/