An Automated Aerosol Collection and Extraction System to Characterize Electronic Cigarette Aerosols.

Yeongkwon Son,Andrey Khlystov

doi:10.3389/fchem.2021.764730

Abstract

Electronic cigarette (e-cigarette) market increased by 122% during 2014–2020 and is expected to continue growing rapidly. Despite their popularity, e-cigarettes are known to emit dangerous levels of toxic compounds (e.g., carbonyls), but a lack of accurate and efficient testing methods is hindering the characterization of e-cigarette aerosols emitted by a wide variety of e-cigarette devices, e-liquids, and use patterns. The aim of this study is to fill this gap by developing an automated E-cigarette Aerosol Collection and Extraction System (E-ACES) consisting of a vaping machine and a collection/extraction system. The puffing system was designed to mimic e-cigarette use patterns (i.e., power output and puff topography) by means of a variable power-supply and a flow control system. The sampling system collects e-cigarette aerosols using a combination of glass wool and a continuously wetted denuder. After the collection stage, the system is automatically washed with absorbing and extracting liquids (e.g., methanol, an acetaldehyde-DNPH solution). The entire system is controlled by a computer. E-ACES performance was evaluated against conventional methods during measurements of nicotine and carbonyl emissions from a tank type e-cigarette. Nicotine levels measured using glass fiber filters and E-ACES were not significantly different: 201.2 ± 6.2 and 212.5 ± 17 μg/puff (p = 0.377), respectively. Differences in formaldehyde and acetaldehyde levels between filter-DNPH cartridges and the E-ACES were 14% (p = 0.057) and 13% (p = 0.380), respectively. The E-ACES showed reproducible nicotine and carbonyl testing results for the selected e-cigarette vaping conditions.

Highlights

Popularity of electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) has been rapidly increasing, with sales per 4 weeks interval increasing from 7.7 million in 2014 to 17.1 million units in 2020 (Ali et al, 2020)
We developed the fully automated E-cigarette Aerosol Collection and Extraction System (E-ACES) to characterize two types of e-cigarette emissions
The results of the study show that the E-ACES method provides measurements that are in a good agreement with the conventional methods for nicotine and most of the measured carbonyl compounds

Summary

Introduction

Popularity of electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) has been rapidly increasing, with sales per 4 weeks interval increasing from 7.7 million in 2014 to 17.1 million units in 2020 (Ali et al, 2020). Most studies used either 2,4-dinitrophenyl-hydrazine (DNPH) cartridges (Goniewicz et al, 2014; Geiss et al, 2016; Khlystov and Samburova, 2016; Sleiman et al, 2016; Beauval et al, 2019) or impingers containing DNPH solution (Gillman et al, 2016; Flora et al, 2017; Farsalinos et al, 2018) to measure carbonyls in e-cigarette aerosol While these methods are widely accepted, they are labor and cost intensive to allow quick and efficient testing of the rapidly evolving e-cigarette products under the wide range of use conditions. It is worth mentioning that current commercially available smoking machines have been originally designed to target conventional cigarettes that do not produce large amounts of liquid particulates and large amounts of condensable gases that could hinder their performance

Objectives

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Results

Conclusion