Chemical Aspects of the Dangers of Cigarette Smoke

Zoltán M. Galbács and Gábor Galbács

Department of Inorganic and Analytical Chemistry, University of Szeged, Szeged, Hungary

Corresponding author: Zoltán M. Galbács
    Department of Inorganic and Analytical Chemistry
    University of Szeged
    P.O. Box 440.
    H-6701 Szeged, Hungary
    Telephone: +36-62-544339
    Fax number: +36-62-420505
    E-mail address: zgalbacs@chem.u-szeged.hu

CEJOEM 2002, Vol.8. No.2–3.:213–220

Key words:
Tobacco, cigarette, nitric oxides, carbon monoxide, mercury, metals, radicals, cigarette filters

Abstract:
CO, NOx and metal content of cigarettes and their smoke were measured. CO concentration in the smoke was found to vary in the 1656–7920 ppm range. The absolute amount of mercury released during the “consumption” of a single cigarette was found to be 32–95 ng whereas NO₂ release ranged from 1.6 to 140 mg. It was also established that conventional cigarette filters, usually made of cellulose acetate, are ineffective in removing some of the harmful constituents of smoke like carbon monoxide and nitric oxides. Similarly, these devices retain only 0–5.6% of Hg. The finding that the NO₂ concentration in smoke is highly variable, sometimes changing within two orders of magnitude, suggests that it mainly depends on the additives used in the production of the cigarette rather than on the tobacco blend or the custom of smoking. Metal contents of tobacco were found to be in the order of mg/g except for Zn (several tens of mg/g) and Mn (few hundreds of mg/g).

Received: 3 July 2002
Accepted: 18 November 2002

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