Personal project but...New to the subject

[Carrolld0293]

Hello there!
I'm working on a personal project where I need to analyze the compounds of a vapor produced by cigarettes or tobacco smoke and compare it to that coming from a filtered system. I'm a project engineer by trade but I'll be honest, chemistry is not my best field. Would anyone have any recommendations as to go about doing this? I've been looking into testing labs that may possibly analyze filtered samples or even obtaining the equipment myself. Has anyone used the Vernier mini GC plus by chance?

Any insight would be swell!
Thanks folks ☺

[rb6banjo]

Welcome to the forum! As it turns out, our friends at Restek (a very good chromatography supply house) have done a lot of work on the E-cigarettes. Perhaps something they've done will be helpful to you in your little problem. Check it out. Search "electronic cigarette" and you will be led to all of the parts of the multi-step study.

http://blog.restek.com/

For future reference, the more information you can supply to us the better will be your responses. There are lots of folks on this forum who are very experienced. It is likely that someone has experienced your problem. I hope the guys and gals at Restek can help you.

[GOM]

Hi

To echo rb6banjo's helpful response - are you talking about e-cigarettes or tobacco vapour and what are your exact requirements?

Regards

Ralph

[Carrolld0293]

Hi

To echo rb6banjo's helpful response - are you talking about e-cigarettes or tobacco vapour and what are your exact requirements?

Regards

Ralph

Thank you for the response! I'm looking to find out if my filtering methods are beneficial as not adding contaminants into the filered air. The only method I could think of to may eyestrain this is gas chromatography. To be honest, I'm not even sure if there is ano easier or better way to go about this! That's what brings me to you folks!

[Carrolld0293]

Welcome to the forum! As it turns out, our friends at Restek (a very good chromatography supply house) have done a lot of work on the E-cigarettes. Perhaps something they've done will be helpful to you in your little problem. Check it out. Search "electronic cigarette" and you will be led to all of the parts of the multi-step study.

http://blog.restek.com/

For future reference, the more information you can supply to us the better will be your responses. There are lots of folks on this forum who are very experienced. It is likely that someone has experienced your problem. I hope the guys and gals at Restek can help you.

Thank you! I'm mainly looking at tobacco cigarettesmoke. However, this may still be useful for my research! I'm researching methods to filter tobacco smoke other than the average cigarette filter. At this point I need a way to test and verify the efficiency of the alternatives.

[rb6banjo]

I understand. I was thinking that perhaps some of the techniques and apparatus that they use in their testing of the vape might help you.

Years ago, we used to make a big deal out of the "bring your kids to work day" in my department. A colleague of mine and I decided it would be cool to smoke a cigarette through this plexiglas syringe designed for air sampling with Tedlar bags - an attempt to discourage cigarette smoking for the kiddos:

http://www.skcinc.com/catalog/index.php ... _202000600

It worked. Since it's clear, you could see all of the brown "smog-like" smoke that comes through the filter. I was able to trap the smoke in the bag and then sample it with SPME. Injecting that smoke into my GCO gave a ridiculously complex chromatogram AND some of the stuff in that smoke would knock you out of your chair. I got about half way through it and the butyric acid made me quit - it was so intense. My nose wasn't the same the rest of the day.

Good luck!

[Carrolld0293]

I understand. I was thinking that perhaps some of the techniques and apparatus that they use in their testing of the vape might help you.

Years ago, we used to make a big deal out of the "bring your kids to work day" in my department. A colleague of mine and I decided it would be cool to smoke a cigarette through this plexiglas syringe designed for air sampling with Tedlar bags - an attempt to discourage cigarette smoking for the kiddos:

http://www.skcinc.com/catalog/index.php ... _202000600

It worked. Since it's clear, you could see all of the brown "smog-like" smoke that comes through the filter. I was able to trap the smoke in the bag and then sample it with SPME. Injecting that smoke into my GCO gave a ridiculously complex chromatogram AND some of the stuff in that smoke would knock you out of your chair. I got about half way through it and the butyric acid made me quit - it was so intense. My nose wasn't the same the rest of the day.

Good luck!

Geewhiz! Thank you! This definitely ought to help! I'm hoping to be able to compare the control with the use of my filter and also determine if the filter media gets into the vapor. So once I get the samples with this, what type of set up would I need to get a read of the difference in vapors. Is there a place to send samples for individuals? Or would I have to purchase my own device? For the most part all I can find are mini machines for class rooms. I really didn't think this would be so difficult lol