The Combined Chemical and Mechanical Modifications of Cigarette: A Novel Methodology to Reduce Harmful Effects

Abstract

Without hindering the taste, making a cigarette less harmful by reducing the percentage of toxic and carcinogenic compounds in the smoke of the cigarette is the challenging task for the current generation researchers. In the current work, by implementing mechanical and chemical modification techniques, the above stated is tried to mitigate. In addition to the above, the optimized suction pressure, burning time and the number of puffing are determined. Then, at the optimized conditions, the modifications are implemented. Mechanical modification technique considers filter to cigarette ratio and filter design. The mathematical calculation reveals that puffing stops when the cigarette length reaches 0.15 times of its original length. Furthermore, it also identified that the concentration of suspended solids and droplets in the smoke decreases significantly (separation efficiency = 56.81%) if the cigarette to filter ratio is 2.32. In the case of chemical modification, various adsorbents such as charcoal and Zeolite 13X used to reduce the harmful effect in the output. These processes depict reduction in harmful effect (separation efficiency up to 62.1%) by showing decrement in the suspended solids and droplets in the smoke due to the adsorption on the active sites of charcoal and Zeolite 13X. In the case of combined modifications, the achieved separation efficiency is 66.51%. For the experimentation, an experimental setup fitted with artificial lungs. Characterization methods such as XRD, SEM, and EDX of cigarette filter, burnt charcoal part, ash, raw tobacco and mathematical calculation approve the improvement due to the modification of cigarette.