Volatile Property of Electronic Cigarette Composition by ATR-FTIR

Electronic cigarette has been said to be a less harmful substitute for traditional tobacco cigarette, customized cigarette e-liquid offers various flavors and unique experience for smokers. Different from traditional tobacco cigarette, electronic cigarette uses a heater and atomizer to heat and aerosolize the cigarette e-liquid. The study for the composition and its combustion product are flourishing thanks to the developing analysis instruments and methods. However, The volatile property, and the influence of e-cigarette smoke on environment and human health still remain unclear. In this study, we choose the RELX P53a electronic cigarette with a watermelon-flavor pod to analyse its composition by ATR-FTIR, study its volatility and discuss its influence on environment and human health. We find that propylene glycol(PG) and vegetable glycerin(VG) are the two main composition of the electronic cigarette emission, and a small amount of nicotine is added with benzoic acid to form nicotine salt, which is said to have less negative effect than pure nicotine in traditional tobacco cigarette. One of the main composition propylene glycol(PG) follows a exponential volatile process and its volatile rate falls with the increase of RH. The flow rate of air is then increased to test whether these deposited emissions could be removed. The result shows that these emissions will stay in human body and atmosphere and not easily cleared. Further studies are required to analyse the influence of small amount of compositions such as flavor essence on environment and human health and seek for reasonable regulation on the formula of electronic cigarette e-liquid.