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Historical context, philosophy and principles of environmental health
Published in Stephen Battersby, Clay's Handbook of Environmental Health, 2023
As others have written in great detail about the public health controversy that JUUL Labs, Inc. has created [12] in utilising a proprietary nicotine salt-based e-liquid formula [13], JUUL framed its new aerosol nicotine delivery system as a safe alternative to traditional, combustible tobacco products, with the potential of mitigating the lung-related illnesses and death associated with smoking [14]. Yet, while little was known about the short- and long-term health effects of inhaling nicotine aerosols, JUUL’s vaping products were rushed to mass production without substantive toxicological testing to ascertain its health safety [15]. Even now, more than a decade after e-cigarettes were introduced on the market, the Johns Hopkins Ciccarone Center for the Prevention of Heart Disease admits that vaping exposes users to various chemicals that we don’t yet understand and that are probably not safe [16] – aerosols that the Surgeon General underscores may contain harmful and potentially harmful chemicals, including nicotine; ultrafine particles that can be inhaled deep into the lungs; flavoring such diacetyl, a chemical linked to a serious lung disease; volatile organic compounds such as benzene, which is found in car exhaust; and heavy metals, such as nickel, tin, and lead.40[17–21]
Volatilization and partitioning of residual electronic cigarette emissions to particulate matter
Published in Aerosol Science and Technology, 2023
Henry J. Colby, Erin F. Katz, Peter F. DeCarlo
Nicotine is dibasic but exists mainly in two forms, free-base (semi-volatile) and mono-protonated (non-volatile), and increased concentrations of free-base nicotine relative to monoprotonated have been associated with increased harshness of smoke/vape inhalation (Chen 1976). Because of the synthetic nature of e-liquids, manufacturers can adjust the concentration of nicotine and the pH of the liquid to produce a desired sensation. For example, the e-cig company JUUL Labs, Inc. adds benzoic acid (BA) to their liquid to increase the amount of protonated nicotine in an attempt to mimic the feel of smoking CC’s (Duell, Pankow, and Peyton 2018), as protonated nicotine (or nicotine salt) is the naturally abundant form in tobacco plants (Seeman et al. 1999) and CC smoke (Pankow et al. 2003). Protonated nicotine will not likely evaporate from particles even through the vaporization process and is more likely than gas-phase free-base nicotine to be exhaled in particles from the e-cig user with subsequent deposition onto surfaces. The very high initial concentrations of nicotine in JUUL e-liquids (59.2–66.7 mg/mL) compared to many other e-liquids (1.6–34.4 mg/mL) (Omaiye et al. 2019) and a sufficiently low pH to render >90% of nicotine mono-protonated (Duell, Pankow, and Peyton 2018; Talih et al. 2019) will by extension increase the mass deposition of nicotine to indoor surfaces compared to other e-liquid formulations. It is anticipated that constituents of deposited e-cig vape undergo a similar acid–base partitioning mechanism to particles as THS (Pankow et al. 1997; DeCarlo, Avery, and Waring 2018), though fewer nicotine degradation products are expected due to the relative simplicity of e-cig aerosol matrix (Crosswhite et al. 2021; Dusautoir et al. 2021). Here, we focus on the evaporation and subsequent partitioning of nicotine and other compounds from e-cig residue with the aim of determining (1) if chemicals from e-cig residue partitions to aerosol particles and (2) the extent to which chemical processing occurs for deposited e-cig vape over time. The investigation of these aims provides new understanding of the long-term impact of e-cig usage to indoor air quality and exposure.