Removal Of Heavy Metal Ions And Other Toxic Substances From Cigarette Mainstream Smoke

China is one of the biggest countries planting and producing tobacco. As one of themain economic crops, tobacco planting area and cigarette output are in the first place allover the world. Although smoking can bring sensory stimulation to smokers, the healthproblems, such as heart disease and cancer, caused by smoking, are also very severe. Withthe development of our society, global anti-smoking movement are rising and people paymore attention to a big question, that is, how to become heathier.A research reported byAsia pacific conference on tobacco or health shows that heavy metal contents of13Chinese cigarette brands were higher than cigarette in other countries, which caused a bigchallenge to cigarette industry.With the development of technology, cigarette industries have studied many newmaterials, such as biological materials, nano materials and Chinese herbal, added into thecigarette in order to reduce the harm and improve the safety of smoking. However, fewreports have documented the removal of heavy metal ions from cigarette mainstreamsmoke.In this study, we established a method detecting heavy metal ions of cigarettemainstream smoke. In order to research the removal effect of heavy metal ions and othertoxic substances, we added three materials including chitosan, tea polyphenol or zeoliteinto the cigarette filter or tobacco, and also investigated the change of the aromacomponents in cigarette mainstream smoke. In addition, speciation analysis of heavy metalions of cigarette was studied using graphite furnace atomic absorption spectrometry, which provided a new way to evaluate cigarette safety.1) Method establishment for detecting heavy metal ions of cigarette mainstreamsmoke: A method for detecting Arsenic(As), Lead(Pb), Chromium(Cr), Cadmium(Cd) andNickel(Ni) in mainstream smoke of cigarette by graphite furnace atomic absorptionspectrometry after microwave digestion was developed. This method was simple, sensitive,accurate and rapid, which can meet the analysis requirements of trace metal ions incigarette. Although the contents of Lead (Pb) and Cadmium (Cd) can detected by graphitefurnace atomic absorption spectrometry after Nitric acid leaching, the recoveries of thismethod was worse, which could be used in the preliminary experimental analysis.2) Removal of heavy metal ions and other toxic substances of mainstream smoke: weadded chitosan, tea polyphenol or zeolite into the cigarette filter or tobacco to study theremoval effect of heavy metal ions and other toxic substances. The results showed that:Firstly, compared to the addition into tobacco, chitosan or tea polyphenol added to thecigarette filter could remove more heavy metal ions such as Lead(Pb), Chromium(Cr),Cadmium(Cd) and Nickel(Ni); Secondly, different materials have different removal effectof heavy metal ions. For example, the removal effect of chitosan added into filter oncadmium(Cd) and chromium(Cr) was the best. Tea polyphenol added into tobacco couldremove more Lead (Pb). Cigarette had less nickel(Ni) or Arsenic(As) with NaX or NaAzeolite, respectively. Moreover, three material added into cigarettes could remove othertoxic substances, including nicotine, tar, carbon monoxide, benzopyrene and phenol. Thesensory of cigarette with chitosan in filter or NaA zeolite in tobacco became rough, whileother materials added into cigarette caused little change of cigarette aroma.3) Speciation analysis of heavy metal ions of cigarette: we analyzed the studiedspeciation of heavy metal ions in cigarette with different materials. The results showed that the contents of organic state heavy metals in tobacco was less than inorganic state, whilethe heavy metal ions in mainstream smoke were almost in inorganic state. Compared tocontrol group cigarette, the contents of inorganic state heavy metal ions in treatment groupswere all decreased. Heavy metal ions adsorbed by Chitosan, tea polyphenol or zeolite werealmost existed in inorganic state.The purpose of this study was to explore a effective way to remove the heavy metalions and other toxic substances from cigarette mainstream smoke. It provided a basis toreduce the harm of cigarette to smokers and non-smokers.