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Researchers Develop Wearable Sensor Measuring Airborne Nicotine Vapour

A new report published in ACS Sensors discussed a newly developed battery-free wearable device, which can detect nicotine-containing airborne aerosol.

Diane Caruana

July 1, 2022

Studies have shown that vaping probably has a minimal impact on indoor air quality.

The report titled, “Nicotine Sensors for Wearable Battery-Free Monitoring of Vaping,” discusses a portable nicotine sensor that is being developed as an alternative to tests that can only be carried out in laboratory settings and are therefore impractical. Madhu Bhaskaran, Md. Ataur Rahman and Philipp Gutruf, were funded by the Australian Research Council and set out to design a lightweight, wearable sensor capable of detecting nicotine in real time. Hence the device is able to measure the wearer’s exposure and send the data directly to electronic devices such as smartphones.

Vapour evaporates within seconds

Meanwhile, a 2018 peer-reviewed study, had shown that exhaled e-vapour product particles are actually liquid droplets that evaporate within seconds. In line with what previous air samples had indicated, these findings had suggested that vaping probably has a minimal impact on indoor air quality.

The study titled “Characterisation of the Spatial and Temporal Dispersion Differences between Exhaled e-cigarette mist and Cigarette Smoke,” was published in the renowned journal Nicotine & Tobacco Research and carried out via a collaboration between Kaunas University of Technology in Lithuania, EMPA (Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology), ETH Zurich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology) and Fontem Ventures.

In order to measure particle concentrations in the air, study participants were asked to use e-cigarettes or smoke conventional cigarettes at different distances from a heated mannequin, representing a bystander, and under different room ventilation conditions. In the meantime, the researchers measured aerosol particle concentrations and size distributions at the mannequin’s position.

Particles from cigarette smoke linger significantly longer

For both e-cigarettes and regular cigarettes, the particle concentrations registered following each puff were in the same order of magnitude. However, for vaping products the particle concentration returned to background values within a few seconds, whilst for cigarettes it increased with successive puffs, only returning to background levels after 30-45 minutes.