Comprehensive characterization of mainstream marijuana and tobacco smoke

Abstract: Recent increases in marijuana use and legalization without adequate knowledge of the risks necessitate the characterization of the billions of nanoparticles contained in each puff of smoke. Tobacco smoke offers a benchmark given that it has been extensively studied. Tobacco and marijuana smoke particles are quantitatively similar in volatility, shape, density and number concentration, albeit with differences in size, total mass and chemical composition. Particles from marijuana smoke are on average 29% larger in mobility diameter than particles from tobacco smoke and contain 3.4× more total mass. New measurements of semi-volatile fractions determine over 97% of the mass and volume of the particles from either smoke source are comprised of semi-volatile compounds. For tobacco and marijuana smoke, respectively, 4350 and 2575 different compounds are detected, of which, 670 and 536 (231 in common) are tentatively identified, and of these, 173 and 110 different compounds (69 in common) are known to cause negative health effects through carcinogenic, mutagenic, teratogenic, or other toxic mechanisms. This study demonstrates striking similarities between marijuana and tobacco smoke in terms of their physical and chemical properties

A comparative study on effective density, shape factor, and volatile mixing of non-spherical particles using tandem aerodynamic diameter, mobility diameter, and mass measurements

Combustion-generated particles are typically non-spherical (soot aggregates) and sometimes mixed with organic compounds (e.g. in vehicle emissions). The effective density, dynamic shape factor, and volatile mixing of particles are widely studied using aerosol instruments that measure the particle mobility diameter, aerodynamic diameter, and mass. In theory, any of these three physical properties can be obtained from a combination of the other two. In the present study, a tandem arrangement of aerodynamic aerosol classifier (AAC; measuring aerodynamic diameter), differential mobility analyzer (DMA; measuring mobility diameter), optional catalytic stripper (CS), and centrifugal particle mass analyzer (CPMA; measuring particle mass) was used to study the effective density, dynamic shape factor, and volatile mixing of non-spherical non-homogenous particles. In terms of mass, the vast majority of the particles were purely semi-volatile mixed with soot with and without semi-volatile coating. The effective density of polydisperse non-stripped particles was relatively constant (indicating nearly spherical particles), while that of polydisperse stripped particles decreased from ~1200 to ~800 kg/m³ as the particle size increased (indicating a compact structure). The effective density of monodisperse particles, measured by DMA-CPMA, AAC-DMA, and AAC-CPMA methods, was consistent within the measurement uncertainty; however, the latter method had larger discrepancy with the other two methods, particularly for non-spherical particles. The dynamic shape factor, measured by AAC-CPMA and DMA-CPMA methods, increased with the mobility diameter, a trend also supported by electron micrographs. The volatile mass fraction of particles decreased as their mobility diameter increased, with smaller particles having volatile mass fraction of ~20%. This result was further confirmed by chemical characterization of size-selected particles, proving the robustness of online aerosol measurements

Morphology and size of soot from gas flares as a function of fuel and water addition

A large-scale, laboratory turbulent diffusion flame was used to study the effects of fuel composition on soot size and morphology. The burner and fuels are typical of those used in the upstream oil and gas industry for gas flaring, a practice commonly used to dispose of excess gaseous hydrocarbons. Fuels were characterized by their carbon-to-hydrogen ratio (from 0.264 to 0.369) and their volumetric higher heating value (HHVv) (from 35.8 to 75.2 MJ/m3). Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) was used to assess primary particle and aggregate size, showing that the scaling of primary particle size to aggregate size was roughly the same for all of the considered fuels (dp = 16.3(da,100 [nm]/100)0.35). However, fuels with higher HHVv produced substantially larger soot aggregates. A scanning mobility particle sizer (SMPS) was also used (i) to measure mobility diameter distributions and (ii) in tandem with a centrifugal particle mass analyzer (CPMA) to determine the two-dimensional mass-mobility and effective density-mobility distributions using a new inversion approach. The new approach was shown to improve internal consistency of inferred morphological parameters, though with a shift relative to median-based analysis of the tandem data. Raman spectroscopy was used to quantify the degree of graphitization in the soot nanostructure. The addition of water to the fuel consistently reduced the soot yields but did not affect other morphological parameters. Larger aggregates also tended to have larger primary particles and higher Raman D/G ratios suggesting larger graphitic domains