Is there nicotine in exhaled vapor?

[Denise D]

I was an outdoor smoker for over 20 years, but since I started vaping two months now, I'm now vaping indoors and in my vehicle. Tonight I was vaping in the kitchen - while cooking! I am wondering if there is any nicotine in exhaled vapor that might be landing on my food or on surfaces I don't really want coated with nicotine. Is there any residue that builds up after vaping in an area for a long time?

 

[Hoosier]

As I am sure you know, nicotine is not considered a cancer agent and is a stimulant like caffine, only a bit more addicting.

I do not know of any studies that looked at how much nicotine escapes from vapor, but it seems reasonable that some will.

The great thing about nicotine is that it oxidizes rapidly in air and becomes a different substance without the same effects if ingested.

The next thing to consider is the quantity. If you were to somehow get an entire ml of 24mg juice's nicotine spread into a pound of food without it oxidizing and ingested it, the nicotine would be 0.005% of that food's content. An amount so small as to be extremely difficult to measure with good scientific equipment. Now reduce that by the amount of juice you can actually vape while cooking, the amount you absorb, the amount that oxidizes, the heat that speeds up oxidization, and the amount of food on the stove that adds up to more than a pound. I do not know the exact numbers, but I believe the amount of nicotine that remains would be much less than what is naturally present in tomatoes, eggplant, and other nicotine producing plants in the nightshade family.

So, serve some fresh picked tomatoes with the meal and smile!

 

[rolygate]

No clinical trial has ever tested the nicotine in exhaled vapor and given a full set of documented results for human subjects. This trial would also be illegal in the USA.

It is also impossible to test this using the normal filters used in lab tests of exhaled cigarette smoke, because the filters are designed to replicate the filtering effect of the human lung on smoke, not on a water-based mist, which will have a completely different effect. New filters would have to be designed to replicate the effect of the human lung on mist. This is not going to happen any time soon.

We have already seen the effect of trying to test e-cigarette vapor using a cigarette smoking set-up and the result was completely useless, as the mist (unlike smoke) clung to the equipment interior and ruined all the results.

So all you can do is take a wild guess. For example:

"The nicotine in exhaled vapor could be about 10% of the nicotine in the inhaled vapor stream."

Or, "The nicotine in exhaled vapor could be about 1% of the nicotine in the inhaled vapor stream."

Or, "The nicotine in exhaled vapor could be about 0.1% of the nicotine in the inhaled vapor stream."

It doesn't matter what is said, as it's just a wild guess. Choose your preferred option. Oh - and first you would have to find a properly-conducted trial of the mainstream vapor, with a correctly-reviewed lab set-up of the machinery used, and a fully-documented set of results, with a peer-reviewed analysis. Good luck with that.

 

[Archer]

Try exhaling through a paper towel a few times. It obviously won't give a readout on nicotine level but at least you'll get a visual.

 

[DonDaBoomVape]

Try exhaling through a paper towel a few times. It obviously won't give a readout on nicotine level but at least you'll get a visual.

[Image taken from a guide some guy wrote a couple years ago.]​