RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Universal smoking machine adaptor for tobacco product testing
JF Tobacco Control
JO Tob Control
FD BMJ Publishing Group Ltd
SP tc-2023-058428
DO 10.1136/tc-2023-058428
A1 El-Hellani, Ahmad
A1 Watson, Clifford H
A1 Huang, Michelle
A1 Wilson, Clark W
A1 Fleshman, Clint C
A1 Petitti, Ryan
A1 Pancake, Mary
A1 Bennett, Chad
A1 Keller-Hamilton, Brittney L
A1 Jones, Jeremy
A1 Tran, Hang
A1 Bravo Cardenas, Roberto
A1 Mays, Darren
A1 Ye, Wei
A1 Borthwick, Robert P
A1 Schaff, Jason
A1 Williamson, Raymond L
A1 Wagener, Theodore L.
A1 Brinkman, Marielle C
YR 2024
UL http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/early/2024/07/15/tc-2023-058428.abstract
AB Significance Historically, tobacco product emissions testing using smoking machines has largely focused on combustible products, such as cigarettes and cigars. However, the popularity of newer products, such as electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes), has complicated emissions testing because the products’ mouth-end geometries do not readily seal with existing smoking and vaping machines. The demand for emissions data on popularly used products has led to inefficient and non-standardised solutions, such as laboratories making their geometry-specific custom adaptors and/or employing flexible tubing, for each unique mouth-end geometry tested. A user-friendly, validated, universal smoking machine adaptor (USMA) is needed for testing the variety of tobacco products reflecting consumer use, including e-cigarettes, heated tobacco products, cigarettes, plastic-tipped cigarillos and cigars.Methods A prototype USMA that is compatible with existing smoking/vaping machines was designed and fabricated. The quality of the seal between the USMA and different tobacco products, including e-cigarettes, cigars and cigarillos, was evaluated by examining the leak rate.Results Unlike commercial, product-specific adaptors, the USMA seals well with a wide range of tobacco product mouth-end geometries and masses. This includes e-cigarettes with non-cylindrical mouth ends and cigarillos with cuboid-like plastic tips. USMA leak rates were lower than or equivalent to commercial, product-specific adaptors.Conclusion This report provides initial evidence that the USMA seals reliably with a variety of tobacco product mouth-end geometries and can be used with existing linear smoking/vaping machines to potentially improve the precision, repeatability and reproducibility of machine smoke yield data. Accurate and reproducible emissions testing is critical for regulating tobacco products.