AAAR 34th Annual Conference
October 12 - October 16, 2015
Hyatt Regency
Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA
Abstract View
Effects of Electronic Cigarette Puff Topography on Heating Coil Temperature and Mainstream Particle Characteristics
Tongke Zhao, Shi Shu, Qiuju Guo, YIFANG ZHU, UCLA
Abstract Number: 204 Working Group: Aerosol Exposure
Abstract Electronic cigarette (EC) is a battery operated device, which consists of a metal heating coil that vaporizes a mixture solution to produce vapors and aerosols. There is limited knowledge about how EC usage may affect the heating coil temperature and subsequently affect mainstream aerosol generation. This study examined the effects of variable puff duration (i.e., 2, 3, 4 and 5 s) and puff flow rates (i.e., 0.5, 1, 1.5, and 2 L/min) on EC heating oil temperature and related mainstream particle size distributions. The heating coil temperature was measured by inserting a thermocouple probe through the tip hole on the EC cartridge under normal working conditions. Particle size distributions were measured by a scanning mobility particle sizer (SMPS). To study the relationship between heating coil temperature and particles generation, mass consumption of the e-liquid in the cartridge was also quantified. The results show that the peak heating coil temperature increases as the puff duration increases and puff flow rate decreases. Similar trend was observed for the count median diameter of the mainstream aerosol. The particle number concentration is greater for longer puff duration and/or higher puff flow rate. These results provide better understanding of how an EC works and highlight the need to carefully characterize exposures in future EC related health effect studies.