Sidestream Cigarette Smoke Generation and Exposure System for Environmental Tobacco Smoke Studies

Abstract

Previous studies of the effects of environmental tobacco smoke have used artificial systems for generating aged and diluted sidestream cigarette smoke. Generally these systems have been designed for large chambers, which require expensive smoking machines, use large air flows, and are labor-intensive. We present a new method for producing sidestream smoke and describe an exposure system for smaller chambers that collects, ages, and dilutes smoke to simulate environmentally relevant conditions. Furthermore, our system is relatively inexpensive, maintains consistent levels of total suspended particulates (TSP) and carbon mon-oxide that can be set at a variety of concentrations, and significantly reduces the manual component of exposure studies.