Exhaled electronic cigarette emissions: What’s your secondhand exposure?

Abstract

Electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) are a new category of nicotine delivery devices designed to closely mimic the experience of smoking conventional cigarettes. Little is known about the factors of e-cigarettes that determine non-user (secondhand) exposures that result from the vapors exhaled by the user. We found that the manufactured qualities of the e-cigarette device and the composition of the liquid determine the quantity, size, and chemical composition of the particles and vapors exhaled by the user. These factors determine the air concentration of the e-cigarette emissions and their residence time within the environment, which lead to potential secondhand exposures.