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Chemistry Forums for Students => Undergraduate General Chemistry Forum => Topic started by: olivegreen on May 02, 2009, 04:21:06 PM

Title: chemical substance and/or process to remove the "TAR" from cigarette smoke
Post by: olivegreen on May 02, 2009, 04:21:06 PM

hi,
i need to know about processes and chemicals which can can help in removing TAR from cigarette smoke ..any help in this regard is appreciated, however i'm having a bit urgency..

thanx

Title: Re: chemical substance and/or process to remove the "TAR" from cigarette smoke
Post by: Arkcon on May 02, 2009, 05:56:03 PM

Greetings, and welcome to the board.  You're apparently new, so I'd like to tell you a little bit about this board.  We like to help people who ask questions here learn, to answer for themselves, so we all end up better for the effort.  Let's start with an adequete definition of your term -- "tar"


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tar_(tobacco_residue) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tar_(tobacco_residue))

We like to use wikipedia, as a starting point, because once we know the basics, we can use the references, in a wikipedia article, to learn more.  Can you start with the wikipedia article, to see where we should take the discussion next?

Title: Re: chemical substance and/or process to remove the "TAR" from cigarette smoke
Post by: olivegreen on May 03, 2009, 12:36:16 AM

Thanx for the reply..

 i had already referred to wikipedia ; my conclusion after wiki - still no chemically precise definition for "tar" , but it seems to contain a lot of PAH(Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon) {but what else ? }.  if PAHs are the (only) major constituents - how to separate it from other gaseous components of cigarette smoke - CO, NOx, NH3, HCN,hydrazine  - one simple way seems to be pass the gas+suspension through some kind of oil (PAH being lipophilic would be dissolved and nicotine will pass through)..however which oil ?? ,
and what are the better measures to do this filtering ??

Title: Re: chemical substance and/or process to remove the "TAR" from cigarette smoke
Post by: Arkcon on May 03, 2009, 07:14:07 AM

That's not a bad way to start a report, you can state that you're assuming the major components in tar are PAH's, and tailor the separation scheme to.  There may be other solvents used for the analytical process of smoking residue separation, and I would look specifically at nicotine, it is also a large organic molecule, and would likely be solvent soluble, so you'll have to work around it.