Characterization of particle size distribution of mainstream cigarette smoke generated by smoking machine with an electrical low pressure impactor.

Cigarette smoking is a particle-related exposure. Studying the characteristics of the particle size distribution of cigarette smoke can aid in providing knowledge of smoke aerosol attributes. We used an electrical low pressure impactor (ELPI) to measure the particle size distribution of mainstream cigarette smoke generated by a smoking machine and provided a continuum of particle sizes of cigarette smoke from a whole cigarette. The results showed that the aerodynamic diameters (D, geometric mean of a channel) of particles ranged from 0.021 to 1.956 μm, and the number concentrations were on the order of 10(5)-10(9) cm(-3) for different sizes of particles. The particle number of the size category below 0.1 μm approximated that of the category 0.1-2.0 μm, and the particles in the size category of 0.1-2.0 μm contributed extremely heavily to total particulate mass. In addition, the results with small samples indicated that the tar yields normalized per milligram of nicotine showed an approximately linear increase with increasing concentration of total particles.