While vaping has been touted as a way for cigarette dependents to slowly veer away from the potentially harmful activity, substances hidden in the vapors of the supposedly “safer” alternative also carry similar risks to health. One such substance is nicotine, a naturally-produced alkaloid substance produced by plants in the nightshade family.
Nicotine can cause addiction when exposure is on a regular basis—exposure which is sure to be more common for people looking into substituting cigarette smoking with vaping. As a result, despite its touted role as a way out for cigarette dependents, vaping may carry a risk all on its own.
To help with this, scientists from the University of Arizona (UArizona) and RMIT University collaborated on the development of a sensor that can simply be placed on the skin of a user. The device, touted as “battery-free” much like the potential new hearing aid technology developed by Huazhong University of Science and Technology, is capable of monitoring airborne nicotine levels in the wearer’s vicinity.
The sensor itself is mainly composed of a vanadium dioxide (VO2) thin film deposited on a polyimide substrate, the working process being that nicotine molecules can bond to the VO2 film. This changes the film’s conductivity, allowing the sensor to interpret the presence of nicotine around it as changes in its conductivity. It then reports this information to a nearby device wirelessly, like a smartphone.
This actually places the potentially new technology together with similar implements that measure chemical levels in the body with just skin-level devices, like the novel glucose sensors that similarly just go on your skin.
Results from this study, led by Dr. Philipp Gutruf from UArizona, says that the sensor has potential to be modified for use in detecting nicotine from traditional cigarette smoke; however, the solids and other substances present in cigarette smoke require additional innovations to the underlying technology.
This particular study was published in the journal ACS Sensors.
References
- American Chemical Society. (2021, December 8). Wearable sensor measures airborne nicotine exposure from e-cigarettes. EurekAlert! https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/936794
- Blaha, M. J. (n.d.). Will vaping lead teens to smoking cigarettes? Johns Hopkins Medicine. Retrieved 13 December 2021, from https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/wellness-and-prevention/does-vaping-lead-to-smoking
- Coxworth, B. (2021, December 8). Skin-worn sensor detects and measures nicotine in e-cig vapor. New Atlas. https://newatlas.com/health-wellbeing/skin-worn-sensor-nicotine-electronic-cigarette-vapor/
- Rahman, Md. A., Cai, L., Tawfik, S. A., Tucker, S., Burton, A., Perera, G., Spencer, M. J. S., Walia, S., Sriram, S., Gutruf, P., & Bhaskaran, M. (2021). Nicotine sensors for wearable battery-free monitoring of vaping. ACS Sensors. https://doi.org/10.1021/acssensors.1c01633
- SingleCare Team. (2020, July 17). E-cigarette and vaping statistics 2020. The Checkup. https://www.singlecare.com/blog/news/vaping-statistics/
