Plant extract as gas adsorbent to reduce smoke toxicants of cigarette

Abstract Cigarette smoke contains thousands of chemicals including many known toxicants and annually leads to millions of deaths worldwide. To reduce the harms of cigarette, plant extracts were applied to adsorb smoke toxicants of cigarette. Results showed that platycladus orientalis leaf extract and mulberry fruit extract particles filled into cigarette cellulose acetate filter can significantly reduce 15 major cigarette smoke toxicants emission including hydrogen cyanide (HCN), benzo[α] pyrene (B[a]P), formaldehyde, crotonaldehyde, 2-butanone, P-hydroquinone, M-dihydroxybenzene, catechol, phenol, M-P-cresol, O-cresol, N'-nitrosonornicotine (NNN), 4-methylnitrosamino-l-3-pyridyl- butanone (NNK), (R,S)-N-nitrosoanatabine (NAT) and (R,S)-N-nitrosoanabasine (NAB) by 11.90% to 60.42% (P<0.01). Platycladus orientalis leaf extract particles added in the outer cigarette filter also can adsorb other 125 kinds of chemicals most of which are harmful. Our results also indicated that plant extract has extensive gas adsorption characteristics and different plant extracts displayed different adsorption capacity to different toxicants. The adsorption capacities of five randomly selected plant extracts are all significantly higher than that of activated carbon（P<0.01). These findings suggest that plant extracts are excellent cigarette smoke adsorbents.