For many years, activated carbons have been extensively used for water treatment and gas adsorption because their large surface area. More recently, new generations of carbon structures built at nanoscale with relatively large surface areas and exhibiting novel electronic and chemical properties open new horizons for achieving enhanced adsorption and new and sophisticated applications.

In this work we tried to find whether these novel carbon structures were capable of selectively absorbing polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) from cigarette smoke using a device similar to a cigarette filter. We selected different allotropic forms of carbon as adsorbents, that is to say, same composition but different structure: graphene, graphene oxide, different grades of functionalised graphene, fullerene, single and multiwall nanotubes and combination of them.

Different filter structures were designed to support the different additives. Firstly, cavities with the additives under cellulose acetate plugs, and then cellulose acetate filter with very low-pressure drop that were immersed in an aqueous suspension of the adsorbent. Different types and quantities of surfactants were tested to improve dispersion of the additives in water. Plain cellulose acetate filters submerged in water with no additives were used as reference. The filter plugs with the different additives and the reference filters were placed in specially designed acrylic nozzles and attached to the same cigarette tobacco column. Cigarettes were smoked following the ISO regime with a puff time modification, Cambridge filters were extracted with solvent and then analysed by GC-MS-MS and retention efficiency against the reference cigarettes was tested for eleven PAHs including benzo[a]pyrene.

We found that graphene could selectively retain PAHs, and depending on the particle size, selectively retain the lower or higher molecular weight compounds. Functionalisation of graphene could decrease the retention rate of PAHs, and multiwall nanotubes of small size seemed to more effectively retain high weight PAHs.