Acetone

What is Acetone?

Acetone is a colourless, highly volatile solvent with a characteristically sweet smell. It dissolves fats, lacquers and resins and belongs to the chemical class of ketones. In cigarette smoke it isn't added — it forms as a combustion product from tobacco sugars and organic constituents.

Why is Acetone in cigarettes?

When cellulose, tobacco sugars and plant oils burn, oxidative intermediates form — one of them is acetone. So it isn't added, it forms inevitably during incomplete combustion. Each cigarette delivers 100 to 250 micrograms of acetone into the mainstream smoke (source: DKFZ).

What Acetone does to your body — short term

Acetone irritates mucous membranes. In the mouth, throat and airways it causes dry coughing, throat scratching and eye irritation. At higher concentrations, headache and mild dizziness follow. In the amount delivered by a single cigarette it's barely consciously noticeable — but the effect sums up across every inhalation.

What Acetone does long term

Long-term evidence for direct acetone damage is thinner than for other tobacco toxins — as a pure substance, it's considered low for cancer relevance. However it acts as a co-irritant: it increases the permeability of bronchial mucosa and helps other toxins enter tissue. ECHA classifies chronic inhalation exposure as health-damaging.

How it compares

The workplace exposure limit for acetone is 1,200 mg/m³ over 8 hours (German BfR MAK). A single cigarette delivers far less in absolute terms, but directly and deep into the lung — an exposure pattern the workplace limit doesn't protect against.

Workplace exposure limit: 1200 mg/m³ (BfR MAK, 8 h)