A new paper based on a series of theoretical calculations using applied physics says that if you smoke 15 cigarettes in a sealed car in just over an hour, you could lose consciousness.
So crack a window. Or don't smoke in a car. Or don't smoke.
Why create the estimate? Starting this October, drivers in England will be banned from smoking in their cars if they are carrying children as passengers and the reason was not just because of vague epidemiological claims about second-hand or even third-hand smoke, but because of the real threat of carbon monoxide poisoning.
Physics to the rescue. To inject some science into what is primarily an emotional debate - freedom versus the real and exaggerated issues in smoking - a group of graduate students from the University of Leicester Department of Physics and Astronomy decided to create a model. They calculated that you would need to smoke 15 cigarettes in 75 minutes for the level of carbon monoxide to reach levels of 1,000 parts per minute (ppm) – enough to make you fall unconscious.
That is an average, dependent on smoking topography, defined as “puffing behavior” including puff duration, inter-puff interval, maximum puff velocity etc., the amount of carbon monoxide released per cigarette varies. Based on typical smoking behavior they found that the average mass of CO released per cigarette is 145 mg. They then calculated the ratio of CO in comparison to air inside the car.
The proportion of molecules of CO to air in the car is 0.0068% which is a very tiny proportion, so in order to fall unconscious in a closed car scenario, it would require 1000 ppm or 0.01% of the air in the car to be composed of CO molecules. Considering that the mass of CO released per cigarette is 145 mg and the number of CO molecules released, the students calculated that a total of 15 cigarettes would need to be smoked to achieve the required CO level in the car.
If it takes five minutes to smoke one cigarette, then it would take at least 75 minutes to fill the car with this amount of harmful carbon monoxide, causing loss of consciousness.
Opening a window helps but smokers know they are not out of the woods. If they are sitting still, it would take 2.5 hours to completely change the volume of air meaning that the carbon monoxide would not be completely removed, and may still be quite harmful as even lower levels of CO in the car can be damaging to your health.
Citation: J.Patel, R.Joshi, P.Patel, P3_2 Don’t smoke and drive!, Journal of Physics Special Topics Vol 13, No 1, November 11, 2014
If You Smoke 15 Cigarettes In A Closed Car, You Could Pass Out
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