Ammonia
Sounds like cleaning fluid — acts as addiction enhancer. Added deliberately by manufacturers.
At a glance
- Also known as
- NH₃ · Salmiakgeist
- CAS number
- 7664-41-7
- Toxicity
Medium
- Carcinogenic
- Not classified for cancer
- In cigarette smoke
- 10-200 μg per cigarette (varies strongly by brand and additives, DKFZ)
What is Ammonia?
Ammonia is a colourless, pungent gas and one of the simplest nitrogen compounds. In tobacco smoke it forms partly through combustion, but more importantly — through deliberately added ammonium compounds like diammonium phosphate or urea, which manufacturers use to optimise nicotine absorption.
Why is Ammonia in cigarettes?
Ammonia in most US-American and many European cigarette brands isn't an accident — it's part of a technical process called free-basing: ammonium compounds shift the pH of the smoke into the alkaline range, converting nicotine from its salt form into its free base. Free-base nicotine is absorbed in the lung faster and more completely — the addictive effect kicks in earlier and stronger. This process was exposed in the 1990s through internal Brown & Williamson tobacco industry documents.
What Ammonia does to your body — short term
Acutely, ammonia irritates the mucous membranes of eyes, nose and upper airways. At the concentrations found in cigarette smoke the direct irritant effect is small — largely buffered by the filter and the tobacco. The main effect is indirect: through the pH shift, nicotine reaches the brain faster, intensifying the emotional reward cascade and accelerating addiction formation.
What Ammonia does long term
Long-term, ammonia-specific effects are hard to separate from general tobacco smoke exposure, since most studies treat ammonia as a co-factor rather than an isolated substance. Documented effects include increased susceptibility to chronic bronchitis in occupationally ammonia-exposed individuals and asthma triggering. The more pronounced long-term effect from smoke is the free-basing-enhanced nicotine addiction itself.
Where else do you know Ammonia from?
Ammonia is what you know as the main component of many cleaning products — the characteristic smell of glass cleaners and some toilet cleaners. Industrially it's the foundation for fertiliser production (Haber-Bosch process) and a refrigerant in large cold-storage facilities like ice rinks. Pure ammonia solution is what you know from drugstores as „smelling salts“.
How it compares
Germany's workplace exposure limit for ammonia is 14 mg/m³ (20 ppm, DFG MAK 2023). The amounts per cigarette are absolutely small — but their function isn't acute irritation, it's the optimisation of nicotine absorption. A direct addiction enhancement, against which no exposure limit protects.
Workplace exposure limit: 14 mg/m³ (20 ppm, DFG MAK 2023)
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