Ammonia and tobacco
Recent findings have confirmed that the addition of ammonia to tobacco increases the ability of nicotine to enter a smoker's bloodstream. This increases the addictive effect of cigarettes. The research was conducted by James Pankow of the Oregon Graduate Institute of Science and Technology, USA. Nicotine in tobacco is mostly in the form of non-volatile salts. Pankow says that ammonia liberates pure nicotine from these salts, allowing it to evaporate more easily and disperse through the lungs to be easily absorbed into the blood.
Tobacco in a typical cigarette contains about three per cent ammonia. Pankow calculated that this would force about 25 per cent of the nicotine into the gaseous form. This is hundred times the amount that would evaporate without the addition of ammonia. However, cigarette companies have argued that ammonia is added to reduce the total amount of nicotine.