Indoor environment factor · measured in µg/m³
Nicotine
Part of: Semi-volatile organic compounds (SVOC)
Also: nicotine, airborne nicotine, third-hand smoke marker
The alkaloid that makes tobacco addictive, and the most specific marker of tobacco smoke in indoor air. It is semi-volatile: it deposits on every surface in a room where smoking happens and returns to the air for months afterwards.
What it is
Nicotine’s value indoors is its specificity. Fine particles in a room can come from cooking, candles, traffic or a fire; nicotine can only have come from tobacco or from a device delivering it, which is why airborne nicotine and its metabolite in the body are the standard markers for exposure to tobacco smoke and why smoking bans are evaluated with them.
Its behaviour is that of a semi-volatile compound, and it is the clearest everyday example of what that means. It leaves the burning cigarette as a gas, partitions onto walls, curtains, carpet and dust, and then desorbs slowly — so a room in which nobody has smoked for weeks still holds measurable nicotine, and a household that stops smoking indoors does not return to zero for a long time.
On surfaces it also reacts, forming nitrosamines that were not present in the original smoke.
What the studies report
| Linked to | Effect | Population | Study design | Source | Checked |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| COVID-19 | OR 1.21 (1.01–1.51) | members of multigenerational Tribal households · home | community-engaged cross-sectional study in a Great Plains Tribal community (Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe): 290 multigenerational households, week-long passive monitors for airborne nicotine and nitrogen dioxide, saliva serology for SARS-CoV-2 and a questionnaire on COVID-19 outcomes; multilevel logistic regression grouped by household, adjusted for age, sex, household income and household size | F-0706 Tillery et al. Indoor Air Nicotine, Nitrogen Dioxide Exposure, and COVID-19… (2026) | machine |
| Water pipe smoking | mean 7.20 | — · waterpipe cafe | cross-sectional measurement study in waterpipe cafes in Tehran, Iran: formaldehyde, carbon monoxide and nicotine measured indoors and outdoors by the number of active waterpipe heads, the tobacco type and the floor level, with a health risk assessment | F-0915 Masjedi Air pollutants associated with smoking in indoor/outdoor of … (2019) | machine |
| Water pipe smoking | mean 3.79 | — · waterpipe cafe | cross-sectional measurement study in waterpipe cafes in Tehran, Iran: formaldehyde, carbon monoxide and nicotine measured indoors and outdoors by the number of active waterpipe heads, the tobacco type and the floor level, with a health risk assessment | F-0918 Masjedi Air pollutants associated with smoking in indoor/outdoor of … (2019) | machine |
| Electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS) | mean 3.13 | — · test chamber | laboratory measurement of electronic cigarette emissions: nicotine and other compounds measured in the air of a chamber for tobacco-flavoured and menthol-flavoured products at different puffing times | F-1706 Lee Nicotine, aerosol particles, carbonyls and volatile organic … (2017) | machine |
| Electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS) | mean 1.48 | — · test chamber | laboratory measurement of electronic cigarette emissions: nicotine and other compounds measured in the air of a chamber for tobacco-flavoured and menthol-flavoured products at different puffing times | F-1707 Lee Nicotine, aerosol particles, carbonyls and volatile organic … (2017) | machine |
| Tobacco smoke (secondhand smoke) | geometric means recorded under measure median; the intervals overlap, so the fall in nicotine is not established by this sentence | — · hospital | before-and-after study at the national oncology hospital in Armenia: indoor fine particulate matter and air nicotine measured before and after a three-part intervention to improve compliance with the hospital smoke-free policy, with staff surveys alongside | F-1749 Clearing the air improving smoke-free policy compliance at t… (2014) | machine |
| Tobacco smoke (secondhand smoke) | prevalence 70 | — · home | cross-sectional study of homes with an active tuberculosis case in South Africa: air nicotine measured with passive samplers and smoking, solid fuel and kerosene use recorded by questionnaire | F-1757 Elf Indoor air pollution from secondhand tobacco smoke, solid fu… (2017) | machine |
Each row is one Finding — a sentence as printed in one study, recorded with its page in the Coridum Knowledge Base. Follow the Finding number for the exact wording and the citation. Checked says who verified the row: machine means every automatic check passed and the surrounding text was read; person means someone read the sentence in the document. Rows are re-checked by a person over time. The studies are curated in the Coridum Knowledge Base; the reading of them together is a Claim, shown separately.
Identifiers
Cite this page
Coridum Research. Nicotine. Coridum Knowledge G-0151, 16 September 2026. https://coridum.com/k/G-0151/