Strategies for Nonpolar Aerosol Collection and Heavy Metals Analysis of Inhaled Cannabis Products

The rapid growth of inhalable cannabis concentrates raises questions about the safety of acute and chronic exposure to these aerosol mixtures. Due to the nonpolar nature of the aerosol mixture created from cannabis vapor cartridges, traditional aqueous-based capture methods used in e-cigarette or tobacco cigarette studies for analysis of metals are insufficient. Moreover, hydrophobic cannabis concentrates are not miscible with dilute aqueous acids and therefore not ideal for metal spiking unlike electronic nicotine delivery systems. This study describes a method of spiking nonaqueous matrices with aqueous metals standards to investigate aerosolization and recovery of the metals. It also compares various methods for nonpolar aerosol capture and subsequent analysis of 10 metals (As, Cd, Co, Cr, Cu, Hg, Mn, Ni, Pb, and Sn) in two model cannabis matrices, flower and concentrate. Spiked cannabis concentrates were vaped in commercially available cartridges, and their aerosol mixtures were investigated for recovery of heavy metals via ICP-MS. Spiked flower samples were also combusted to compare collection rates of the 10 metals. Results show that not all metals that are present in the concentrate or flower can be fully recovered in the aerosol capture processes at standard voltage settings or combustion temperatures. These studies also demonstrate the importance of a nonpolar solvent as part of the aerosol collection to increase the recovery of some metals. The high concentration of some metals seen in the concentrate suggests that the devices themselves are potential routes of exposure. The ICP-MS analysis method was further validated by evaluating different parameters including linearity, matrix effect, limit of detection, limit of quantitation, and repeatability.