Are there any cheap material/Substance out there that will be able to absorb or change normal smoke?

Question

The smoke can be absorbed or the composition of smoke can be altered to form less harmfull deposits.

What is the compostion of smoke?
Is this possible?

Answer 1

Smoke is a mix of combustion gasses (steam and CO2), particles (ash and dust), and partially burned fuel/air mixes (hydrocarbons, nitrogen compounds, maybe some other things. If you're burning plants, there's all kinds of chemicals here).

You can clean the some of that stuff out, as long as you can force the smoke through a filter before releasing it. Once the smoke's in the air, you're pretty much SOL.

Simple filters can do a good job at removing particulates, especially if you keep the filter wet.. Silk meshes are very good--you can buy them by the yard in the silk screening section of an art supply store. Filters need to be changed or cleaned often, and if there's anything nasty in your smoke, might become hazardous.

Activated carbon is also an option. It's for sale for fish filters, and probably other places. I think that carbon is best at removing organics, but I'm not sure. You might experiment with running the smoke through a pipe filled with carbon crushed to different sizes.

If you're doing any of this for safety reasons, you shouldn't be asking on Yahoo.

Answer 2

Water. The unbonded e- in H2O do it very nicely. Like smoking tobacco in a bong, it collects all of the tar from the smoke, very nicely. Steam can do it also, if you have a way to condense it after it collects the smoke.

Answer 3

a carbon filter can do wonders. they're cheap and effective