Synthetic Nicotine: The Future of Sustainable Nicotine Production

• Synthetic nicotine is lab-made, not extracted from tobacco plants.
• Growing interest due to its sustainability.
• Still more costly, but prices are dropping as production scales.

Synthetic nicotine is chemically identical to nicotine found in tobacco¹ but is created through laboratory processes rather than extracted from plants​.

The first large-scale use of synthetic nicotine was in vape products, where it was marketed as "tobacco-free nicotine"​². However, the industry is expanding, with nicotine pouch brands now incorporating synthetic nicotine into their products³.

Several companies are leading synthetic nicotine development:

• Next Generation Labs – Among the first with “TFN” (Tobacco-Free Nicotine)
• Zanoprima Life Sciences (UK) – Biotechnological focus on producing high-purity synthetic S-nicotine
• Contraf-Nicotex-Tobacco GmbH (Germany) – Major supplier across pharma and nicotine sectors
  
  

The United States is currently the largest market, while South Korea is emerging as a key player.

To understand synthetic nicotine, it’s essential to look at its molecular structure.

Nicotine exists in two forms¹:

1. S-nicotine – Makes up over 99% of the nicotine in plants​.
2. R-nicotine – A mirror-image molecule of S-nicotine, but with different biological properties​.

When scientists first synthesised nicotine in 1904, they created a racemic mixture, meaning it contained equal amounts of S- and R-nicotine​. 

This differs from plant-derived nicotine, which is predominantly S-nicotine.

There are a few key differences between synthetic and tobacco-derived nicotine:

Despite the cost, synthetic nicotine is gaining interest for its sustainability potential.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) sought to regulate all e-cigarettes as tobacco products, arguing that nicotine originated from the tobacco plant.

This decision disrupted the already established market. 

Many manufacturers, particularly small- to medium-sized businesses, faced a costly and slow process to apply for authorisation to sell their products. 

Known as the PMTA (Premarket Tobacco Product Application) process, it could cost companies millions of dollars without guaranteeing product approval.

Facing regulations that threatened their businesses, many manufacturers decided to bear the extra cost of synthetic nicotine to replace “natural” nicotine. This allowed them to continue delivering products to a growing customer base that used e-cigarettes with nicotine to stay smoke-free.

Meanwhile, a new product category—disposable vapes—emerged on the market.

These simple, accessible vape products quickly became popular alongside cigarettes in stores across the U.S. Few manufacturers, mostly based in China, were willing to go through the lengthy and expensive FDA approval process. Instead, they opted to bypass regulations.

Synthetic nicotine was the solution—it wasn’t derived from tobacco plants and, therefore, didn’t require registration. For a time, a significant portion of vape products contained synthetic nicotine for this very reason.

Tobacco farming is resource-intensive, consuming vast amounts of water, fossil fuels, and land. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), global tobacco cultivation requires⁴:

• 600 million trees annually.
• 22 billion tonnes of water.
• 84 million tonnes of CO₂.
• 200,000 hectares of land​.

The majority of tobacco is grown in low- and middle-income countries, where farmland and water resources are urgently needed for food production. Instead, these vital resources are diverted to growing tobacco, while forests are cleared to make way for plantations​.

Lindblad suggests that it’s increasingly important for the nicotine industry to address one of the most persistent arguments against harm reduction: the connection to "dirty and unnecessary" tobacco farming.

"Tobacco farming still creates challenges for local populations, even though conditions have improved over the years. A shift to synthetic nicotine would eliminate that issue. Smokeless nicotine products already place significantly less strain on society in terms of resources, but if the entire process could take place in a lab, it would be as sustainable as possible. That would be a win for everyone,"

The adoption of synthetic nicotine has the potential to reduce reliance on tobacco farming, which could lower its environmental impact over time.

Brands now incorporating synthetic nicotine include:

• VELO Plus (British American Tobacco) – Launched in the U.S.
• NIIN – One of the first fully synthetic pouch lines
• Rush and Bidi Pouches – Also experimenting with synthetic formats

Synthetic nicotine has long been cost-prohibitive. But the gap is closing.

As demand rises and production tech improves, synthetic nicotine is becoming more financially viable.

Synthetic nicotine is no longer fringe—it’s a legitimate, growing segment of the nicotine market. It offers sustainability, purity, and regulatory flexibility, but challenges remain around cost, adoption, and long-term health research.

Whether it overtakes tobacco-derived nicotine is uncertain—but its impact on the future of nicotine production is already in motion.