title: Determination of nitroalkanes in mainstream cigarette smoke by heart-cutting multidimensional gas chromatography system coupled with mass spectrometry detection.
abstract: In this paper, heart-cutting two-dimensional GC/MS (GC-GC/MS) method in combination with a simple sample collection procedure was developed for the determination of 6 nitroalkanes in mainstream cigarette smoke. The method could remove large amounts of impurities on-line in the first polar column by heart-cuts and separate from the left interferences in a second mid-polar column. And the target compounds could be focused at the inlet of the second column by cryo-concentration. Compared to conventional GC/MS, GC-GC/MS achieved a lower noise level and sensitivity at least an order of magnitude higher. Furthermore, the GC-GC/MS method could avoid the false negative and false positive results that appeared in the compared conventional GC/MS analysis. By trapping the vapor phase of 20 cigarettes smoke, the LODs and LOQs of the nitroalkanes were 1.3 to 9.8 and 4.3 to 32.6ng/cigarette, respectively, and all linear correlation efficiencies were larger than 0.999. The validation results also indicate that the method has high accuracy (spiked recoveries between 84% and 102%) and good repeatability (RSD between 7.2% and 9.4%). The developed method was applied to analyze 1 Kentucky reference cigarette (3R4F) and 10 Chinese commercial brands of cigarettes. The research results indicated that nitromethane, nitroethane, 2-nitropropane and 1-nitro-n-pentane were detected in mainstream cigarette smoke, but 1-nitro-n-butane and 2-nitropropane, which were reported by one previous study, were not detected in all cigarette samples.
authors.affiliation: Zhengzhou Tobacco Research Institute of CNTC, Zhengzhou, China.
authors.forename: Xiaoyu
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Zhengzhou Tobacco Research Institute of CNTC, Zhengzhou, China.
authors.forename: Jizhao
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Guo
authors.affiliation: Anhui Province Tobacco Quality Supervision and Test Station, Hefei, China.
authors.forename: Jingjing
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Shang
authors.affiliation: Zhengzhou Tobacco Research Institute of CNTC, Zhengzhou, China.
authors.forename: Li
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Ding
authors.affiliation: Zhengzhou Tobacco Research Institute of CNTC, Zhengzhou, China.
authors.forename: Ge
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.affiliation: Zhengzhou Tobacco Research Institute of CNTC, Zhengzhou, China. Electronic address: xiefuwei@sina.com.
authors.forename: Fuwei
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Xie
authors.affiliation: Zhengzhou Tobacco Research Institute of CNTC, Zhengzhou, China.
authors.forename: Yunzhen
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Jia
authors.affiliation: Zhengzhou Tobacco Research Institute of CNTC, Zhengzhou, China.
authors.forename: Yaqiong
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Qin
authors.affiliation: Zhengzhou Tobacco Research Institute of CNTC, Zhengzhou, China.
authors.forename: Yongjie
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Yu
authors.affiliation: Zhengzhou Tobacco Research Institute of CNTC, Zhengzhou, China.
authors.forename: Li
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: College of Chemistry & Molecular Engineering, Zhengzhou, China.
authors.forename: Shusheng
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Zhang
mesh_terms: D004980:Ethane / Q000031:analogs & derivatives / Q000032:analysis; D008401:Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry / Q000379:methods; D057230:Limit of Detection; D008697:Methane / Q000031:analogs & derivatives / Q000032:analysis; D009595:Nitroparaffins / Q000032:analysis; D011407:Propane / Q000031:analogs & derivatives / Q000032:analysis; D012906:Smoke / Q000032:analysis*; D062789:Tobacco Products
chemical_list: D009595:Nitroparaffins; D012906:Smoke; C014705:nitroethane; C016617:2-nitropropane; D004980:Ethane; D008697:Methane; C008640:nitromethane; D011407:Propane
keywords: Cold trap; Heart-cut; Mainstream smoke; Nitroalkanes; Two-dimensional GC