QUANTITATIVE-ANALYSIS BY GAS-CHROMATOGRAPHY OF VOLATILE CARBONYL-COMPOUNDS IN CIGARETTE-SMOKE

The cigarette smoke from 26 commercial brands was drawn into a separatory funnel containing an aqueous cysteamine solution. Almost the entire smoke from a cigarette was trapped as mainstream cigarette smoke. The carbonyl compounds in the smoke were derivatized to thiazolidines and were then quantitatively analyzed by gas chromatography with nitrogen-phosphorus detection. Total carbonyl compounds recovered ranged from 2.37 to 5.14 mg/cigarette. The general decreasing order of the carbonyl compounds yielded was acetaldehyde, butanal, hexanal, propanal, acetone, octanal, 2-methylpropanal and formaldehyde. Acetaldehyde was the major aldehyde in the smoke sample from 26 brands and it made up 46-72% of the total carbonyl compounds in the sample. Amounts of formaldehyde ranged from 73.8 to 283.8 mu g/cigarette. It is hypothesized that these carbonyl compounds form from lipid and wax constituents in tobacco leaves.