Analysis of cigarette smoke by an online thermal desorption system and multidimensional GC-MS

Single puffs of cigarette smoke with a wide continuous range of volatility are directly analyzed using a new system. The system consists of a smoking machine, an online thermal desorption system (TDS), and a multidimensional gas chromatograph-mass spectrometer (MDGC-MS) system. The online TDS with the smoking machine collects the single-puff cigarette smoke with glass beads as the cryogenic adsorbent. The MDGC is composed of three capillary columns, Poraplot Q, and DB-WAX for separation and a deactivated capillary column for pressure balance, which enables simultaneous separation of the two different phases. The smoke desorbed from the TDS is divided into vapor and semivolatile phases and analyzed individually with each column by the MDGC. Thus, the system enables the overall analysis of the two phases simultaneously, including acetaldehyde and 1,4-benzenediol. This system also provides more appropriate analysis for compounds crossing the two phases such as toluene and pyridine. For the approach of introducing internal standards, a gas mixture of toluene-d(8) and o-xylene-d(10) is applied and the compounds are detected in the vapor and semivolatile phases, respectively.