Making Every Single Puff Count-Simple and Sensitive E-Cigarette Aerosol Sampling for GCxIMS and GC-MS Analysis

Area of Science:

• Environmental Health Sciences
• Analytical Chemistry
• Toxicology

Background:

• Analyzing aerosol from electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) is crucial for understanding their health effects.
• Current e-cigarette aerosol sampling methods lack standardization, simplicity, and affordability.
• No existing methods are optimized for coupling with gas chromatography coupled ion mobility spectrometry (GCxIMS).

Purpose of the Study:

• To present and evaluate a simple, inexpensive setup for quantitative sampling of e-cigarette aerosol.
• To enable analysis of aerosol from a single puff using standard laboratory equipment.
• To facilitate the use of GCxIMS and GC-MS for e-cigarette aerosol analysis.

Main Methods:

• A novel setup was designed using standard lab equipment for aerosol collection.
• E-cigarette aerosol was condensed directly into a cooled headspace (HS) vial.
• Analysis was performed using headspace gas chromatography coupled ion mobility spectrometry (HS-GCxIMS) and headspace gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (HS-GC-MS).

Main Results:

• The setup successfully collected quantitative aerosol samples from single puffs (5 s, 125 mL).
• Combined GC-MS and GCxIMS enabled sensitive identification of unknown substances and degradation products.
• A calibration for 26 flavor compounds (0.2-20 µg/g) was established using spiked solutions and 2-alkanones as internal standards.

Conclusions:

• The developed method provides a sensitive, reproducible, and affordable approach for e-cigarette aerosol analysis.
• This setup democratizes advanced aerosol analysis for laboratories with limited resources.
• It supports further investigations into the health impacts of e-cigarette aerosol composition.