Abstract: In order to investigate the emission characteristics of aerosol from tobacco heated at low temperature, a method of determining mass optical density(D_m) for quantitatively characterizing aerosol yield was developed, wherein a purpose-made steady state pyrolysis device was linked to a smoke density gauge(SSTF-SDG). The values of 34 flue-cured tobacco samples of different varieties from different stalk positions and growing areas were determined, and the correlations of D_m with the major elements and routine chemical components in tobacco were statistically analyzed. The results showed that: 1) On the basis of SSTF-SDG, this method could successfully analyze the D_m of tobacco heated at low temperature. 2) D_m significantly positively correlated to the contents of carbon(C), hydrogen(H), nitrogen(N) and nicotine(Nic) at 0.01 level, while significantly negatively correlated to the ratios of potassium to sulfur(K/S), potassium to nitrogen(K/N), carbon plus hydrogen to oxygen (C+H)/O, and reduced sugar to nicotine(RS/Nic) at 0.01 level. 3) The influencing factors in the order of significance on D_m were C > Nic > K/S > N > K/N > H > (C+H)/O > RS/Nic > S > K > total sugar > O > RS > Cl > K/Cl. 4) The regression equation with C, N and K/S as independent variables could well predict theamount of aerosol released from flue-cured tobacco heated at low temperature.