Abstract: In order to accurately determine the residue levels of formaldehyde, acetaldehyde and acetone in water-based adhesives for cigarette, a derivatization-headspace gas chromatography method was developed by optimizing headspace sampling conditions and GC parameters. The adhesive samples were extracted with pure water under oscillation at room temperature, then the extract was centrifuged. The upper solution was placed in a headspace vial, then added PFBHA solution and sealed immediately. The samples were mixed and heated at 70℃ for 50 min in the headspace sampler, then separated on an HP-5 column and determined by flame ionization detector and quantified by external standard method. The results showed that:1) The limits of detection and quantitation for formaldehyde, acetaldehyde and acetone were 0.013-0.023 and 0.042-0.075 mg/kg, respectively. The recoveries were in the range of 95.3%-106.0% with the relative standard deviations(RSDs) no more than 6.1%. 2)The method was applied to the analysis of formaldehyde, acetaldehyde and acetone in water-based adhesives, the test results well agreed with those obtained by a tobacco industrial standard method based on HPLC. The developed method is simple, accurate, environmentally friendly and suitable for the routine determination of formaldehyde, acetaldehyde and acetone in water-based adhesives for cigarette.