Determination of Six Heavy Metal Elements in Sidestream Cigarette Smoke by Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry

A method for determining six heavy metal elements, Cr, Ni, As, Se, Cd and Pb, in sidestream cigarette smoke(SCS) was developed by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry(ICP-MS). The particulate matter in SCS was collected by a "fishtail" chimney connected with a quartz fiber filter pad, and the gas phase in SCS was trapped by three cascade impingers containing nitric acid, then subjected to microwave digestion, and determined by ICP-MS. The results showed that the correlation coefficients of the calibration curves of the six elements were all above 0.999, and the detection limits ranged from 0.3 to 1.8 ng/cig with the recoveries of 94.0%-109.5%. This method is accurate, sensitive and suitable for the rapid determination of the said heavy metal elements in SCS.