Fingerprinting cut tobacco pyrolysis products and its application in cigarette quality evaluation

In order to investigate potential application of using cut tobacco pyrolysis products for cigarette quality evaluation, a pyrolysis-gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (Py-GC/MS) method was developed for obtaining the fingerprints of cut tobacco of cigarettes. Cigarette samples of 4 brands were analyzed. The common peaks were screened on the basis of Py-GC/MS fingerprints of cut tobacco, and the data were analyzed and evaluated by cluster analysis and principal component analysis. A cigarette evaluation model was established and validated. The results showed that:1) Py-GC/MS could characterize the cut tobacco of cigarettes and 29 common peaks were screened from the fingerprints of cut tobacco. 2) Through pattern recognition, the four cigarette brands were distinguished. 3) The recognition rate of the established evaluation model reached 100% for both 15 modeling samples and 5 validation samples. This method is simple and rapid, providing a useful reference for cigarette quality evaluation.