Determination of Filtration Efficiencies of Filters to Tobacco-specific Nitrosamines in Cigarette Smoke

In order to investigate the filtration efficiencies(FEs) of cigarette filters to 4 kinds of tobaccospecific nitrosamines(TSNAs) in cigarette smoke, a method based on GC-TEA was developed. The FEs of the same cellulose acetate(CA) filter cigarette samples were determined with the developed method under six smoking standards, including ISO, Massachusetts, WG9-A, WG9-B, WG9-C and Health Canada regimes, and the FEs of cigarette samples with different filters, CA, polypropylene(PP) and active carbon combined with CA filters, were also determined under ISO regime. The results showed that:1) the recoveries of TSNAs trapped in different filters ranged from 90% to 110% with relative standard deviations(RSD) of less than 8%; 2) although the TSNAs deliveried by mainstream smoke and retained by filters increased as smoking regime shifted from ISO to the other standards, the FEs to 4 TSNAs were relatively unchanged with RSDs of less than 5%; 3) the FEs of the 3 types of filters to TSNAs were similar.