Analysis of Olfactory Aroma Components in Cut Tobacco with Purge and Trap-Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry

A Purge and Trap-Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (P&T-GC-MS) method was developed for rapidly analyzing the olfactory aroma components in cut tobacco of cigarettes. The cut tobacco sample was purged with carrier gas at a condition close to room temperature; the volatiles were trapped by dry blowing and desorbed then analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively by GC-MS. In order to simulate the natural olfactory aroma of cigarette, the heating unit of P&T was modified and the conditions for P&T and GC-MS analysis were optimized. The olfactory aroma components in cut tobacco of domestic Virginia type reference cigarette and 10 domestic cigarette brands were tested with the developed method. The results showed that:1) The optimum conditions were using the DB-WAXER column and Tenax trap, purging for 60 minutes at 40℃, dry-blowing for 1 minute, desorption for 0.5 minute at 180℃. 2) A total of 170 components were identified from the reference cigarette, among them, the relative standard deviations (RSDs) of 147 components were no more than 10%. 3) The 20 components investigated by standard addition showed good linear relationship (r²>0.99). 4) Comparing with static-headspace (HS) and solid phase micro-extraction (SPME), this method was able to identify more aroma compounds and offer more accurate results. 5) This method was fast and simple and featured the advantages of nondestructive extraction, good repeatability and high sensitivity, it was suitable for analyzing the olfactory aroma components in cut tobacco of all kinds of cigarettes.