Improvement of Standard Method for Determining Purity of Triacetin for Cigarette

To ensure the consistency of test result, the gas spectrometry (GC) method for determining the purity of triacetin for cigarette described in standard YC 144-2008 was revised. By investigating the effects of related factors, including dilution solvent, sample volume and container, on test results, a new method was developed, and the purity of 61 samples of domestic and imported triacetin for cigarette was determined with the developed method. The results showed that: 1) The optimized experimental procedure was that 10 μL triacetin was pipetted and transferred into a 2 mL sample vial before adding 1 mL acetone, the solution was thoroughly mixed and then determined by GC. The triacetin was quantified by peak area normalization method. 2) The relative standard deviations (RSD) of the method were less than 0.009%, and the test results did not obviously change within 48 hours. 3) The purity of all the samples was ≥ 99.0%, among them, the purity of 55 samples was ≥ 99.5%. This method is simple and convenient in operation, consumes less organic solvent, and offers consistent test results, it is suitable for determining the purity of triacetin for cigarette.