Comprehensive determination of flavouring additives and nicotine in e-cigarette refill solutions. Part I: Liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry analysis

- This research improves the current knowledge about products connected with e-smoking.
- The replacement liquids may contain from a few to dozens of flavouring substances.
- LC-MS methods were developed and validated to determine the content of flavours.
- Information about flavours in replacement liquids of e-cigarettes was improved.

Liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry with electrospray ionization (HPLC-ESI-MS/MS) methods were developed for the simultaneous determination of 42 flavouring compounds and nicotine in liquids for e-cigarettes. The chromatographic separation was performed using an Ace® Ultracore™ SuperC18™ (100 × 2.1 mm, 2.5 μm) column in both acidic and alkaline pH conditions to separate all the compounds. A simple “dilute & shoot” approach was used for the sample preparation. The method validation was performed by evaluating key analytical parameters such as linearity, accuracy, selectivity, precision, limit of detection (LOD) and limit of quantification (LOQ). The calibration curves showed good linearity within the specific ranges for the investigated compounds with correlation coefficients greater than 0.990 in each case. The recovery for all the investigated compounds varied from 89% to 110%. The intra- and inter-day precision were within the acceptable limits (±15%) at all tested concentrations. The applicability of the methods was examined by analysing 25 liquid samples from e-cigarettes commercially available on the Polish market.