The influence of exogenous fiber on the generation of carbonyl compounds in reconstituted tobacco sheet

• The exogenous fibers (HP and SP) were added to the reconstituted tobacco sheet (RTS).
• The effects of HP and SP on the generation of carbonyl compounds were studied.
• HP-RTS and SP-RTS generated higher amounts of carbonyl compounds.
• Xylose was the relatively prevalent monosaccharide for HP and SP.
• Xylose increased the generation of carbonyl compounds.

In recent years, many efforts have been devoted to assessing the influence of saccharides on the toxicity of cigarette mainstream smoke. The primary goal of this paper was to investigate the influence of exogenous saccharides of hemp pulp (HP) and softwood pulp (SP) on the generation of carbonyl compounds (i.e., formaldehyde, acetaldehyde, acetone, acrolein, propanal, butenal, 2-butanone and butyraldehyde) in comparison with tobacco pulp (TP). The yields of carbonyl compounds in cigarette mainstream smoke of three reconstituted tobacco sheets (RTS) (TP-RTS, HP-RTS and SP-RTS) were studied under ISO standard smoking conditions. Thermogravimetric (TG) analysis and isothermal oxidative pyrolysis experiment in combination with high performance liquid chromatography (IOPy-HPLC) have been employed to indirectly investigate the influence of exogenous fiber on the generation of carbonyl compounds. The compositions of three fibers were analyzed by Ion chromatography (IC) and the monosaccharide was studied by IOPy-HPLC. Cigarette smoking results illustrated that, compared with TP-RTS, HP-RTS and SP-RTS generated significantly higher amounts of carbonyl compounds in cigarette mainstream smoke. TG results showed that the differences of thermal behavior between three RTS were mainly caused by the differences of three fibers. IOPy-HPLC results demonstrated that xylose (17.47 mg g−1) generated significantly higher amount of carbonyl compounds than fructose (15.22 mg g−1) and mannose (15.54 mg g−1), and particularly than glucose (14.27 mg g−1). Due to higher contents of xylose and lower contents of glucose, the exogenous fibers of HP and SP indeed generated higher amounts of carbonyl compounds than TP.