Simultaneous determination of 23 flavor additives in tobacco products using gas chromatography–triple quadrupole mass spectrometry

• A method based on GC–QqQ MS/MS was developed for tobacco flavor additives measurement.
• An average of 40% timesaving is achieved in the purification compared to the reported methods.
• The MS/MS fragmentation pathways of cinnamic esters additives were illustrated.

A method based on gas chromatography coupled to triple quadrupole tandem mass spectrometry (GC–QqQ MS/MS) was developed for the determination of 23 widely used flavor additives in tobacco products in this paper. The MS/MS fragmentation pathway of the cinnamic esters additives was illustrated. The new analytical method was defined based on two main axes, ultrasonic solvent extraction procedure with dichloromethane and analyte detection performed by GC–QqQ MS/MS in electron impact mode. The excellent selectivity and sensitivity achieved in multiple reactions monitoring (MRM) mode allowed satisfactory confirmation and quantitation for the tobacco flavor additives. The linear range of the 23 flavor additives is 0.2–500.0 μg/L with good correlation coefficients (r2 > 0.9963). The limits of detection (LODs) and limits of quantitation (LOQs) of these compounds were in the range 0.1–2.0 μg/L and 0.4–6.0 μg/kg, respectively. The average recoveries at three spiked levels (LOQ, 2LOQ, 4LOQ) were all in the range 62.1–93.8% with RSDs (n = 6) lower than 7.8%. The method of GC–QqQ MS/MS developed in this study was initially applied to the research of flavor additives in 12 retail cigarette samples and proved to be accurate, sensitive, convenient and practical.