The pyrolysis of non-volatile tobacco ingredients using a system that simulates cigarette combustion conditions

This general pyrolysis technique is thus a first step in the total toxicological assessment of tobacco ingredients and is a useful screening tool for indicating which ingredients may yield biologically active products during decomposition of the ingredients. There are, however, some products such as formaldehyde and the carbon oxides that are not detected by the pyrolyser-gas chromatography-mass spectrometric technique employed here. The generation and detection of these products during the pyrolysis of selected tobacco ingredients is the subject of a parallel paper.