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TSRC, Tob. Sci. Res. Conf., 2017, 71, abstr. 053

Assessment of flavor transfer to aerosols of electronic nicotine delivery systems

CULBERT C.G.(1); SZABO D.T.(1); HUDSON A.G.(2)
(1) RAI Services Company, Winston-Salem, NC, USA; (2) R.J. Reynolds Tobacco, Winston-Salem, NC, USA

In the evaluation of electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS), reliable analytical methods are needed to acquire flavor data for consumer exposure risk assessment calculations. Without accurate transfer data, the conservative default assumption that 100% of the flavor added to the e-liquid is being transferred to the aerosol may be an overestimation. Flavor transfer values can be calculated by comparing the amount of a flavor in an e-liquid to the amount observed in a generated aerosol. These flavor amounts can be determined using both quantitative and semiquantitative gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GC-MS) methods. In the quantitative method, absolute flavor amounts are calculated using known standards, while a semiquantitative approach estimates the amount of flavor by comparing to an internal standard. Because the inherent error associated with semiquantitation of flavors in both e-liquids and aerosols is expected to be similar, the semiquantitated flavor transfer values would also be expected to be similar to the quantitated flavor transfer values. Testing this assumption on a variety of flavors, the flavor with the lowest transfer between e-liquid and aerosol was measured at 18% (quantitated) versus 17% (semiquantitated), while the flavor with the highest transfer was 78% (quantitated) versus 80% (semiquantitated). This trend held for all flavors investigated, suggesting that using flavor transfer data from the semiquantitative analysis would be predictive of quantitative analysis. Since semiquantitation is less labor and cost intensive than quantitation, semiquantitative flavor transfer studies are a valuable tool for the evaluation of ENDS flavors and consumer exposure.