Heated tobacco products (HTP) aerosol composition is different from the mainstream smoke of a burning cigarette. There are currently no standard methods defined. Identifying potential sources of variation is important to adjust the analytical procedures accordingly.

The objectives of our work were to:

• develop a method to generate HTP aerosol and analyse nicotine, glycerol, propylene glycol (PG) and water by gas chromatography with flame ionisation and thermal conductivity detection.
• assess how the HTP stick conditioning and puff interval duration affect aerosol composition.

Health Canada Intense regime without vent blocking was used to generate HTP aerosol on a linear Borgwaldt RM4 machine. Commercial IQOS Heets and glo™ Kent Neosticks were smoked with a standard puff interval (30 s) and a shorter puff interval (15 s), delivering respectively 12 and 6 puffs.

The puff interval duration did not modify significantly the aerosol composition of both HTPs.

In order to study the influence of sample conditioning before vaping, IQOS Heets and glo™ Kent Neosticks were conditioned 48 hours and 15 days according to ISO3402 standard and compared to sticks stored in sealed packs. For each conditioning, four replicates were vaped with 15 second puff intervals. Long storage time lead to a reduction of PG in tobacco and aerosol. Otherwise, there were only some limited differences, the major observation being more stable results when smoking sticks are out of the sealed pack.

In order to assess the repeatability and reproducibility of the vaping method, five operators vaped IQOS Heets sticks stored in sealed packs four different days with four replicates per day. The relative error was below 15 % for TPM, nicotine, humectants and 23 % for water.