The increasing demand from regulatory bodies for the characterisation of tobacco and tobacco smoke products creates a need to generate reliable results in short time frames.

A multi-compound method for the quantification of volatile organic compounds (VOC), selected carbonyls, hydrogen cyanide and further volatile organic compounds mentioned in the harmful and potentially harmful constituents (HPHC) list published by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and in the gas phase of cigarette smoke was developed and presented during the CORESTA Congress and Joint Study Groups Meeting in 2010 and 2013 [SSPT 11, CORESTA 2010; SSPT 29, CORESTA 2013]. It was concluded that results obtained by the multi-compound method and other alternative methods were at comparable concentration levels [SSPT 11, CORESTA 2010].

Here an extended and fully validated method is presented which covers 20 volatile organic compounds, such as isoprene, toluene, benzene, butadiene, acrylonitrile, acetone, acrolein, acetaldehyde, hydrogen cyanide, ethyl benzene, furan, vinyl chloride, vinyl acetate, ethylene oxide, and propylene oxide, methanol, acetonitrile, nitromethane, 2-nitropropane, and styrene in cigarette smoke. This method is based on the same collection as previously described for the determination of selected volatile Hoffmann Analytes, but features a different chromatography system [SSPT 29, CORESTA 2013]. Calculation of results was carried out using different deuterated internal standards.

During the method development, the reactivity of volatile compounds in a gas matrix and their stability in the gas phase of cigarette smoke were carefully investigated.

In this poster, detailed information and observation obtained during the method development and validation, e.g. impact of different gas bag materials, stability of calibration standards over a longer time period, and the influence of different internal standards on data evaluation, will be presented.