Humectants have been largely used in Tobacco and Tobacco products for various applications and there are number of methods available in literature for quantification of these humectants^[1]. Although there are quiet number of methods, because of the complex matrix of Tobacco and Tobacco products the interference of other compounds present in the matrix makes the methods quiet difficult for quantification. In order to overcome the above difficulties there has been a lot of efforts in quantifying humectants using derivatization techniques. We have developed a simple derivatization technique using hexamethyldisilazane and trimethyl silylchloride for simultaneous quantification of all three humectants^[2].

Our method is very simple and does not involve any sample preparation and clean up procedures. The recoveries are more than 90% for all the humectants.

References
[1]  a. CORESTA Recommended Method No. 61 (2005); b. Gas-Chromatographic determination of the Trimethylsilyl derivatives of polyhydric alcohol humectants in Tobacco and in Tobacco Smoke; N.Carugno, S.Rossi and G.Lionetti; Laboratorio Chimico dei Monopoli di Stato, Rome, Italy, Beitrage zur Tabakforschung. Band 6. Heft 2. September 1971.
[2]  Silicon-mediated transformation of functional Groups, H.Vorbruggen, Wiley-VcH Verlag GmbH & Co. KgaA, 2004.