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TSRC, Tob. Sci. Res. Conf., 2016, 70, abstr. 82

Simultaneous determination of nicotine, 1,2-propylene glycol and glycerol in e-liquids by gas chromatography method

CAI Junlan; CHEN Li; WANG Bing; PENG Bin; YU Jingjing; CUI Huapeng; ZHANG Xiaobing; LIU Huimin; LIU Shaofeng
Zhengzhou Tobacco Research Institute of CNTC, Zhengzhou, China

A gas chromatography method was developed for simultaneous determination of nicotine, 1,2-propylene glycol and glycerol in e-liquids. E-liquids were shaking extracted by isopropanol with two internal standards for 20 min, and then the extraction was quantitatively analyzed by gas chromatography-flame ionization detector (GC-FID). A collaborative study involving 6 e-liquid samples were carried out by 11 laboratories. And 44 commercially available e-liquid samples of 8 different brands were determined. The results showed that: 1)The method was quick, easy, accurate and sensitive. The intra-day and the inter-day precisions were in the range of 0.4 to 1.6%, the spiked recoveries were between 96.4% and 102.4%, and the detection limits of nicotine, 1,2-propylene glycol and glycerol were 1.3 µg/mL, 0.9 µg/mL and 3.1 µg/mL, respectively. 2) Both repeatability and reproducibility of the collaborative study were good. The intra-laboratory repeatability RSD was less than 5%, and the inter-laboratory reproducibility RSD of nicotine, 1,2-propylene glycol and glycerol were less than 8.7%, 2.6% and 3.3%, respectively. 3) The contents of nicotine, 1,2-propylene glycol and glycerol in 44 samples were ranged from 0 to 34.5 mg/g, 0 to 783.0 mg/g, and 184.5 to 917.5 mg/g, respectively. And the nicotine contents of some samples were close to labeling data, however, the others were inconsistent with the labeling data, which indicated nicotine labeling content was not accurate with some brands.