Determination of esters in mainstream cigarette smoke by supercritical fluid chromatography and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry
General gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC/MS) method often suffers from the limited capacity of chromatographic column,and can not accurate analyze ingredients in mainstream smoke.To resolve this problem,a supercritical fluid chromatography (SFC)-GC/MS method was developed for the determination of esters in mainstream cigarette smoke.Total particulate matter of mainstream cigarette smoke was collected by a Cambridge filter pad and then the Cambridge filter pad was extracted by supercritical fluid extractor.Next,the extract was separated and divided into 3 fractions by SFC,and each fraction was analyzed by GC/MS.The test data suggested that 11 kinds of esters were detected without SFC separation,and 31 kinds of esters were assayed using the SFC-GC/ MS technique.The chromatographic column capacity of GC/MS was improved and overlapping chromatographic peaks are avoided by this SFC-GC/MS approach.Consequently,this SFC-GC/MS method is a novel platform for esters assay.