Comparative studies on the efficiency of filters of different brands of cigarettes in reducing nicotine and other hazardous chemicals from smoke condensates A gas chromatography-mass spectrometry study

Central Forensic Science Laboratory, 30, Gorachand Road, Kolkata-700 014, India

E-mail : sujitclahiri@yahoo.com, c.ashu@rediffmail.com

Manuscript received online 02 October 2012, accepted 06 November 2012

Smoking of cigarettes, a tobacco product has been found to be hazardous to the consumers due to the presence of addictive and toxic chemical nicotine and a large number of hazardous chemicals like carbonmonoxide, hydrocyanic acid, polyaromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) etc. in cigarette smoke condensates. The compounds are responsible for heart diseases and cancers. However, manufacture of cigarettes is associated with employment, tax generation and profit. Attempts have been made to produce filter tipped cigarettes with suitable adsorbents of hazardous chemicals to make cigarette smoking pleasant and less injurious to health.

Comparative studies on the constituents of filters of different makes and their effectiveness in reducing injurious constituents of smoke condensates of different cigarettes had been made. Chloroform is used as solvent and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) was used for the identification of the chemical constituents of filters and absorbed chemicals from smoke condensates. Triacetin wth citroflex based and triacetin with dipropylene (diethylene) glycobenzoate were found to be most effective to arrest the most hazardous compound nicotine and other chemicals. Adsorption capacities of filters used in low vriced counterfeit cigarettes was low and also contain hazardous chemical dibutyl phthalate. More works are needed to have a better picture.