Analysis of α-Tocopherol in Tobacco and Cigarette Smoke

α-Tocopherol, a type of vitamin E, has been known to be present in tobacco for many years. The compound is an antioxidant protecting cell membranes from oxidants. α-Tocopherol is transferred from tobacco into cigarette smoke, where it is also present. Analysis of α-tocopherol has been reported in a number of studies and in various matrices including tobacco and tobacco smoke. However, no recent publication describes a method for quantitative analysis of tocopherol in tobacco and in cigarette smoke, and many methods reported from previous studies were not published and only presented at conferences or communicated in internal company publications.

The goal of this study was to quantitate α-tocopherol and, if present, α-tocopheryl acetate in tobacco and in tobacco smoke. For this analysis, an original HPLC technique was developed and is described in this report. Both UV and MS/MS (MRM mode) were used as detection procedure for the analysis. The results obtained using UV detection were in very good agreement with the results obtained using MS/MS detection. The method has been applied for the analysis of a number of tobaccos, as well as the total particulate matter (TPM) from cigarettes made with the same tobaccos. Depending on tobacco type, the levels of α-tocopherol vary in tobacco between about 200 μg/g up to about 900 μg/g (“dry weight basis”). For ISO type smoking, the levels of α-tocopherol vary in TPM between about 2 μg/mg up to slightly above 4 μg/mg of TPM. For a cigarette generating TPM of about 10 mg/cig, the α-tocopherol is between about 20 μg/cig up to about 40 μg/cig. A relatively good correlation was obtained between the level of α-tocopherol in smoke (ISO type smoking) and the level of the compound in tobacco. α-Tocopheryl acetate was absent in tobacco.