Identification of the Volatile Components in Tobacco by Gas Chromatograph Coupled with Ion Trap Tandem Mass Spectrometry

Abstract

The volatile components in tobacco leaves were extracted by simultaneous distillation and extraction (SDE), and analyzed by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). The volatile components in tobacco leaves were identified by library searching and spectral matching combined with retention index. Ion trap tandem mass spectrometry was introduced to identify some components which had tiny difference of library matching, low concentration, and complex matrix. 144 components were identified by library searching, spectral matching and ion trap tandem mass spectrometry in this paper. And 104 volatile components have been reported, 9 of them were identified by ion trap tandem mass spectrometry, the other 40 components have not been reported in the literature. So ion trap tandem mass spectrometry is the precise and reliable method to identify some unknown components, and is suitable for separation and identification of complex system.