Stable isotope profiling of cigarettes assisted with chemometrics for authenticity determination

Abstract

The battle against tobacco fraud presents a formidable challenge, given the global proliferation of imitation and counterfeit cigarettes. This not only inflicts economic losses on governments but also poses significant health risks due to the prevalence of these fraudulent products. This research delves into the application of stable isotopes (δ13C, δ15N, δ2H, and δ18O) and bio-elements (C% and N%) to discern the authenticity of various cigarette brands. Differences in brand origin notably impacted the δ15N and δ2H values. The assessment of cigarette authenticity, as well as the specific brands, unveiled maximum variances in the δ15N and δ2H values, underscoring their potential as robust discriminators between genuine and counterfeit products. Unsupervised Principal Component Analysis results consistently corroborated the authenticity of the samples for the four brands. The integration of chemometric methods, such as Orthogonal Partial Least Squares-Discriminant Analysis, yielded highly accurate authentication for cigarettes across the four brand categories, achieving an accuracy of over 96.8 %. Additionally, this investigation revealed that the critical determinants in distinguishing authentic cigarettes were the isotopic values of δ15N, C%, and δ18O. This work paves the way for a more convenient avenue for the classification of cigarette authenticity compared to untargeted analysis that need to a comprehensive set of chemical fingerprints.