Comparative study of the main characteristics and composition of the mainstream smoke of ten cigarette brands sold in Spain

Abstract

In this study 10 commercial top selling cigarette brands in Spain have been machine smoked and the mainstream smoke has been analyzed. Multifunctional analysis has been satisfactorily employed to correlate the effect of the main design features of the cigarettes including amount of tobacco, filter size or paper weight with the amount of smoked tobacco and with the ratio CO₂/CO. The composition of the vapor phase and that of the particulate matter have been analyzed. The particulate matter retained in the filter of the cigarettes has also been analyzed showing a distinct behavior of the compounds condensed in the cigarette filters and in the traps, related to their retention time. A general trend for the relative yield of some compounds in the different brands have been identified and confirmed by multifunctional analysis. Nevertheless, there are some noticeable compounds that behave differently in the different brands.

Introduction

Tobacco is a natural product that consists of more than 3800 constituents. The chemical composition of the tobacco leaf will depend to varying extents upon tobacco variety, leaf stalk position, geographic region in which the leaf is grown, the climate during growing, local cultivation practices, among others (Tso, 1990). Tobacco constituents range from small molecules such as hydrocarbons, terpenes, carbonilics, phenols, or nitriles, to macromolecules as cellulose, lignin or nucleic acids. During the smoking process, this complex biomass is subjected to high temperatures (up to 950 °C) and a varying concentration of oxygen, producing an incomplete combustion which generates a large amount of components. Some of these compounds are toxic and carcinogenic. The smoke composition varies not only with tobacco constituents but also with cigarette varieties, cigarette design, additives employed during processing of tobacco and smoking conditions (Baker Richard, 2006, Borgerding and Klus, 2005). About 4800 compounds have been identified in tobacco smoke. Moreover, the ageing effects and artifact formation may complicate the analysis of these complex mixtures.

The tobacco smoke is composed by a particulate phase and a vapor phase. Low molecular weight hydrocarbons, such as benzene, 1,3-butadiene, or toluene or small aldehydes such as acrolein or butiraldehyde are primarily constituents of the vapor phase. Nicotine, polycyclic aromatic compounds or nitrosamines are associated primarily with the particulate phase (PM), while others are found in both phases (Counts et al., 2005). Potentially harmful smoke constituents have been identified and reviewed (Fowles and Dybing, 2003, Smith and Hansch, 2000, Hoffmann and Hoffmann, 1997). Unfortunately there is no scientific consensus on specific smoke constituents and harm induction relationships (Rodgman and Green, 2003).

Recently some papers have been published on the relationship of the design features of commercial cigarettes (such as tobacco blend type, cigarettes length, filter type, ventilation holes…) and tar, nicotine and CO content of the smoke. Osamu et al. (2009) studied the nicotine, tar and mutagenicity of the mainstream smoke generated under two smoking regimes for the ten major Japanese cigarette brands. Commercial bidi cigarettes sold in USA containing different flavors were studied by Stanfill et al. (2003) and Polzin et al. (2007). Calafat et al. (2004) measured nicotine, tar and CO content of smoke deliveries from 77 cigarette brands purchased in 35 countries under ISO conditions. They also determined physical parameters such as filter length and weight, cigarette weight or filter ventilation levels. Pappas et al. (2007) compared heavy metals contained in the smoke of counterfeit cigarettes to authentic USA brands. Kalaitzoglou and Samara (2006) studied the content of PAH and n-alkanes contained in MSS of 59 commercial cigarette brands from Greece. These authors studied the partitioning of these two families of compounds between the gas fraction and the particulate matter, as will be commented hereafter. The dioxin and dioxin-like compounds content in MSS of twelve commercial US cigarettes brands was more recently studied by Wilson et al. (2008).

Relatively few studies have included a comparable range of smoke constituents for a variety of commercial cigarettes. Gregg et al. (2004) studied 25 commercial UK cigarette brands and analyzed 44 smoke constituents in the mainstream smoke. They established a reasonably good correlation between nicotine and the smoke constituents of the particulate matter, while CO yield was associated with the volatile constituents yield. By other hand, 67 compounds from the smoke of several brands and types of cigarettes sold in Italy were identified by Pieraccini et al. (2008) employing SPME–GC–MS under two smoking regimes. Counts et al. (2005) tested smoke composition of 48 Philip Morris commercial cigarettes from international market regions under three smoking regimes. They analyzed a large number of smoke constituents and established some predicting relationships between tar yield and the smoke constituents for each smoking regime.

In this work the composition of the smoke obtained under the ISO smoking conditions for 10 cigarette brands among the best selling in Spain in 2010 have been analyzed and compared. Multivariant analysis (software PASW Statistics 18, version 18.0.0) has been applied to establish the relationships among the main features of the cigarettes design, the amount of smoked tobacco and the ratio CO₂/CO. Thirty-five compounds were identified in the vapor fraction while 85 were identified in the particulate matter, and a general trend for the relative yield of most compounds in the different brands has been established and confirmed by multifunctional analysis. The particulate matter retained in the filter of the cigarettes has also been analyzed and compared with the particulate matter retained in the traps. The results obtained for the cigarette brands sold in Spain have been compared among them and with those for other international commercial cigarettes available in the literature.