Determination of nicotine and three minor alkaloids in tobacco by hydrophilic interaction chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry

Abstract

A reliable, sensitive and rapid method for determination of nicotine and three minor alkaloids (cotinine, anabasine and nornicotine) in tobacco by ultra-high performance liquid chromatography in hydrophilic interaction chromatography mode coupled with tandem mass spectrometry (HILIC-MS/MS) has been established. HILIC separation was performed on a BEH HILIC column using isocratic elution at 0.5 mL/min with acetonitrile:water (85:15, v/v) mobile phase containing 5 mmol/L ammonium acetate (pH 5.00). Separated analytes were determined by electrospray ionization MS/MS in the positive ion mode using multiple reaction monitoring. Alkaloids from tobacco were extracted in an ultrasonic bath for 10 min with acetonitrile:water mixture (8:2, v/v) containing 5 mmol/L ammonium acetate (pH 5.00). Limits of quantification were 10 μg/g for cotinine, 20 μg/g for anabasine and nornicotine, and 30 μg/g for nicotine. Mean recoveries from tobacco ranged between 94.8% and 104.1% for different analytes with relative standard deviations within 5%. The performance of the proposed method was tested for the extraction and determination of the four alkaloids in cigarette tobacco fillers, and satisfactory results were achieved.