Heavy metal and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in cigarettes: An analytical assessment

Abstract

INTRODUCTION Tobacco products contain heavy metals and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) that can be released during burning. The aim of this study was to measure the concentrations in tobacco of the heavy metals: Lead (Pb), Cadmium (Cd), Chrome (Cr), and Zinc (Zn); and the amount polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in tobacco and tobacco product emissions using Cambridge filter pads under U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) standard conditions. METHODS In the present analytical study, samples of 25 tobacco brands of different origin were analyzed to determine both heavy metal concentrations utilizing flame atomic absorption spectroscopy (FAAS) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons amounts using gas chromatography (GC). RESULTS The average concentrations of Pb, Cd, Cr and Zn s were 4.56, 0.39, 3.31 and 1.36 µg/g, respectively. The amount of PAHs in cigarette emissions ranged from 474.17 ng/ cigarette to 1060.87 ng/cigarette for tobacco brands labelled C13 and C2, respectively. The order in amount of the PAHs in the smoke of the study tobacco brands was: nap > flu > acpy > phn > fln > pyr > acp > ant > chr > bap > bbf (full names listed in main text). CONCLUSIONS Tobacco and tobacco product emissions contain significant concentrations of heavy metals and PAHs amounts, respectively.