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Real‐Time Chemical Analysis of E‐Cigarette Aerosols By Means Of Secondary Electrospray Ionization Mass Spectrometry
Author(s) -
GarcíaGómez Diego,
Gaisl Thomas,
BarriosCollado César,
VidaldeMiguel Guillermo,
Kohler Malcolm,
Zenobi Renato
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
chemistry – a european journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.687
H-Index - 242
eISSN - 1521-3765
pISSN - 0947-6539
DOI - 10.1002/chem.201504450
Subject(s) - mass spectrometry , chemistry , electrospray ionization , electronic cigarette , electrospray , desorption electrospray ionization , chemical ionization , aerosol , analytical chemistry (journal) , chemical composition , ionization , chromatography , environmental chemistry , organic chemistry , ion , biochemistry
Chemical analysis of aerosols collected from electronic cigarettes (ECs) has shown that these devices produce vapors that contain harmful and potentially harmful compounds. Conventional analytical methods used for the analysis of electronic cigarettes do not reflect the actual composition of the aerosols generated because they usually neglect the changes in the chemical composition that occur during the aerosol generation process and after collection. The aim of this work was to develop and apply a method for the real‐time analysis of electronic cigarette aerosols, based on the secondary electrospray ionization technique coupled to high‐resolution mass spectrometry, by mimicking the “vaping” process. Electronic cigarette aerosols were successfully analyzed and quantitative differences were found between the liquids and aerosols. Thanks to the high sensitivity shown by this method, more than 250 chemical substances were detected in the aerosols, some of them showing a high correlation with the operating power of the electronic cigarettes. The method also allows proper quantification of several chemical components such as alkaloids and flavor compounds.