Jm. Garrigues et al., FOURIER-TRANSFORM INFRARED DETERMINATION OF NICOTINE IN TOBACCO SAMPLES BY TRANSMITTANCE MEASUREMENTS AFTER LEACHING WITH CHCL3, Analytica chimica acta, 373(1), 1998, pp. 63-71
A new procedure is proposed for the FT-IR spectrometric determination
of nicotine in tobacco. The method is based on the extraction of nicot
ine in CHCl3 from tobacco samples, wetted with an aqueous solution of
NH3 (0.1 M), and the measurement of absorbance in the stopped-flow mod
e at 1316 cm(-1), using a spectral baseline correction established fro
m 1334 to 1300 cm(-1). The procedure developed does not requires a com
plex sample preparation, and provides a limit of detection of 0.045 mg
ml(-1) nicotine, a sampling frequency of 3.3 h(-1) and a coefficient
of variation of 0.3% for five independent measurements of a tobacco sa
mple with a nicotine content of 1.5% w/w. The accuracy of this procedu
re was evaluated by recovery experiments on spiked natural samples, ha
ving obtained recovery percentages from 93 +/- 8 to 100 +/- 2 for amou
nts of 6-30 mg nicotine added. Additionally, an average value of 2.15
+/- 0.07% w/w was obtained for a powdered tobacco sample, analyzed by
a reference procedure and by an external laboratory with a concentrati
on of 2.02 +/- 0.05% w/w. The method was applied to the determination
of nicotine, in different packed cigarettes of the Spanish market, hav
ing found a normal nicotine content from 1.1 to 1.9% w/w. (C) 1998 Els
evier Science B.V. All rights reserved.