Rapid Determination of Formaldehyde, Acetaldehyde and Acrolein in Electronic Cigarette Aerosols by Direct Mass Spectrometry with Evaluation of the Toxicity

Abstract

A derivatization-direct mass spectrometry for determination of formaldehyde, acetaldehyde and acrolein in aerosols from electronic cigarette was developed. O-(2,3,4,5,6-pentafluorobenzyl) hydroxylamine (PFBHA) was chosen as derivatization reagent. The determination results were verified by a recommended method. The results showed that this method had high sensitivity with limits of detection ≤ 0.028 μmol/L, good precision with a relative standard deviation ≤ 5.3%, favorable linearity with R² 0.9966, and spiked recoveries from 93% to 101%. The relative errors of determination results of two methods were less than 9.8%. A toxicology assay indicated that these aldehydes have important contributions to the toxicity of aerosols.

Keywords:

• Cytotoxicity
• derivatization
• direct mass spectrometry
• electronic cigarettes
• small aldehydes

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China by Grant Number 21675173.