Determination of benzo(a)pyrene in mainstream cigarette smoke by GC-QqQ-MS/MS

A GC-QqQ-MS/MS method for the analysis of benzo(a)pyrene in mainstream cig-arette smoke was demonstrated. The total particulate matter (TPM) of 20 cigarettes in ma-instream smoke were trapped by Cambridge filter pad under standard smoking condition and extracted by cyclohexane with internal standard (ISTD). The solution was analyzed by GC-QqQ-MS/MS with positive ESI under multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) mode after be-ing cleaned upon solid phase extraction and determined by ISTD method under the optimized conditions. The calibration curves show good linearity for benzo(a)pyrene in the concentra-tion ranges of 0.4-20 μg/cig and the correlation coefficient is 0.99992. The LOQ is 0.073μg/L, the largest repeatability coefficient of variation is 3.71%, and the standard recovery rates are 95.7%-103.9%. Ease of operation, shorter procedure and little solvent make it suitable for benzo(a)pyrene determination, especially for low tar cigarettes.