Trapping tobacco specific N -nitrosamines in Chinese-Virginia type tobacco extracting solution by porous material

Liquid adsorption of tobacco specific nitrosamines (TSNA) in the tobacco extracting solution by porous materials is reported, with the monitoring of standard LC–MS/MS technique, in order to reduce the environmental cancerogens in smoke at the source. Three types of adsorbent, zeolite, mesoporous silica and activated carbon are utilized to trap nitrosamines in the extracting solution of Chinese-Virginia type tobacco with low TSNA content, and their performance was measured by spectrophotometric and LC–MS/MS methods. Both measurements gave the same variation tendency on the nitrosamines analysis, enabling the photometric method to be the simple and feasible tool in preliminary tests. The influence of pore size and cations of zeolite along with the organic modification of mesoporous silica with chloroisopropyl triethoxysilane were carefully investigated, and the optimal liquid conditions were determined, in which CaA zeolite and modified mesoporous silica CAM48-10 sample can capture 34 and 46 % of TSNA in the tobacco extracting solution, offering the efficient candidate for controlling the carcinogen like nitrosamines in environment.