Effect of Time, pH, Alcohol and Sugar Content on Nicotine Re-lease from Pouches Available on Slovene Market

Abstract: Tobacco-free nicotine pouches, first introduced in Sweden, are made as a less hazardous product for cigarette consumers. Instead of tobacco leaves, they consist of nicotine-containing powder and other ingredients such as water, salts, natural aromatic oils and others, that will boost the flavor and effect and make it last longer. This research aimed to investigate the extraction efficiency of nicotine from poaches of different brands. The effects of alcohol and sugars present in saliva at different pHs and consumption times were investigated as well. We optimized a High performance liquid chromatography with diode-array detection method (HPLC-DAD) for nicotine determination and its quantification. We used reversed-phase chromatography (RP-HPLC), and a mixture of sodium hydrogen carbonate and acetonitrile as a mobile phase (85:15, v/v). Different brands of nicotine pouches were used. Nicotine extraction rate showed positive linear dependence on time. The percentage of extraction was measured at different intervals, up to two hours, without getting a plateau. Nicotine extraction lowers with the increasing volume of saliva. The obtained results have shown that the increasing ethanol concentration in saliva (from 5-40 %) leads to a higher extraction rate, coming up to 85 %. In the case of sugar addition, the results were variable. Experiments with White fox pouches have shown that extraction of nicotine decreases with a higher concentration. On contrary, Siberia pouches do not exhibit that correlation. When it comes to pH, we used pH range that usually varies in saliva and the results have shown no significant differences. Keywords: Nicotine, Pouches, HPLC-DAD, Extraction