Analysis of volatile and semi-volatile alkaline compounds in tobacco leaf by using comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography/time-of-flight mass spectrometry

Comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography/time-of-flight mass spectrometry (gc x gc-tofms) has been applied for characterization of volatile and semi-volatile alkaline compounds in oriental tobacco leaf. simultaneous distillation extraction (sde) was used as the sample extraction method. two types of column set were compared, and appropriate gc x gc separation conditions were suggested. the results showed that the peaks detected by gc x gc method were far more than that by 1dgc. the separation behavior on 2d plot of different kinds of compounds was investigated. tofms library search combining structured chromatogram. of gc x gc was used to identify the nitrogen-containing compounds in tobacco leaf. a total of 92 alkaline compounds were tentatively identified. the results showed that gc x gc/tofms method is suitable for separation and identification of complex system.