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Assessment of Similarity in Chemically Complex Samples

Concern within the public health community is mounting regarding what some deem as "candy-flavored tobacco". A recent study by King et al. (2014) found that >40% of middle and high school student smokers use flavored cigarettes or flavored little cigars. This study investigated the validity of the "candy-flavored tobacco" designation by comparing flavor profiles of 18 flavored tobacco products with 15 candy and Kool-Aid products using gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GC/MS). Significant compositional overlap was found; nearly 75% of the compounds detected were present in at least one flavored tobacco and one candy or Kool-Aid product. Benzaldehyde and or benzyl alcohol were measured in cherry candies, Kool-Aid and tobacco. Similar levels of benzaldehyde were measured in the cherry Kool-Aid and wild cherry Cheyenne cigars at 3338 ± 623 and 3937 ± 251 μg/serving. Methyl anthranilate, 1-hexanol, [lowercase gamma]-decalactone, and raspberry ketone were found in all grape, apple, peach and berry products, respectively. Vanillin and or ethyl vanillin were constituents of all flavored tobacco products analyzed.
Many flavorants, such as limonene, are also volatilizable biogenic organic compounds (VBOCs). A more comprehensive understanding of the identities and properties of VBOCs, precursors to secondary organic aerosol (SOA), would support air quality and climate change research and management. Our knowledge is limited by extreme compositional diversity within the VBOC class. Only recently have techniques such as two-dimensional gas chromatography time of flight mass spectrometry (GCxGC/TOFMS) been employed, and the complexity of the data poses analysis challenges. To address this, agglomerative hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA) was performed on data generated by GCxGC/TOFMS analysis of air samples collected during the Particle Investigations at a Northern Ozarks Tower: NOx, Oxidant, Isoprene Research (PINOT NOIR) study. HCA resulted in the assignment of 204 compounds into 27 clusters: these clusters were grouped into 4 distinct types making the data significantly more manageable. The assignment of a cluster to a type was mostly based on the frequency with which compounds appeared in samples. Type I clusters contained compounds that were present in only one sample, suggesting meteorological influence.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:pdx.edu/oai:pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu:open_access_etds-2954
Date14 August 2014
CreatorsBrown, Jessica Elise
PublisherPDXScholar
Source SetsPortland State University
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typetext
Formatapplication/pdf
SourceDissertations and Theses

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