Pyrazines in Waterpipe Tobacco Smoke

Austin Pronk, CINDY HAUSER, Davidson College

     Abstract Number: 557
     Working Group: Health-Related Aerosols

Abstract
Waterpipe tobacco, also known as shisha, is becoming an increasingly popular method of consuming tobacco due to additives that make the smoking process more enjoyable for the user. Pyrazines are a family of semi-volatile nitrogen containing heterocyclic compounds that are used to create a nutty flavor in the syrup of shisha. Pyrazines have been shown to enhance the addictiveness of tobacco smoking. Previous studies in our lab show that Trifecta TKO has 3323 μg pyrazines in 10 g of the unsmoked shisha, with only 884 μg present in the shisha post-session and 197.2 ug in the bowl water. In this study, we report on the pyrazine composition in waterpipe tobacco smoke for Trifecta TKO. An electronic smoking apparatus collected particulate matter on quartz fiber filters and gas phase compounds on Empore SDB-XC disks using a modified Beirut method of 3 second puff length, 17 second interpuff interval and12.3 Lpm inhalation rate. Particulate matter was extracted with water, concentrated using C18 SPE cartridges and quantified using standard addition and analysis via gas chromatography-mass spectrometry in selective ion mode. The SPE disks were extracted with an elution of 9:1 hexanes:ethyl acetate and quantified using external standards. It was found that TKO contained a total of 270 μg of pyrazine per smoking session between the quartz filters and the SPE disk.