Correlation between Odor Concentration and Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC) Composition of Environmental Tobacco Smoke (ETS)

We examined the correlation between the odor concentration and the chemical composition of environmental tobacco smoke (ETS). Three types of ETS samples were prepared: secondhand smoke (SHS), thirdhand smoke (THS), and field ETS samples from an outside smoking area. The odor concentrations of the ETS, SHS, and THS samples were determined by the triangle-odor-bag method, and the chemical compositions were determined by proton transfer mass spectrometry. The odor concentration of the SHS samples was three or four orders of magnitude higher than that of the field ETS samples, and three orders of magnitude higher than that of the THS samples. The concentration ratios of the constituent chemicals in THS to those in SHS were about 10-4, corresponding to the ratio of the odor concentration. The concentration ratios of the constituent chemicals in the field ETS samples were much lower than the ratios of the odor concentrations. This suggests that the main contributing components to the odor of the field ETS samples are different from those in SHS and THS. The main contributors of the odor in the field ETS samples could be acetaldehyde, acetonitrile, acetic acid, and other unknown components with a mass-to-charge ratio (m/z) of 39 and 43.