Simple and Fast Determination of Ammonia in Tobacco

Ammonia is an important component of tobacco,primarily, because it is believed to facilitate the absorption of nicotine [1-4]. In addition, ammonium compounds react with sugars during tobacco processing and smoking to form flavour components that ‘improve’ the taste of tobacco smoke [5]. For these reasons, it has been selected as priority component for method development for the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control [6]. The determination of ammonia in tobacco and tobacco products has been subject of several publications [7,8]. All these methods are rather complicated by the use of pre-purification techniques with subsequent detection by ion chromatography coupled with conductivity detection devices which are usually not available in a normal analytical laboratory.