Determination of Hydrogen Cyanide in Mainstream Cigarette Smoke, CORESTA Collaborative Study and Recommended Method

Name of participants
BATB Regulatory Analysis Laboratory
Beijing Cigarette Factory Company, Ltd., Shanghai Tobacco Group
Beijing Tobacco Quality Supervision and Inspection Station
China National Tobacco Quality Supervision and Test Center
China Tobacco Anhui Industrial Co., Ltd.
China Tobacco Chongqing Industrial Co., Ltd.
China Tobacco Fujian Industrial Co., Ltd.
China Tobacco Gansu tobacco Industrial Co., Ltd.
China Tobacco Guangxi Industrial Co., Ltd.
China Tobacco Guizhou Industrial Co., Ltd.
China Tobacco Henan Industrial Co., Ltd.
China Tobacco Jiangxi Industrial Co., Ltd.
China Tobacco Sichuan Industrial Co., Ltd.
China Tobacco Zhejiang Industrial Co., Ltd.
Global Laboratory Services
KT&G Research Institute
MP C.I.T. Montepaz S.A.
Yunnan Tobacco Quality Supervision and Inspection Station

Table 2.

Study samples.

Sample	Description	ISO 3308 “tar” level (mg/cig)
KR 2R5F	American blend	1
Sample 1	American blend – charcoal filter	3
Sample 2	American blend – charcoal filter	5
KR 1R6F	American blend	8
Sample 3	Virginia blend	8
Sample 4	Virginia blend	11
CM9	Virginia blend	16

Example of a suitable trapping system 1.

The manifold of the continuous flow analyzer for hydrogen cyanide determination.

Typical graph of hydrogen cyanide determination by CFA.

Table 3.

The results of outlier detection.

Sample	Method	Lab code ^a
		Overall^b		Pad+Pad
		ISO non-intense	ISO intense	ISO non-intense	ISO intense
CM9	Cochran	3	3, 12	8b	8a
CM9	Grubbs
KR 1R6F	Cochran	3, 8b	3	8b	8a
KR 1R6F	Grubbs
KR 2R5F	Cochran	12	12, 8a	8b	8a
KR 2R5F	Grubbs		8b, 15
Sample 1	Cochran	1	12, 8a	1	8a
Sample 1	Grubbs
Sample 2	Cochran	2, 12	8a	2	8a
Sample 2	Grubbs
Sample 3	Cochran	12, 8b	12, 7	8b	7
Sample 3	Grubbs
Sample 4	Cochran	8b	9, 8a	8b	9
Sample 4	Grubbs	15	8b, 15

a Lab code assignments were 1–19, ‘a’ and ‘b’ designations indicate multiple data sets from a single laboratory;

b Overall is the combined data “Pad+Pad” and “Pad+Imp”.

Table 4.

Mean total hydrogen cyanide (μg/cig) yields in mainstream smoke under ISO non-intense smoking regime.

Sample	Overall ^a			Pad+Pad			Pad+Imp
Sample	Mean	Stdev ^b	RSD(%) ^c	Mean	Stdev	RSD(%)	Mean	Stdev	RSD(%)
CM9	139.34	9.29	6.67	140.74	8.66	6.15	134.84	10.10	7.49
KR 1R6F	95.67	5.91	6.18	96.41	5.52	5.73	93.97	8.35	8.89
KR 2R5F	12.82	1.44	11.27	12.95	1.38	10.66	13.81	3.02	21.83
Sample 1	26.96	2.78	10.32	26.41	2.43	9.21	29.11	3.08	10.59
Sample 2	53.54	4.03	7.53	52.98	4.02	7.58	59.82	6.68	11.17
Sample 3	83.50	6.90	8.27	84.09	6.97	8.29	81.83	8.00	9.78
Sample 4	103.54	6.00	5.79	103.95	6.32	6.08	95.63	11.14	11.65

a Overall is the combined data “Pad+Pad” and “Pad+Imp”;

b Stdev is standard deviation;

c RSD(%) is relative standard deviation.

Table 5.

Mean total hydrogen cyanide (μg/cig) yields in mainstream smoke under ISO intense smoking regime.

Sample	Overall ^a			Pad+Pad			Pad+Imp
Sample	Mean	Stdev ^b	RSD(%) ^c	Mean	Stdev	RSD(%)	Mean	Stdev	RSD(%)
CM9	302.70	17.95	5.93	305.63	16.43	5.38	319.12	40.27	12.62
KR 1R6F	394.90	35.18	8.91	399.01	31.30	7.85	402.66	35.26	8.76
KR 2R5F	377.04	19.31	5.12	371.43	27.15	7.31	362.74	44.46	12.26
Sample 1	324.66	28.28	8.71	327.29	26.60	8.13	316.93	35.32	11.14
Sample 2	337.91	29.68	8.78	338.69	31.24	9.22	334.67	22.49	6.72
Sample 3	265.71	22.55	8.49	269.24	21.48	7.98	259.32	31.29	12.07
Sample 4	248.68	11.75	4.73	245.89	16.08	6.54	233.99	23.52	10.05

a Overall is the combined data “Pad+Pad” and “Pad+Imp”;

b Stdev is standard deviation;

c RSD(%) is relative standard deviation.

Table 6.

Repeatability (r) and Reproducibility (R) for hydrogen cyanide (μg/cig) under ISO non-intense smoking regime.

Sample	Method	N of data	Mean	r	r(%) ^a	R	R(%) ^b
CM9	Overall ^c	21	139.34	12.33	8.85	26.69	19.15
	P+P ^d	16	140.74	11.18	7.94	25.01	17.77
	P+I^e	5	134.84	18.04	13.38	30.24	22.42
KR 1R6F	Overall	19	95.67	11.47	11.99	16.92	17.69
	P+P	15	96.41	9.31	9.65	15.90	16.50
	P+I	5	93.97	22.97	24.44	23.74	25.27
KR 2R5F	Overall	19	12.82	2.56	19.98	4.14	32.30
	P+P	15	12.95	2.55	19.67	3.97	30.64
	P+I	4	13.81	3.26	23.60	9.45	68.40
Sample 1	Overall	20	26.96	4.29	15.93	7.99	29.63
	P+P	16	26.41	4.04	15.28	7.00	26.49
	P+I	4	29.11	5.17	17.77	9.45	32.45
Sample 2	Overall	19	53.54	7.46	13.94	11.54	21.56
	P+P	16	52.98	7.95	15.00	11.52	21.74
	P+I	4	59.82	7.21	12.06	20.95	35.02
Sample 3	Overall	19	83.50	8.77	10.50	19.86	23.79
	P+P	16	84.09	9.20	10.94	20.13	23.94
	P+I	4	81.83	18.45	22.55	23.62	28.86
Sample 4	Overall	19	103.54	11.01	10.63	17.18	16.59
	P+P	16	103.95	11.40	10.96	18.17	17.47
	P+I	4	95.63	13.30	13.91	34.79	36.38

a r(%) = r / Mean × 100%;

b R(%) = R / Mean × 100%;

c Overall is the combined data “Pad+Pad” and “Pad+Imp”;

d P+P is “Pad+Pad”;

e P+I is “Pad+Imp”.

Table 7.

Repeatability (r) and Reproducibility (R) for hydrogen cyanide (μg/cig) under ISO intense smoking regime.

Sample	Method	N of data	Mean	r	r(%) ^a	R	R(%) ^b
CM9	Overall ^c	20	302.70	27.53	9.09	51.53	17.02
	P+P ^d	16	305.63	26.26	8.59	47.30	15.48
	P+I^e	5	319.12	71.50	22.41	120.59	37.79
KR 1R6F	Overall	20	394.90	44.49	11.27	101.16	25.62
	P+P	15	399.01	37.42	9.38	90.60	22.71
	P+I	5	402.66	66.89	16.61	105.06	26.09
KR 2R5F	Overall	16	377.04	27.66	7.34	55.69	14.77
	P+P	15	371.43	31.25	8.41	78.60	21.16
	P+I	4	362.74	78.49	21.64	135.60	37.38
Sample 1	Overall	19	324.66	28.10	8.66	81.54	25.11
	P+P	16	327.29	27.71	8.47	76.94	23.51
	P+I	4	316.93	59.27	18.70	108.17	34.13
Sample 2	Overall	20	337.91	35.90	10.63	85.39	25.27
	P+P	16	338.69	36.18	10.68	90.30	26.66
	P+I	4	337.93	61.11	18.08	77.58	22.96
Sample 3	Overall	19	265.71	23.68	8.91	65.00	24.46
	P+P	16	269.24	23.88	8.87	62.12	23.07
	P+I	4	259.32	51.43	19.83	96.00	37.02
Sample 4	Overall	17	248.68	21.97	8.84	33.71	13.56
	P+P	16	245.89	26.55	10.80	46.26	18.81
	P+I	4	233.99	17.52	7.49	74.31	31.76

a r(%) = r / Mean × 100%;

b R(%) = R / Mean ×100%;

c Overall is the combined data “Pad+Pad” and “Pad+Imp”;

d P+P is “Pad+Pad”;

e P+I is “Pad+Imp”.

Z-scores for each lab under ISO non-intense and ISO intense smoking regimes.

References

Authors

Metrics

Articles in this issue

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/cttr-2025-0006 | Journal eISSN: 2719-9509 (formerly 1612-9237)

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Language: English, French, German

Page range: 50 - 58

Submitted on: Sep 24, 2024

Accepted on: Feb 19, 2025

Published on: May 16, 2025

Published by: Beiträge zur Tabakforschung GmbH

In partnership with: Paradigm Publishing Services

Keywords:

Cigarette,

Harmful and Potentially Harmful Constituents,

HPHC,

hydrogen cyanide,

CORESTA (Cooperation Centre for Scientific Research Relative to Tobacco)

Related subjects:

Life sciences,

Life sciences, other

© 2025 Xingyu Liu, Lisha Chen, Rana Tayyarah, published by Beiträge zur Tabakforschung GmbH
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 License.

Volume 34 (2025): Issue 2 (May 2025)

Determination of Hydrogen Cyanide in Mainstream Cigarette Smoke, CORESTA Collaborative Study and Recommended Method

Figures & Tables

Table 1.

Table 2.

Figure 1.

Figure 2.

Figure 3.

Figure 4.

Table 3.

Table 4.

Table 5.

Table 6.

Table 7.

Figure 5.

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