A new solid sorbent system is developed for the monitoring of dehydrogenated nicotine in the environment. The reagent system for the indicator tube consists of furfural-hydrochloric acid and phosphoric acid impregnated over a cellulose fibre (cotton) and a humectant calcium chloride. The reagent system has also been used for the preparation of reagent paper. After exposing the indicator tubes and test paper to dehydrogenated nicotine, for a constant time, the red-violet colour developed could be compared with those obtained from standards. Alternatively the coloured compound was extracted in water and the absorbance measured at 540 nm. The lower limit of detection is 0.03 μg/m3 of nicotine for the reagent papers and indicator tubes. The lower limit of determination by spectrophotometric procedure is 0.001 μg/m3 of air. The preparation of indicator tubes, test papers and their applications for the detection and determination of nicotine in environmental tobacco smoke (ETS), mainstream smoke (MS), side stream smoke (SS) and biological samples is described in this paper.
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