Microwave-assisted deep eutectic solvent extraction coupled with headspace solid-phase microextraction followed by GC-MS for the analysis of volatile compounds from tobacco

A novel method of microwave-assisted deep eutectic solvent extraction coupled with solid-phase microextraction was developed to determine the volatile compounds in tobacco by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. During the process, the deep eutectic solvent played the roles of absorbing medium for microwave radiation, destroyer of cell walls, and solvent for dissolving the compounds released from the cells. Combined with solid-phase microextraction, the volatile components were extracted and concentrated in one step. In this method, several experimental parameters, such as fibre type, deep eutectic solvent type, microwave power, set-up temperature and irradiation time were studied. Compared with microwave-assisted water extraction coupled with solid-phase microextraction, and conventional solid-phase microextraction, more volatile components were obtained with higher responses. It was demonstrated that this method has improved extraction efficiency. Moreover, the proposed method has been applied to analyzing tobacco volatiles from different regions and nine different types of components have been detected. The results indicate that microwave-assisted deep eutectic solvent extraction coupled with solid-phase microextraction is an efficient, environmentally-friendly and fast miniaturization pretreatment technology for the extraction of volatiles from tobacco samples. This is a potentially promising technique for other complex and valuable matrices with low volatile content.