Abstract
There are several known methods for quantitative determination of nicotine, the main alkaloid of Nicotiana tabacum, with each presenting a series of advantages and disadvantages. As an alternative, we suggest a densitometric determination for nicotine allowing its estimation in a number of brands of cigarettes. Separation was performed by thin layer chromatography using hexane: CH
2
Cl
2
:MeOH (2:8:1.5) as a developing mixture. Densitometric measurements were carried out at the absorption maximum 254 nm. The method demonstrated good precision and accuracy, which were indicated by the low values of RSD %. Limits of detection and quantitation were recorded as 0.008 mg mL
−1
and 0.02 mg mL
−1
, respectively. A considerable variation of nicotine content was noticed among the nine investigated brands of cigarettes where samples 3 and 8 revealed the highest amounts of nicotine that were approximately duplicated compared to other samples.