Analysis and identification of two reconstituted tobacco sheets by three-level infrared spectroscopy

Two kinds of reconstituted tobacco (RT) from France (RTF) and China (RTC) were analyzed and identified by a three-level infrared spectroscopy method (Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) coupled with second derivative infrared spectroscopy (SD-IR) and two-dimensional infrared correlation spectroscopy (2D-IR)). The conventional IR spectra of RTF parallel samples were more consistent than those of RTC according to their overlapped parallel spectra and IR spectra correlation coefficients. FT-IR spectra of both two RTs were similar in holistic spectral profile except for small differences around 1430 cm−1, indicating that they have similar chemical constituents. By analysis of SD-IR spectra of RTFs and RTCs, more distinct fingerprint features, especially peaks at 1106 (1110), 1054 (1059) and 877 (874) cm−1, were disclosed. Even better reproducibility of five SD-IR spectra of RTF in 1750–1400 cm−1 could be seen intuitively from their stacked spectra and could be confirmed by further similarity evaluation of SD-IR spectra. Existence of calcium carbonate and calcium oxalate could be easily observed in two RTs by comparing their spectra with references. Furthermore, the 2D-IR spectra provided obvious, vivid and intuitive differences of RTF and RTC. Both two RTs had a pair of strong positive auto-peaks in 1600–1400 cm−1. Specifically, the autopeak at 1586 cm−1 in RTF was stronger than the one around 1421 cm−1, whereas the one at 1587 cm−1 in RTC was weaker than that at 1458 cm−1. Consequently, the RTs of two different brands were analyzed and identified thoroughly and RTF had better homogeneity than RTC. As a result, three-level infrared spectroscopy method has proved to be a simple, convenient and efficient method for rapid discrimination and homogeneousness estimation of RT.