A solution to the apparent need for a fast, reliable, accurate, low cost and above all simple means of determining the nicotine content of white SNUS is explored.

The proposed investigation is separated into two parts, extraction and quantification, the latter showing a commonality with a means for rapid determination of nicotine in e-liquids.

An extraction method was devised using an aqueous solvent with varying extraction rates from 1 to 10 minutes. Quantification was explored and a UV-VIS spectroscopy solution selected after establishing repeatability, accuracy and selectivity.

Establishing sufficient dynamic range and sensitivity for a single wavelength system proved challenging. Different wavelength emitter/ receivers were examined using a nicotine/PG/VG mix (e-liquid) and the principle absorbance peak of 259 nm compared with an off tune 275 nm peak. This later was identified as being less sensitive to pH variation in the range 2 to 9 as well as having sensitivity for a wide range of nicotine concentrations 1 – 20 mg. Through determination of a suitable path length (0.5 mm) and separation (8 mm) accuracies of better than ±0.2 mg or 1.5% could be routinely achieved.