Nicotine from discarded cigarette buds can leach into the soil with the aid of rain water. This nicotine will not degrade and eventually will contaminate underground water. As public properties, such as Emporia State University (ESU), begin implementing tobacco free polices, it is expected that analyzing soil samples for nicotine will help determine the nicotine level in these public environments.<br/>To determine nicotine levels, this research collected nicotine concentrations in four areas of the ESU campus. These data were collected in the Spring and Summer semesters of 2017 before the tobacco free policy was enforced. To extract nicotine, soil samples were mixed with buffer solutions and centrifuged. High performance liquid chromatography(HPLC) was used to separate the molecules within the supernates, and those molecules were analyses with ultraviolet(UV) detection. The recorded data was compared to a calibration curve constructed with five standards of nicotine in buffer.<br/>The findings of this research show that, there was a significant decrease in the nicotine concentration on campus from Spring to Summer due to a lower number of students present. After the tobacco free policy is enforced on the ESU campus, the amount of nicotine in ESU soil will be analyzed and compared to the results of the control sample. Further, the methods that are developed in the project can be adapted to similar types of research, such as determination of certain contaminations in soil samples, which could enhance the knowledge of the soil and water qualities.

Determination of nicotine level in soil using HPLC/UV

255th National Meeting (2018)

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