Classifications

• • A—HUMAN NECESSITIES
  • A24—TOBACCO; CIGARS; CIGARETTES; SIMULATED SMOKING DEVICES; SMOKERS' REQUISITES
  • A24C—MACHINES FOR MAKING CIGARS OR CIGARETTES
  • A24C5/00—Making cigarettes; Making tipping materials for, or attaching filters or mouthpieces to, cigars or cigarettes
  • A24C5/36—Removing papers or other parts from defective cigarettes
• • A—HUMAN NECESSITIES
  • A24—TOBACCO; CIGARS; CIGARETTES; SIMULATED SMOKING DEVICES; SMOKERS' REQUISITES
  • A24D—CIGARS; CIGARETTES; TOBACCO SMOKE FILTERS; MOUTHPIECES OF CIGARS OR CIGARETTES; MANUFACTURE OF TOBACCO SMOKE FILTERS OR MOUTHPIECES
  • A24D3/00—Tobacco smoke filters, e.g. filter tips or filtering inserts; Filters specially adapted for simulated smoking devices; Mouthpieces of cigars or cigarettes
  • A24D3/02—Manufacture of tobacco smoke filters

Definitions

• the present invention relates to a method for processing waste material in the form of filter rods, filter cigarettes and the like, which contain filter material with internally accessible internal cavities and at least one other material component, in particular paper and tobacco.
• the filter tow strips can consist, for example, of cellulose acetate or polypropylene filaments.
• the filter tow strips are drawn off from a bale or stack and further processed on a filter rod machine into filter strands covered with paper, after which individual filter rods are finally produced by cutting the filter strands.
• the filter rods are cylindrical units encased in paper with a length of about 66 to 150 mm and a diameter of e.g. 4 mm to 10 mm.
• Each filter rod usually contains enough material for four or six filter pieces or filter plugs, which are later attached to tobacco rods by means of a cigarette manufacturing machine to produce filter cigarettes.
• US-A-4 457 317 describes a method for removing wrapping paper from cigarette filter rods, in which the waste or scrap of the cigarette filter rod is heated up to the melting point of the thermoplastic adhesive that holds the paper wrapper together. The paper wrappings are then separated from the filter pieces or filter rods. Then, the waste for heating and separating the paper wrappers from the filter material is flowed with a heated gas, whereby the adhesive is liquefied by the action of the heat and the paper wrappings are detached from the cellulose acetate fiber material. Due to the different weights or the different shape of the cellulose acetate material and the wrapping paper, the separation and sorting of these two components can be carried out in the air flow, since the paper is transported further upwards by the air flow than the heavier filter material.
• waste is produced in the manufacture of cigarettes.
• the waste cigarettes are therefore cut open, for example on the wrapping paper, and the tobacco is mechanically removed from the cigarette tube. This measure allows the valuable tobacco to be recovered, but not the valuable filter material, for example cellulose acetate, to be recovered.
• the invention is based on the object of specifying a method of the type described at the outset which, in a simple technical manner and with economical process management, enables the valuable filter materials, especially in the form of cellulose acetate.
• the method according to the invention is carried out in a pressure vessel. It is essentially a heatable pressure vessel with a preferably mechanical agitator.
• an appropriately designed compressor is used, which, for example, builds up a gas pressure of 10 bar therein, to the liquid, which is preferably water, in the pressure vessel with the gas, in particular air and / or Carbon dioxide to saturate.
• the liquid which is preferably water
• the gas in particular air and / or Carbon dioxide to saturate.
• a closable opening is provided on the pressure vessel which the waste material can be imported.
• the liquid can be saturated with the gas under pressure. This can be partial saturation, saturation or oversaturation. Alternatively, the measure of partial saturation, saturation or supersaturation can also take place in a preceding process measure outside the pressure vessel in another container. If necessary, the waste material can already be introduced into the liquid outside the pressure vessel.
• the liquid which is used for the separation in the pressure vessel is largely inert towards the filter material and preferably also towards the other material components to be separated.
• a gas which is inert to the filter material, preferably also to the other material components to be separated is used as the gas.
• the waste material is supplied to the liquid, if it is not already contained therein, to which reference was made above.
• the waste material-liquid mixture then present is mixed or stirred until the filter material has detached from the other material components.
• measure c in which the gas dissolved in the liquid is released at least partially by lowering the pressure and / or raising the temperature in the form of fine gas bubbles.
• the pressure is preferably reduced, in particular from a relatively high pressure value, which was set to dissolve the gas of the liquid, to a pressure above ambient pressure or at ambient pressure. Furthermore, the relatively high pressure can also be reduced below the ambient pressure.
• a pressure difference of about 10 bar is preferably passed through during the expansion, that is to say if gas dissolved in the liquid is to be released again. The amount of pressure difference required depends on various factors, such as the nature of the material and mainly its "porosity".
• An alternative measure to the pressure reduction mentioned above is to increase the temperature of the liquid, which also the liquid homogeneously dissolved gas is released more or less with the formation of bubbles.
• fine gas bubbles on the surface of the materials to be separated can be removed by mechanical action or by knocking off with a suitable stirrer protruding into the pressure vessel.
• the method according to the invention can be advantageously designed by raising the temperature in measure c) to such an extent that hot-melt adhesives, which are usually used in the cigarette industry as seams for gluing the filter cover, melt and thus separate from the filter material.
• hot-melt adhesives which are usually used in the cigarette industry as seams for gluing the filter cover, melt and thus separate from the filter material.
• an increase in temperature to about 80 ° C. or a little more is sufficient to liquefy of the hot melt adhesive, which regularly has a melting point of about 80 ° C. If no hot-melt adhesive was used, but instead a glue in the form of polyvinyl acetate, a temperature increase is not necessary, since glue of this type dissolves in water at ambient temperature.
• wetting agents are used within the scope of the invention, the selection of the present invention is not subject to any significant restrictions.
• These are natural and / or synthetic substances that reduce the surface tension of water or other liquids. These can be, for example, alkylbenzenesulfonates, alkanesulfonates, fatty alcohol sulfates, fatty alcohol ether sulfates, fatty alcohol epoxylates and the like (cf. Römpp Chemie-Lexikon, 9th edition, 1992, vol. 6, pp. 4495 ff).
• the advantages of the method according to the invention can be illustrated as follows:
• the process according to the invention uses an "inner flotation" to separate the valuable filter material, for example cellulose acetate, safely, technically simply and economically from the other constituents of the waste material, for example from the wrapping paper and tobacco.
• This has made it possible for the first time to recover a highly pure, valuable cellulose acetate.
• This can be dissolved in a suitable solvent, such as acetone, for further processing into filaments and thus into filter tows.
• the method according to the invention makes it possible that the wrapping paper and any tobacco residues do not come into contact with, for example, the solvent acetone during the reprocessing of the cigarette filter material.
• the paper and tobacco can therefore be disposed of and recycled in an environmentally friendly manner.
• the method according to the invention does not have to work with solvents, explosion protection does not have to be carried out. This enables simple and safe operation.
• the use of water as a treatment liquid has the advantage that only exceptionally dyes are released from the paper of the cigarette waste, whereby a high yield of valuable cellulose acetate can be achieved in optimal purity.
• the plasticizers usually used in filter materials, especially in the form of triacetin can be removed without any problems.
• the method according to the invention consequently forms a very advantageous recycling of constituents of cigarette waste or cigarette filter materials, in which practically all of the cellulose acetate originally present is recovered in highly pure form.
• the filters are coated with filter wrapping paper, which is glued with the usual hot melt adhesive, whose melting point is around 80 ° C.
• the waste material contains both cigarette paper and imitation cork "tipping". This material is made of paper.
• the two paper wrappers mentioned are glued using a polyvinyl acetate glue.
• the waste material contains minor residues of tobacco.
• Water is used as the liquid in a pressure vessel, which is heated to 95 ° C and placed under a pressure of 11 bar (absolute) and thus saturated.
• the pressure vessel has a volume of 300 l. 290 l of water and 15 kg of waste material are filled. It is provided with a conventional mechanical stirrer of the "Interprop" type from Ekato Rlick- und Mischtechnik GmbH, Schopfheim. The waste material is introduced into this pressure vessel together with the water via a lock. The waste material is then stirred in the water heated to 95 ° C. until paper and tobacco residues have detached from the filter material based on cellulose acetate. The stirring takes place at a stirrer speed of 130 rpm. The warm water (measured O2 content: 50 mg / l) causes the hot-melt adhesive to dissolve.

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• Manufacturing Of Cigar And Cigarette Tobacco (AREA)
• Polysaccharides And Polysaccharide Derivatives (AREA)

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• 1993
  • 1993-06-16 DE DE4319958A patent/DE4319958C1/de not_active Expired - Fee Related
  • 1993-07-14 US US08/092,384 patent/US5402893A/en not_active Expired - Fee Related
• 1994
  • 1994-03-30 EP EP94105037A patent/EP0629355B1/fr not_active Expired - Lifetime
  • 1994-03-30 DE DE59406109T patent/DE59406109D1/de not_active Expired - Lifetime
  • 1994-06-13 PL PL94303819A patent/PL174406B1/pl unknown
  • 1994-06-15 CA CA002125911A patent/CA2125911C/fr not_active Expired - Fee Related
  • 1994-06-16 JP JP6134219A patent/JPH0829073B2/ja not_active Expired - Lifetime

Patent Citations (5)

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