JPH0137111B2 - - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION Field of the Invention The present invention relates to composite cigarettes and their manufacture.

[Conventional technology]

It is possible to form a cigarette with two or more different tobacco materials, such that one type of tobacco material predominates in the inner core and the other type predominates in the outer annulus. ,
It is widely known, for example, from US Pat. No. 1,829,559.

It is widely known that most of the cigarette smoke that enters a smoker's mouth comes from burning tobacco in the area surrounding the cigarette. It is estimated that approximately 80% of the volume of smoke that enters a smoker's mouth comes from at most 50% of the weight of the tobacco in the cigarette.

Therefore, the outer annulus may consist of a blend of high quality cut leaf tobacco material and stem or handle tobacco material, reconstituted tobacco material, tobacco substitutes or lower quality shredded tobacco material. The production of composite cigarettes that includes an inner core made of lower quality tobacco material than the annulus, such as shredded leaf tobacco material, allows for considerable savings in the cost of producing cigarettes. This is because the amount of the most expensive component material, cut tobacco material, is substantially reduced without substantially compromising overall smoke quality. Therefore, it would be beneficial to construct cigarettes in the manner described in US Pat. No. 1,829,559.

However, when a cigarette is lit, the smoke produced by the combustion of the tobacco material in the entire cross section of the cigarette is drawn into the smoker's mouth, and does not come primarily from the combustion of the tobacco annulus. Therefore, the smoker feels a different taste when lighting the cigarette than when smoking the cigarette, which is undesirable.

The Applicant has published British Patents Nos. 1443402, 1340100, 250063 and 8577/1892, and US Patents No. 8577/1892 for varying the quality of tobacco smoke along the length of a cigarette. No. 1796552
No., No. 3059649, No. 3349776, No. 3614956,
No. 3,759,267, and No. 3,913,590, and also U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,570,270, 3,736,941, U.S. Pat.
I know that there are No. 3987804, No. 3957062, No. 4207906, and No. 4516585.

[Problem that the invention seeks to solve]

The object of the present invention is to provide a cigarette, which is not covered by the above-mentioned known patents, and a method for producing the same, in which the smoke sensation remains substantially unchanged from the moment of lighting.

[Means for solving problems]

According to the present invention, a core portion having a lighting end and a smoking end and consisting of a low quality fine flake tobacco material and a high quality fine flake tobacco material surrounding the core portion and surrounded by a wrapper is provided. An improvement in a composite cigarette is provided that includes a tobacco rod having an annular portion of tobacco material. This improvement consists primarily in the fact that the tobacco rod has a relatively large proportion of annular tobacco material at the lighting end.

The additional amount of tobacco annulus material at the lighting end of the cigarette ensures that substantially all of the smoke reaching the smoker's mouth comes from the tobacco annulus when the cigarette is lit. . By doing so, the smoker experiences little or no change in the taste of tobacco smoke during the combustion process from lighting to continued smoking.

Adding the amount of annulus tobacco material at the end of the cigarette can be accomplished in any desired manner, depending on the manner of forming the composite cigarette.
Adding an amount of annulus tobacco material may be in the form of a plug of annulus tobacco material at the burning end, or in the form of increasing the ratio of annulus tobacco material to core tobacco material within the cross-section of the cigarette. , can be achieved.

The proportion of the increased amount of annulus tobacco material to the total length of the cigarette filler rod (i.e., the tobacco rod) can vary widely. As previously mentioned, the purpose of increasing the amount of annulus tobacco material is to improve the quality of the smoke that reaches the smoker's mouth upon initial lighting, while also increasing the amount of annulus and core material. The purpose of this structure is to allow economical use of the tobacco material while still providing a pleasant taste to the smoker. These two requirements are balanced when determining the proportion of the increased amount of annulus tobacco material to the total length of the filler rod. In general, it is sufficient that the length of the rod section with the increased amount of annulus tobacco material corresponds to about 1 to 2 puffs to obtain the desired overall quality characteristics.

One way to increase the amount of annulus tobacco material in the cross section at the burning end of the cigarette is to increase the amount of tobacco material at the lighting end of the cigarette, i.e. to densify the tobacco material. It uses existing edge densification techniques commonly used in cigarette making machinery.

Such existing edge densification technologies include:
There is use of a rotating trimming cutter in which a pocket or recess is formed, in which case the filler rod consisting of tobacco, when it comes into contact with the pocket or recess, is more likely than it would be within the other angle of rotation of the trimming cutter. The tobacco material is also cut or trimmed to increase its thickness. The next step of wrapping the trimmed filler rod into a paper tube increases the density of the filler rod where the thickness of the tobacco material increases.

For composite cigarette filler rods having a core of one type of tobacco material and an outer annulus of another type of tobacco material, this method involves trimming less annulus tobacco material from the filler rod at the lighting end. In the application of the technique, the trimmed filler rod is then wrapped in a paper tube so as to form a cigarette of uniform diameter, thereby removing the excess annulus at the lighting end. The material is compressed, resulting in a greater proportion of the annulus tobacco material at the burning end than elsewhere along the length of the cigarette.

Another method of increasing the proportion of annulus tobacco material in the burning end of a cigarette also involves end densification techniques. The process means
The rotary trimming cutter is uniform over its entire circumference and is compressed before the filler rod encounters the trimming cutter. The compression takes place at a predetermined location along the length of the filler rod that corresponds to the location of the firing end. Once tobacco material is compressed, it takes some time to return to its uncompressed state. By compressing the filler rod before, usually just before, the trimming cutter, less tobacco material is actually trimmed from the filler rod at the location of the compression, thereby reducing the proportion of annulus tobacco material at the burning end. will increase.
Such compression of the tobacco material is accomplished by using a rotary compression device having lobes that mechanically press the tobacco material against the filler rod support surface.

Any other convenient edge densification technique may be used. For example, during trimming,
The cutter may be periodically pulled away from the filler rod to reduce the amount of annulus tobacco material that is trimmed from the filler rod.

When using such edge densification technology,
Increasing the amount of annular tobacco material at the burning end of the cigarette is accomplished by increasing the ratio of annular tobacco material to core tobacco material. At the lighting end, the amount of core tobacco material is the same as elsewhere along the length of the filler rod, but there is an increased amount of annulus tobacco material that does not fit within the diameter of the cigarette. It is somewhat compressed by having to do so.

Increasing the proportion of annular tobacco material at the burning end can also be achieved by reducing the amount of core tobacco material in the cross-section of the cigarette and increasing the amount of annular tobacco material by at least a proportionate amount. It will be done. If desired, increasing the amount of annulus tobacco material may be achieved, for example by periodically feeding a complete annulus tobacco material into a tobacco filler rod forming machine. This can also be achieved by providing a plug consisting of:

The invention will be further explained below with the aid of a few exemplary embodiments and the drawings.

〔Example〕

In FIGS. 1 and 2, the outer paper cylinder 12
A long and slender tobacco rod 14 and a fitter plug 1
A novel cigarette 10 made of 6 is shown. The elongated tobacco rod 14 is the first
An annular portion 20 of quality tobacco material extends over most of the length of the tobacco rod 14 and surrounds a core portion 18 of lower quality tobacco material. A plug 22 of annular tobacco material is provided at the lighting end of the cigarette 10.

The tobacco material forming the annulus 20 and the end plug 22 is of high quality, usually a blend of cut leaf tobacco materials such as those commonly used in cigarette manufacturing, while the core Part 18
The tobacco material from which it is made is of lower quality. The core portion 18 is made of a blend of cut leaf tobacco material of a lower quality than that of the annular portion, i.e., a treated blend of cut leaf tobacco material of a lower quality than that of the annular portion. It may be low quality tobacco material such as main vein, stem or stalk tobacco material, reconstituted tobacco material, tobacco substitutes, or a mixture of two or more of the above.

As previously mentioned, most of the tobacco smoke that enters a smoker's mouth from a lit cigarette results from the combustion of tobacco material in the area surrounding the cigarette.

The presence of a core portion 18 of lower quality tobacco material allows the cigarette 10 to be improved without significantly detracting from the overall smoke quality characteristics of the cigarette.
This makes it possible to reduce the amount of more expensive cut leaf tobacco material that has to be used.

However, as mentioned above, when a cigarette is lit, smoke is inhaled from the tobacco material that spans the entire diameter of the cigarette. The presence of the end plug 22, which is made entirely of cut leaf tobacco, ensures that all the leaf tobacco is combusted when the cigarette is first lit. As a result, the taste of the smoke for the smoker, even at the time of lighting, is different from the taste of smoke that is mostly generated from the annular tobacco material 20 during subsequent combustion of the cigarette. substantially the same.

Referring to FIG. 3, a cigarette 10' constructed in accordance with another embodiment of the present invention is shown. Similar to the embodiment shown in FIGS. 1 and 2, the cigarette 1
0' indicates a wrapper 12, a filler rod 14, a filter 16, and an annular portion 2 made of one type of tobacco material.
0, and a core portion 18 of lower quality tobacco material.

In the cigarette 10', the lighting end region 24 is formed by a central region 26 of core tobacco material having a smaller diameter than the core 18 for the remainder of the length of the filler rod 14; The annulus is comprised of an outer region 28 of tobacco material which has a greater diametrical thickness than the annulus 20 over the remainder of its length.

At the lighting end of the cigarette 10', there is an area where the amount of annular tobacco material is increased. Increasing the amount of annulus tobacco material is obtained in combination with the amount of core tobacco material in region 26 being the same as in the rest of the length of the filler rod, but compressed to a smaller diameter. This is particularly the case when edge densification techniques such as those described above are used to manufacture the cigarette 10'.

The presence of an end region 24 with an increased proportion of annulus tobacco material ensures that when the cigarette is initially lit, the same or similar end plug 22 is provided in the embodiment of FIG. The effect of this can be obtained. The taste of cigarette smoke remains substantially the same upon lighting and during subsequent smoking of the cigarette.

FIG. 4 shows a cigarette 1 in which the arrangement of the annular part 20 and the core part 18 in the cross section is different from that of the previous example.
0″ cross-section is shown. As is clear in the figure,
The annulus tobacco material has a substantially oval core 18
It is shown to consist of opposing substantially crescent-shaped parts surrounding the

The filler rod of a composite cigarette, which is composed of a core made of one type of tobacco material and an annular part made of another type of tobacco material, can be formed by a modification of conventionally known cigarette forming process means. . In such process means, a permeable collecting surface is moved in a direction perpendicular to a vertically moving thin shower of tobacco material to collect the tobacco material onto that surface. , a filler rod of tobacco is formed over the width of the shower, which filler rod, after trimming, is wrapped around it with a paper that comes in a web and enters a garniture for forming a rolled tobacco rod. Modifications of such process procedures for application to composite tobacco rods are described in U.S. Pat.
No. 3,957,062 and No. 4,207,906.

Accordingly, the present invention provides a method for forming a plurality of substreams of finely divided tobacco material from a source, assembling filler rods from the substreams, trimming excess tobacco material from the filler rods, and This also includes improving the method of forming cigarette rods by wrapping the trimmed rods in paper wrappers. Improvements in the method described above include (a) providing at least two substreams of high quality tobacco material and at least one substream of low quality tobacco material; (b) at least one of the above. (c) combining the substreams so that a layer of lower quality tobacco material from the two substreams falls between the upper and lower layers of high quality tobacco material; (c) of the trimmed filler rod cross section; In combination, a certain amount of high quality tobacco material is left untrimmed in the cross section at discrete longitudinal locations corresponding to the lighting ends of the cigarettes to be made from the cigarette rod.

In one particularly convenient technical method, at least two substreams of annulus tobacco material;
at least one substream of core tobacco material is formed from a respective shower of the annulus tobacco material and the core tobacco material, and then the substreams are formed such that one of the substreams of the annulus tobacco material is a bottom layer; Another of the substreams of annulus tobacco material becomes the top layer and at least one substream of core tobacco material is interposed between the top layer and the bottom layer to form a filler rod. As such, it is layered and combined. By first forming a substream of the components of the composite cigarette, complete control of filler rod assembly is achieved and high speed operation is possible.

Forming tobacco filler rods from substreams of tobacco material by combining them in layers is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,980,088, licensed to the applicant and hereby incorporated by reference. No. 3989052. However, there is no indication in these prior patents that the process means claimed therein could be modified to form composite cigarettes in the manner just described.

In the simplest version of this substream assembly process, the substreams dropped onto the rod forming surface have substantially the same width, so that the filler rods formed thereon are of substantially the same width. If wrapped in paper, the annular tobacco material is
As shown in FIG. 4, there are two opposing generally crescent-shaped shapes surrounding a generally elliptical core.

However, if a plurality of different shaped substreams are formed from the tobacco shower, the resulting filler rod is wrapped in paper in a paper wrapping machine and then pressed so that it has a circular cross section.
As shown in the figure, in order to make a cigarette with a circular core surrounded by a cylindrical annular part, first a core with a roughly square cross section and a core with a roughly square cross section is placed in the center of the cigarette. It is also possible to combine the substreams so that a filler rod is formed in which the section is located.

In summary, the present invention provides a novel composite cigarette construction with improved smoke quality characteristics by increasing the amount of annulus tobacco material at the lighting end. Various modifications within the scope of the invention may be possible.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

1 is a longitudinal cross-sectional view of a composite cigarette according to one embodiment of the present invention, that is, a cross-sectional view taken along 1-1 in FIG. 2, and FIG. 2 is a cross-sectional view of the cigarette shown in FIG. FIG. 3 is a longitudinal cross-sectional view of a composite cigarette according to another embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. 4 is a cross-sectional view of a composite cigarette according to still another embodiment of the present invention. be. 18... core portion, 20... annular portion, 22... end plug, 26... core tobacco material region (compressed) at lighting end, 28... annular tobacco material region at lighting end.

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] 1. An annular core portion having a lighting end and a smoking end and consisting of a low quality fine flake tobacco material and a high quality fine flake tobacco material wrapped in a paper wrapper. What is claimed is: 1. A composite cigarette comprising: a rod of tobacco material having an annular portion at the burning end; 2. A cigarette according to claim 1, wherein said relatively large proportion of annulus tobacco material is obtained by a plug 22 of annulus tobacco material attached to the burning end. 3. Said relatively large proportion of annulus tobacco material means that there is a greater amount of annulus tobacco material at the burning end relative to core tobacco material than elsewhere along the length of the tobacco rod. The cigarette according to claim 1, which is obtained by aging. 4 Core tobacco material 26 at the lighting end
4. A cigarette according to claim 3, wherein the core tobacco material is compressed to an equal and smaller cross-sectional dimension than the core tobacco material elsewhere along the length of the tobacco rod. 5. A cigarette according to any one of claims 1 to 4, wherein the ring tobacco material 20 is a blend of cut leaf tobacco materials that produces a desirable smoke quality. 6. According to claim 5, the core tobacco material 18 is a blend of cut leaf tobacco materials of lower quality than the blend of cut leaf tobacco materials used for the annular portion. rolled cigarette. 7 The core tobacco material 18 has treated main leaf veins,
Any one of claims 1 to 5, which is composed of stem or handle tobacco material, reconstituted tobacco material, or a tobacco substitute in the form of fine pieces. Rolled cigarettes listed. 8. Claim 1, wherein the annular tobacco material is substantially cylindrical so as to wrap around a rod of substantially circular cross-section of the core tobacco material disposed substantially concentrically therewith. The cigarette according to any one of Items 7 to 7 (Figure 2). 9. Any one of claims 1 to 7, wherein the annular tobacco material is a pair of opposed generally crescent-shaped members, such that the annular tobacco material surrounds and wraps around a core of generally oval cross-section. The cigarette described in (Figure 4). 10 forming a plurality of substreams of finely chipped tobacco material from a source, assembling filler rods from the substreams, trimming excess tobacco material from the filler rods, and wrapping the trimmed rods in paper wrappers. A method of forming a cigarette rod comprising: (a) providing at least two substreams of high quality tobacco material and at least one substream of low quality tobacco material; (b) providing at least one substream of said at least one substream; (c) a cross section of the trimmed filler rod that is made from rolled tobacco rod; In the cross section at discrete locations in the longitudinal direction corresponding to the lighting end of the cigarette to be lit,
A method of forming tobacco rods characterized by leaving a certain amount of high quality tobacco material untrimmed. 11. When the trimmed tobacco rod is wrapped in paper, said substream is substantially compressed so that a cigarette is created in which a pair of opposing crescent-shaped annular tobacco wraps around a core tobacco. 11. A method of forming a cigarette rod according to claim 10, wherein the cigarette rods have the same width.