Method and Apparatus for Manufacturing Aerosol-Forming Rod

This application is a divisional of U.S. application Ser. No. 17/043,455, filed on Sep. 29, 2020, which is a National Stage of International Application No. PCT/KR2019/010116, filed on Aug. 9, 2019, which claims priority from Korean Patent Application No. 10-2018-0093056, filed on Aug. 9, 2018.

Embodiments of the present disclosure relate to a method and apparatus for manufacturing an aerosol-forming rod.

Recently, the demand for alternative methods of overcoming the shortcomings of traditional cigarettes has increased. For example, there is growing demand for a method of generating an aerosol by heating an aerosol-generating material, rather than by combusting cigarettes. Accordingly, research into heating-type cigarettes and heating-type aerosol-generating devices has been actively conducted.

Conventional reconstituted tobacco for a heating-type aerosol-generating article is composed of a single type of reconstituted tobacco sheet manufactured by a paper-making process or slurry process. Thus, there was a limit to compensating for the disadvantages of a reconstituted tobacco sheet, such as filling power, combustion rate, taste, and the like.

Embodiments of the present disclosure provide a method and apparatus capable of controlling the physical properties and tastes of an aerosol-forming rod by utilizing the sheet-specific properties of aerosol-forming rod manufacturing processes, such as a slurry process, a paper-making process, or an extrusion process, and by using a mixed reconstituted tobacco sheet obtained by mixing two or more types of reconstituted tobacco sheets having different types, different physical properties, or different main components.

According to an embodiment of the present disclosure, a method of manufacturing an aerosol-forming rod includes: providing a first reconstituted tobacco manufactured by a first reconstituted tobacco sheet manufacturing process and a second reconstituted tobacco manufactured by a second reconstituted tobacco sheet manufacturing process; and manufacturing the aerosol-forming rod by using a mixed reconstituted tobacco obtained by mixing the first reconstituted tobacco and the second reconstituted tobacco at a predetermined mixing ratio.

In the method, physical properties of the aerosol-forming rod may differ according to the mixing ratio.

The physical properties may include at least one of thickness, basis weight, porosity, hardness, resistance-to-draw, and filling power.

The first reconstituted tobacco sheet manufacturing process and the second reconstituted tobacco sheet manufacturing process may be different from each other, and selected from a slurry process, a paper-making process, and an extrusion process, and the second reconstituted tobacco manufactured by the second reconstituted tobacco sheet manufacturing process is mixed at a mixing ratio of at least 10%.

The first reconstituted tobacco sheet manufacturing process may be a slurry process, the second reconstituted tobacco sheet manufacturing process may be one of the paper-making process and the extrusion process, and the mixing ratio of the second reconstituted tobacco is at least 10%.

According to another embodiment of the present disclosure, an apparatus for manufacturing an aerosol-forming rod, the apparatus includes: a first reconstituted tobacco sheet manufacturing apparatus for manufacturing a first reconstituted tobacco; and a mixing apparatus for manufacturing the aerosol-forming rod by using a mixed reconstituted tobacco obtained by mixing the first reconstituted tobacco and the second reconstituted tobacco at a predetermined mixing ratio.

According to another embodiment of the present disclosure, a method of manufacturing an aerosol-forming rod includes: providing a first reconstituted tobacco manufactured by a first reconstituted tobacco sheet manufacturing process and leaf tobacco shreds; and manufacturing the aerosol-forming rod by using a mixed reconstituted tobacco obtained by mixing the first reconstituted tobacco and the leaf tobacco shreds at a predetermined mixing ratio.

The leaf tobacco shreds may include at least one of flue-cured tobacco, burley tobacco, oriental tobacco, cigar leaves and toasted tobacco.

According to the above, it is possible to realize various aerosol-forming product properties, by utilizing the sheet-specific characteristics of each manufacturing process of reconstituted tobacco sheet and mixing two or more types of reconstituted tobacco sheets having different types, different physical properties, or different main components to control the physical properties and tastes of tobacco rod.

Hereinafter, exemplary embodiments will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings. The following description is only for the purpose of embodying the embodiments and does not limit the scope of the present disclosure. What can be easily inferred by experts in the art from the detailed description and examples should be construed as falling within in the scope of the present disclosure.

The terms “consist(s) of” or “include(s) (or comprise(s))” should not be interpreted or understood as including, without exception, all of the plurality of elements or the plurality of steps disclosed in the description. In other words, it should be understood that some of the elements or some of the steps may not be included, or that additional elements or steps may be further included.

With respect to the terms used to describe the various embodiments, general terms which are currently and widely used are selected in consideration of functions of structural elements in the various embodiments of the present disclosure. However, meanings of the terms may be changed according to intention, a judicial precedence, the appearance of new technology, and the like. In addition, in certain cases, terms which are not commonly used may be selected. In such a case, the meanings of the terms will be described in detail at the corresponding portions in the following description of the embodiments. Therefore, the terms used in the various embodiments should be defined based on the meanings of the terms and the descriptions provided herein.

The term ‘homogenized tobacco material’ denotes a material formed by agglomerating particulate tobacco.

The term ‘gathered’ used herein denotes that a tobacco material sheet is convoluted, folded, or otherwise compressed or constricted substantially transversely to the cylindrical axis of the rod, or that a rod is formed of concentrating tobacco shreds.

The heated aerosol-generating system is operated by heating an aerosol-forming substrate to generate an aerosol from the material of the substrate. The aerosol may be inhaled by a user. When the substrate including the rod described hereinafter is heated, the tobacco flavor is released from a sheet or shreds of tobacco material.

An aerosol-generating article including the rod described hereinafter may be provided.

Many aerosol-generating articles in which aerosol-forming substrates are heated rather than combusted have been previously proposed. In heated aerosol-generating articles, typically, an aerosol is generated by heat transfer from a heat source, such as a chemical, electrical or combustible heat source, to a physically separate aerosol-generating article which may be located within, around, or downstream of the heat source.

The term ‘aerosol-generating substrate’ used herein refers to a substrate formed of or including an aerosol-forming material capable of releasing volatile compounds when heated in order to generate the aerosol.

The rod described herein is particularly suited for use as an aerosol-generating substrate of heated aerosol-generating article. The aerosol-generating substrate of the heated aerosol-generating article generally has a significantly shorter rod length than a rod made of a combustible material of a conventional lit-end smoking article.

In an embodiment, the rod described herein may be used as an aerosol-generating substrate of a heated aerosol-generating article including a combustible heat source and an aerosol-generating substrate downstream of the combustible heat source.

The rod described herein may be used as an aerosol-generating substrate in a heated aerosol-generating article for use in an electrically operated aerosol-generating system in which the aerosol-generating substrate of the heated aerosol-generating article is heated by an electrical heat source.

A system including an electrically operated aerosol-generating device and an aerosol-generating article for use in the aerosol-generating device may be provided. The aerosol-generating article may include a rod or an aerosol-forming substrate described herein.

A rod in a preferred embodiment includes a sheet or shreds of homogenized tobacco material. The sheet or shreds of homogenized tobacco material may be formed by agglomerating particulate tobacco obtained by grinding or otherwise by powdering of one or both of tobacco sheet lamina and tobacco sheet stems. Optionally or additionally, a sheet or shreds of homogenized tobacco material may include one or more tobacco dust, tobacco fines, and other particulate tobacco by-products formed, for example, during treating, handling and shipping of tobacco. When the rod according to the present disclosure is for use as an aerosol-forming substrate in a heated aerosol-generating article, the homogenized tobacco material used to form the rod may include, preferably, particulates obtained by grinding or otherwise comminuting tobacco sheet lamina.

In certain embodiments, the sheet of homogenized tobacco material may have a tobacco content of at least about 40 wt % on a dry weight basis or at least about 50 wt % on a dry weight basis. In another embodiment, the sheet of homogenized tobacco material may have a tobacco content of at least about 70 wt % on a dry weight basis. When the rod according to the present disclosure is for use as an aerosol-forming substrate in a heated aerosol-generating article, the use of a homogenized tobacco material with a high tobacco content may be advantageous for generating an aerosol with enhanced tobacco flavor.

The homogenized tobacco material may include one or more endogenous binders that are tobacco endogenous binders, one or more exogenous binders that are tobacco exogenous binders, or a combination thereof to help agglomerate the particulate tobacco. Additionally or optionally, the homogenized tobacco material may include other additives. The additives may include, but not limited to, tobacco and non-tobacco fibers, an aerosol former, a wetting agent, a plasticizer, a flavoring agent, a filler, an aqueous and non-aqueous solvent, and combinations thereof.

For example, when the rod according to the present disclosure is for use as an aerosol-forming substrate in a heated aerosol-generating article, a sheet or shreds of the homogenized tobacco material for use in forming the rod described herein may have an aerosol former content of between about 5 wt % and about 30 wt % on a dry weight basis. The rod for use in an electrically operated aerosol-generating system with a heating element may preferably include an aerosol former of about 5% to about 30%. For the rod for use in an electrically operated aerosol-generating system with a heating element, the aerosol-former may preferably include glycerin.

The rod described herein may include gathered sheets or shreds of homogenized tobacco material wrapped by a porous wrapper or non-porous wrapper.

Embodiments of the present disclosure may further include texturing a first continuous sheet. For example, embodiments of the present disclosure may include crimping, embossing, perforating or otherwise texturing for the first continuous sheet before gathering the first continuous sheet together with a second continuous sheet.

In addition, in the case of using the shreds, the rod may be formed of the shreds supplied continuously, other than the continuous sheet.

The reconstituted tobacco for use in the heated aerosol-generating article includes only one type of reconstituted tobacco sheet manufacture by the paper-making process or the slurry process. However, in the method of manufacturing an aerosol-forming rod according to embodiments of the present disclosure, the physical properties and taste of a tobacco rod may be controlled by utilizing the sheet-specific characteristics of each process for manufacturing a reconstituted tobacco sheet, and by mixing two or more types of reconstituted tobacco sheets having different types, different physical properties, or different main components.

The reconstituted tobacco manufactured by the paper-making process has a porous structure in the sheet due to the process characteristics, and thus, the reconstituted tobacco manufactured by the paper-making process has a good porosity, a high combustion rate, and good filling power (cc/g). On the other hand, the reconstituted tobacco manufactured by the slurry process has a high sheet density due to the process characteristics. Therefore, the combustion speed and filling power (cc/g) of the reconstituted tobacco manufactured by the slurry process are low compared to those of the reconstituted tobacco manufactured by the paper-making process, but the retention characteristics of the flavor components and the content components contained in the raw material are good. Therefore, by utilizing these characteristics, it is possible to control the physical properties, for example, weight, hardness, combustion characteristics, etc. and taste of the cigarette rod.

Physical properties, tastes, and flavor components may be imparted to a cigarette rod by combining two or more kinds of reconstituted tobacco constituting the heated aerosol-generating article according to a type, a parameter of physical properties, and a content component of reconstituted tobacco. The type may be, for example, a paper-making type reconstituted tobacco, slurry-type reconstituted tobacco, or extrusion-type reconstituted tobacco. The parameter of physical properties may be, for example, thickness, basis weight, porosity, filling power, or formation. The content component may be, for example, nicotine, or sugar. The cigarette rod formed by the above combination manner may have various product characteristics due to differences in physical properties such as hardness, weight, combustion characteristics, porosity, and the like.

In addition, although the cigarette rod in the form of shreds may exhibit a non-uniform density tendency according to the length of the rod, the non-uniform density tendency may be reduced by using two or more types of reconstituted tobacco sheets having different densities.

Hereinafter, the embodiments of the present disclosure will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

is a diagram illustrating an example in which a cigaretteis inserted into a holder.

Referring to, the cigarettemay be inserted into the holder. When the cigaretteis inserted, a heateris located inside the cigarette. Therefore, an aerosol-generating material of the cigaretteis heated by the heated heater, and thus, an aerosol is generated.

The cigarettemay have a shape similar to a general combustion type cigarette. For example, the cigarettemay be divided into a first portionincluding an aerosol-generating material and a second portionincluding a filter and the like.

The first portionmay be entirely inserted into the holder, and the second portionmay be exposed to the outside. Alternatively, only a portion of the first portionmay be inserted into the holder, or the first portionand a portion of the second portionmay be inserted.

A user may inhale the aerosol in the state where the second partis bitten by mouth. At this time, the aerosol is generated by the external air passing through the first portion, and the generated aerosol passes through the second portionand is delivered to the user's mouth.

External air may be introduced through at least one air passage formed in the holder. Alternatively, external air may be introduced through at least one hole formed on the surface of the cigarette.

is a block diagram illustrating an example of a cigarette.

Referring to, the cigaretteincludes a tobacco rod, a first filter segment, a cooling structure, and a second filter segment. The first portion described above with reference toincludes the tobacco rod, and the second portion described above with reference toincludes the first filter segment, the cooling structure, and the second filter segment.

Referring to, the cigarettemay be packaged by wrappers,,,,, and. For example, the tobacco rodis packaged by a first wrapperand the first filter segmentis packaged by a second wrapper. Also, the cooling structureis packaged by a third wrapper, and the second filter segmentis packaged by a fourth wrapper.

The first wrapper, the second wrapper, and the third wrappermay be wrapped by a fifth wrapper. In other words, the tobacco rod, the first filter segment, and the cooling structureof the cigarettemay be further packaged by the fifth wrapper. Also, the fourth wrapperand at least a portion of the fifth wrappermay be wrapped by a sixth wrapper. In other words, at least a portion of the cooling structureand the second filter segmentof the cigarettemay be further packaged by the sixth wrapper.

The first wrapper, the second wrapper, the fifth wrapper, and the sixth wrappermay be made of general wrapping paper. For example, the first wrapper, the second wrapper, the fifth wrapper, and the sixth wrappermay be porous wrapping paper or non-porous wrapping paper. For example, the thickness of the first wrappermay be about 61 μm, the porosity of the first wrappermay be about 15 CU, the thickness of the second wrappermay be about 63 μm, and the porosity second wrappermay be about 15 CU, but the present disclosure is not limited thereto. Further, the thickness of the fifth wrappermay be about 66 μm, the porosity of the fifth wrappermay be about 10 CU, and the thickness of the sixth wrappermay be 66 μm and the porosity of the sixth wrappermay be about 17 CU, but the present disclosure is not limited thereto.