There is disclosed a mouth piece, filter element or cooling element 100 comprising: a longitudinally extending core of filtering material 102; one or more channels 104 extending longitudinally from an end of the core 102; wherein the or each channel 104 has a non-circular transverse cross section which varies in the longitudinal direction by rotating about a longitudinal axis I of the mouth piece, filter element or cooling element 100.

A cigarette filter inspection method of inspecting a solid flavor element to be disposed in a void between two filter plugs placed in outer filter wrapper, and the cigarette filter inspection method includes an illumination step of irradiating the void with illumination light, an imaging step of obtaining an inspection image of a region containing the void, a filler detection step of detecting the flavor element based on contrast between the void and the flavor element in the inspection image, and an inspection step of inspecting the flavor element detected in the inspection image.

The method for shaping a continuous web material (1) into a rod comprises providing a continuous web material (1) having a glass transition temperature below 150 degree Celsius and gathering the continuous web material (1) from a flat shape into a rod-shape by means of a shaping device (2). The method further comprises providing a cooling means (34) providing a temperature below four degree Celsius, cooling a material contact surface of the shaping device (2) to a surface temperature below four degree Celsius, and cooling the continuous gathered web material by the cooled material contact surface in contact with the continuous gathered web material. Also provided is an apparatus for shaping a continuous web material (1).

A filter for a smoking article has improved biodegradability and improved taste during smoking of the smoking article. The filter includes a segment having a filtration substrate including natural cellulose fibres, and a wrapper at least partly surrounding the segment. The filtration substrate contains a composition including an additive for reducing phenols.

A system includes system at least one dispenser configured to dispense to dispense a plurality of segments on a first conveying path and a spacing drum configured to receive a number of the plurality of segments per revolution of the drum and configured to release the number of segments on a second conveying path at a segment-release spacing and a segment-release speed along the conveying path, the number of the plurality of segments being at least three and the number of segments released by the spacing drum forming a filter element.

A method is provided to crimp a sheet having, before crimping, a thickness, a moisture, a composition, and a width, the method including: obtaining one pre-crimping sheet characteristic among the thickness of the sheet, the moisture of the sheet, the composition of the sheet, and the width of the sheet; crimping the sheet to form a plurality of corrugations on the sheet, the crimping including providing a pair of crimping rollers defining a nip therebetween, the nip having a nip size, and inserting the sheet in the nip; evaluating a post-crimping characteristic of the sheet after crimping; and varying the nip size on the basis of the obtained one of the pre-crimping sheet characteristic, and on the basis of the evaluated post-crimping sheet characteristic. An apparatus to crimp a sheet is also provided.

A component for an article for use in an aerosol delivery system includes a body of fibrous material comprising first and second additive release components embedded within the body of fibrous material. The first and second additive release components each have a maximum diameter between about 1.5 mm and about 2.5 mm and the first and second additive release components are separated by a distance of less than about 2.5 mm. There is also provided an article including the component and a system including the article and a non-combustible aerosol provision device for heating the aerosol generating material of the article. A manufacturing method is also provided.

Smoking-related article inspection systems and associated methods are disclosed herein. In some aspects, the systems include an x-ray imaging device configured to capture at least one image of the smoking-related articles, a smoking-related article transporting device configured to sequentially introduce the smoking-related articles into the imaging zone; and an analysis unit in communication with the x-ray imaging device and configured to analyze the at least one image captured by the x-ray imaging device for each of the smoking-related articles, the analysis unit being configured to execute: an inspection tool to determine values for one or more parameters of each of the smoking-related articles based on the analysis of the at least one image; and a comparison tool to determine an acceptability of the smoking-related articles for further processing based on comparing the determined values for the one or more parameters to ideal values for the one or more parameters.

There is disclosed a method of making a filter element or mouthpiece (300) comprising the steps of: advancing filtering material in the longitudinal direction; drawing the advancing filtering material into a shaping element (110), to thereby form a longitudinally extending rod of filtering material comprising a channel extending longitudinally through the rod of filtering material; wherein the shaping element (110) comprises a chamber and a shaping rod (200) which extends longitudinally within the chamber, the inner surface of the chamber shaping the advancing filtering material to form the longitudinally extending rod of filtering material, and the shaping rod (200) shaping the advancing filtering material to form the channel extending longitudinally through the rod of filtering material; and wherein the shaping element (110) applies an additive to the filtering material.

The present invention relates to a filter component comprising a plug of filter material comprising a body of a first filtering material and at least one element of a second filtering material, wherein the at least one element of the second filtering material is inserted in the body of a first filtering material, and wherein a volume ratio between a volume of the at least one element of a second filtering material and a volume of the plug is comprised between about 0.3 and about 0.8.