An apparatus for forming filter rods for aerosol-generating articles is provided, including a first source and a second source, the first source being configured to supply filter material in a form of a first tow, and the second source being configured to supply filter material in a form of a second tow; a single driven delivery roller configured to advance the first tow and the second tow; and an extrusion tool configured to process the first tow and the second tow, the delivery roller being arranged such that the first and the second tows are advanced from the first and the second sources toward the extrusion tool only by the delivery roller, and the extrusion tool is further configured to process several sources of filter material simultaneously to create one filter rod. A method for forming filter rods for aerosol-generating articles is also provided.

A tow band for electronic cigarette tip is a tow band of cellulose acetate provided by uniting and crimping a plurality of filaments into a bundle, in which a total denier is set to a value in a range of 10000 to 40000 (inclusive) and a filament denier is set to a value in a range of 6.0 to 20.0 (inclusive), and where the total denier is denoted by TD and a breaking strength of the tow band is denoted by F, a ratio F/TD is set to a value of 0.0015N/denier or more.

A method and associated system are provided for forming a biodegradable filter material for a filter element of a smoking article, wherein the method involves combining cellulose acetate fibers with regenerated cellulose fibers, drawing the combined cellulose acetate fibers and regenerated cellulose fibers to form drawn combined fibers, and crimping the drawn combined fibers to form a mixed fiber tow. An associated filter material for the filter element of a smoking article is also provided.

A tobacco smoke filter or filter element including a longitudinally extending core of tobacco smoke filtering material of circumference 14 to 17 mm which includes a channel which extends longitudinally from an end of the core; wherein the core further includes a plasticiser in an amount of 17 to 19% by weight of the tobacco smoke filtering material.

This invention relates to a method for crimping a web of material for the tobacco industry, including the following steps: feeding a web of material for the tobacco industry along a feed path; crimping the web between two crimping rollers operatively coupled to make a plurality of longitudinal easy folding lines on the web; measuring a value of a thickness of the web before the step of crimping;
The step of crimping the web is adjusted as a function of the thickness value measured during the step of measuring.

Provided herein are cellulose acetate tow bands having less than 0.1 wt. % titanium dioxide, wherein the content of titanium dioxide is measured by ashing and/or by titanium particle count density. Also provided herein is a method of measuring the titanium dioxide content of cellulose acetate tow by ashing. Also provided herein is a method for measuring the color of cellulose acetate tow.

A method of manufacturing a variable crimped web material is provided, including feeding a substantially continuous web material; crimping a first region of the material at a first crimp value; and crimping a second region of the material, adjacent the first region, at a second crimp value, the crimping using a set of two rollers, each being corrugated across at least a portion of its width and corrugated around its circumference, and being configured so the corrugations across the width interleave with each other to crimp the material, so the troughs of the corrugations around the circumference crimp the material at the first crimp value, and so the peaks of the corrugations around the circumference crimp the material at the second crimp value. An apparatus for manufacturing a crimped web material, and a method of manufacturing air flow directing elements for smoking articles are also provided.

The present invention provides a package of a filter tow bale made of cellulose acetate packed with a packing material in a non-hermetic state, which can be stacked in multistage and in which tows in the same bale can be uniformly maintained. The package of the filter tow bale made of cellulose acetate is packed with the packing material in the non-hermetic state, in which the filter tow bale is tightened with the packing material in the package, the filter tow bale has a cubic shape or a rectangular parallelepiped shape with 800 to 1,400 mm in length, 800 to 1,150 mm in width, and 800 to 1,100 mm in height, and a packing initial pressure between a top surface of the filter tow bale and the packing material is 6.3 kPa or less.

There is provided a method of making rods having predetermined values of cross-sectional porosity, and a cross-sectional porosity distribution value for use as an aerosol-forming substrate in a heated aerosol-generating article, including providing a continuous sheet of aerosol-forming material having a specified width and a specified thickness; gathering the sheet transversely relative to a longitudinal axis thereof; circumscribing the gathered sheet with a wrapper to form a continuous rod; severing the rod into a plurality of discrete rods; determining values of cross-sectional porosity and cross-sectional porosity distribution for at least one of the discrete rods; and controlling one or more manufacturing parameters to ensure that the cross-sectional porosity and cross-sectional porosity distribution values of subsequent rods are within the predetermined values.

This invention relates to a method for crimping a web of material for the tobacco industry, including the following steps: feeding a web of material for the tobacco industry along a feed path; crimping the web between two crimping rollers operatively coupled to make a plurality of longitudinal easy folding lines on the web; measuring a value of a thickness of the web before the step of crimping; The step of crimping the web is adjusted as a function of the thickness value measured during the step of measuring.