Multi-segment smoking article

Abstract

A smoking article (1) comprising a rod (2) of smokable material with a mouth end (3) and a distal end (4) remote from the mouth end (3). The rod (2) comprises at least a first and a second segment (5, 6), wherein the first segment (5) has a distal end defining the distal end of the rod and the second segment (6) is disposed downstream of the first segment. The smoking article further comprises a mouthpiece (7), which is attached to the mouth end (3) of the rod (2), wherein the first segment (5) comprises a first tobacco blend with a first level of a smoke constituent inhibitor and the second segment (6) comprises a second tobacco blend with a second level of the smoke constituent inhibitor, wherein the second level of the smoke constituent inhibitor is lower than the first level.

Claims

1. A smoking article comprising: a rod of smokable material with a mouth end and a distal end remote from the mouth end, the rod comprising at least a first and a second segment, wherein the first segment has a distal end defining the distal end of the rod and the second segment is disposed downstream of the first segment, and a mouthpiece, which is attached to the mouth end of the rod, wherein the first segment comprises a first tobacco blend with a first level of a smoke constituent inhibitor and the second segment comprises a second tobacco blend with a second level of the smoke constituent inhibitor, wherein the first tobacco blend comprises American blend tobacco and the second tobacco blend comprises Virginia blend tobacco, wherein the second level of the smoke constituent inhibitor is lower than the first level, and wherein at least 90% by weight of lamina material in the second segment is flue cured tobacco.

2. The smoking article according to claim 1 wherein the smoke constituent inhibitor is ammonia or an amino-containing compound.

3. The smoking article according to claim 2 wherein the first segment comprises a length which is less than 25% of the length of the tobacco rod.

4. The smoking article according to claim 1 wherein the smoke constituent inhibitor is ammonia or an amino acid.

5. The smoking article according to claim 4 wherein the second tobacco blend comprises less TSNA than the first tobacco blend.

6. The smoking article according to claim 1 wherein the second tobacco blend comprises less TSNA than the first tobacco blend.

7. The smoking article according to claim 1 wherein at least 30% by weight of lamina material in the first segment is air cured burley tobacco.

8. The smoking article according to claim 1 wherein at least 30% by weight of lamina material in the first segment is oriental tobacco.

9. The smoking article according to claim 1 wherein the first segment comprises a length which is less than 25% of the length of the tobacco rod.

10. The smoking article according to claim 1 wherein the mouthpiece comprises at least one filter element.

11. The smoking article according to claim 1 wherein the rod of smokable material comprises a third segment disposed between the first and second tobacco segments.

12. The smoking article according to claim 1 wherein the second segment comprises Virginia blend tobacco.

13. The smoking article according to claim 12 wherein at least 30% by weight of lamina material in the first segment is air cured burley tobacco or oriental tobacco.

14. The smoking article according to claim 12 wherein the at least 90% by weight of lamina material in the second segment is flue cured tobacco.

Description

(1) The invention can be described further with reference to the following drawing.

(2) FIG. 1: A smoking article according to a first embodiment of the invention.

(3) Test results achieved by the inventive smoking article are also provided by the following tables, which are further discussed below: FIG. 2: Test results regarding tobacco specific nitrosamines constituents (TSNA) and formaldehyde formation produced by an inventive smoking article compared to various other smoking articles.

(4) FIG. 1 illustrates a smoking article 1 according to the invention. The smoking article 1 comprises a rod 2 of smokable material with a mouth end 3 and a distal end 4 remote from the mouth end 3. The rod 2 is divided into a first segment 5 and a second segment 6 in abutting end to end relation. The first segment 5 defines the distal end 4 of the rod 2 and the second segment 6 is downstream of the first segment 5 and defines the mouth end 3 of the rod 2.

(5) Further, FIG. 1 shows a mouthpiece 7, which is in end to end relation with the second segment 6. A tipping material 9 is wrapped around the mouthpiece 7 and a portion of the second segment 6, in order to connect the mouthpiece 7 to the rod 2. The first segment 5 and the second segment 6 are connected by a cigarette wrapper 8. Although it is not illustrated by FIG. 1, according to another embodiment the first and the second segments 5, 6 might also be wrapped by a high porosity wrapping material, which lies under the cigarette wrapper 8. The porosity of the cigarette wrapper 8 is lower than the porosity of the high porous material allocated under the cigarette wrapper 8.

(6) The first segment 5 is filled with a first blend of smokable material and the second segment 6 is filled with a second blend of smokable material. The first blend is an American blend and comprises a first level of ammonia and the second blend is a Virginia blend and comprises a second level of ammonia. The second level of ammonia is lower than the first level of ammonia.

(7) As discussed above, an American blend will typically produce less formaldehyde when it is burned in the first few puffs than the amount of formaldehyde that would be produced by a Virginia blend if it were placed at the distal end of the cigarette. As such, the configuration shown in FIG. 1 produces a reduced amount of formaldehyde relative to other cigarettes.

(8) As shown by FIG. 1, the rod 2 can be divided into the first and the second segment 5, 6 with segment 5 being shorter than segment 6, for example about 12 mm long. Alternatively, depending on the flavor to be delivered to the smoker, the length of the first or the second segment can be shortened or lengthened.

(9) The first blend in the first segment 5 in FIG. 1 comprises an American blend tobacco. The American blend tobacco comprises flue cured and burley tobacco material, along with certain amounts of reconstituted tobacco, expanded tobacco and stem material (which are collectively referred to as other tobacco material). The first blend as used for the first segment 5 as illustrated by FIG. 1 comprise about 25% burley tobacco, about 25% flue cured tobacco and about 50% of other tobacco material. This kind of composition of tobacco materials is typical for an American blend tobacco as used in the invention. By contrast, the second blend of the second segment as illustrated by FIG. 1 comprises a Virignia blend that includes about 100% flue cured tobacco material. No other tobacco material is included in the Virginia blend.

(10) As examples, four prototype cigarette designs were produced. The four prototypes each comprise a two-segmented smoking article wherein each segment was the same length (each 50% of the total length of the tobacco rod). Prototype 1 included two segments, both of them having identical American blend tobacco in each segment. The American blend comprised the types and amounts of tobaccos referred to in the previous paragraph, and the total amount of ammonia in the American blend was about 0.14 weight percent of the tobacco material in the entire blend (including both lamina and other portions of the blend such as other tobacco material). Prototype 2 includes two segments, with the first distal segment being the American blend referred to above and the second downstream segment being the Virginia blend referred to in the previous paragraph. Prototype 3 included the same two segments as prototype 2, but in opposite order. Prototype 4 included two segments, both of them having the identical Virginia blend in each segment. The Virginia blend was the same as that used in prototypes 2 and 3, and the total amount of ammonia in the Virginia blend was about 0.05 weight percent of the tobacco material in the entire blend.

(11) FIG. 2 shows the results of the smoke testing for all of the prototypes. Prototype 2, with American blend at the tip (with the relatively high content of burley) shows that the amount of formaldehyde produced is relatively lower than prototype 3, in which the order of the segments were switched. Prototype 2 also produced less formaldehyde than prototype 3, which has Virginia blend throughout the tobacco rod. The results also show that the amount of TSNA may be relatively reduced by including an American blend along only a portion of the tobacco rod. Prototype 1, with both segments including American blend tobacco, has the highest TSNA delivery in the smoke. Prototypes 2 and 3, with one half of the tobacco rod replaced by Virginia blend, had relatively lower amounts of TSNA in the smoke. Prototype 4, with both segments having Virginia blend, had the lowest relative TSNA level in the smoke. Testing for the amount of formaldehyde and TSNA in smoke was performed using the Health Canada Intense method.

(12) When testing for the amount of TSNA in tobacco, the following test was used: Using a standard oven volatiles test, a portion of the tobacco sample is tested to determine the moisture content of the tobacco. 0.75 grams of another portion of the tobacco sample was placed in a flask. A standard solution was produced by adding to acetonitrile, 2 g/mL (final concentration) of a standard for the TSNA species to be measured (for example, the standard for NNN is D4-NNN). 300 L of this standard solution was added to the flask. 30 mL of ammonium acetate (100 mM solution) was then added to the flask. The solution was stirred for 30 minutes with a rotating stirrer. The solute portion is then passed through a LC-MSMS (Liquid Chromatography Mass Spectrometer/Mass Spectrometer) system in order to quantify the amount of TSNA, and the amount of TSNA is provided on a dry tobacco basis.

(13) When testing for the amount of ammonia in tobacco, the following test was used: The tobacco was ground and run through a 1.0 mm mesh to obtain ground tobacco. Using a standard oven volatiles test, the moisture content was determined of a 7-8 gram sample of the ground tobacco. A second sample of 0.5 grams of the ground tobacco that was not been subjected to the oven volatiles test was placed in a flask. 100 mL of 5% acetic acid solution was added to this 0.5 gram sample and it was shaken for 30 minutes. The extract was then passed through a pleated filter, which produced the sample for analysis. This sample was then run through a Skalar flow analyzer and the result was used to calculate the percent of ammonia based on the dry weight of tobacco.