EA004085B1 - Method for improving the filling ability of tobacco - Google Patents

Abstract

1. Method for improving the fillability of tobacco, as cut tobacco leaves or ribs and/or tobacco additives, by treatment of the tobacco material, which has up to approx. 15 wt.% initial moisture with a treatment gas consisting of nitrogen and/or argon at pressures of 50 to 1,000 bar with continuous or graduated compression followed by continuous or graduated decompression, the compression or decompression stages being carried out in either one autoclave or with cascade-type switching in several autoclaves, followed by thermal aftertreatment of the tobacco material discharged, characterised in that the compression is carried out at an operating temperature above 55 degree C. 2. Method according to claim 1, characterised in that the compression is carried out at an operating temperature of 60 to 90 degree C. 3. Method according to claim 1, characterised in that the initial moisture of the tobacco material lies within the range of 8 to 14 wt%.

Description

The invention relates to a method of improving the ability to dense packing of tobacco materials, such as cut tobacco leaves, or the veins of a tobacco leaf, or herbal supplements in tobacco, by treating tobacco material, having about 15 wt.% Of the initial moisture, with a treatment gas consisting of nitrogen and / or argon, at pressures of 50-1000 bar with continuous or stepwise compression, followed by continuous or stepwise decompression, and the operations of compression and decompression are performed either in an autoclave or in cascade ohm inclusion in several autoclaves, and by subsequent thermal treatment of the discharged tobacco material.

Such methods, also known as the method of swelling GISOM, turned out to be an advantage over the treatment of tobacco under pressure with carbon dioxide, ammonia or volatile organic gases. So, for example, patent ΌΕ 31 19 330 describes a similar method of expansion at 0-50 ° С prevailing in an autoclave, with the use of tobacco material with a moisture content of up to 15% by weight and subsequent treatment with water vapor to increase the filling capacity of tobacco or the degree of expansion. . At the same time, they were guided by the fact that a lower humidity of tobacco of 10-15 wt.% Leads to an undesirable stronger cooling of the discharged tobacco material with a decrease in pressure.

In addition, patent No. 34 14 625 C2 discloses a cascade method whereby different measures, such as cooling the treatment gas before loading the reactor, cooling the autoclave, or using supercooled and liquefied treatment gas, should cause a lower temperature during tobacco impregnation. Although the moisture content of tobacco can be any and, for example, be 10-30 wt.%, However, it is imperative that the temperature of the autoclave and, accordingly, its cooling water temperature not exceed 50 ° C.

According to patent No. 39 35 774 C2, this is confirmed in connection with the cascade method of expansion, which provides for the circulation of the treatment gas in the cooler to observe the necessary low impregnation temperatures of 25-45 ° C.

Although in the aforementioned puffing methods, good values are already achieved in terms of increasing the packing capacity of tobacco and the degree of puffing, they are associated with relatively high costs due to the necessary cooling of the autoclave or autoclaves and due to the additional cooling of the treatment gas.

The basis of the invention lies in the task of improving the previous methods of puffing up GISOM and, with equally good or better values for the ability to pack tobacco tightly or the effect of puffing, to avoid uneconomical cooling measures during compression, which were still considered necessary.

Therefore, in accordance with the invention, a method of the above type is proposed according to the restrictive part of the claim, which is characterized in that the decompression is carried out at a reactor temperature of more than 55 ° C.

Unexpectedly, it turned out that at low moisture values of tobacco in the range of up to 15 wt.%, The previous technical solution, which requires a low processing temperature, does not lead to optimal swelling results. Moreover, only by increasing the processing temperature during compression in an unexpected way could good values be obtained for the swelling effect and the ability for dense packing.

In addition, in accordance with the method, this has the advantage that no heat of compression should be removed, that is, no additional cooling of the autoclave or autoclaves is required.

In the following example, the method according to the invention is explained in comparison with the prior art. The results of the experiments show, for different humidity values, the different influence of the working temperature on the degree of swelling. In accordance with the previous technical solution, when the humidity of tobacco is 18 wt.%, An increase in the operating temperature above 40 ° C leads to a deterioration in the swelling effect. In contrast, when the moisture content of tobacco is less than 15 wt.%, There are obvious improvements when high pressure treatment is carried out at operating temperatures of 60 and 80 ° C. Surprisingly, the achievable values of the degree of swelling are at lower humidity values and higher operating temperatures, even partially higher than those obtained under generally accepted conditions.

Example

The high pressure treatment was carried out in a laboratory autoclave with an applied content of 2 liters. To set the required operating temperature served as a casing for the circulation of liquid media. The pressure was increased from the bottom, the pressure went up. Several valves provided conceived switching schemes. The compressor served to set the final pressure. The thermocouple measured the temperature of the tobacco in the upper segment of the tobacco load.

The laboratory device for the subsequent heat treatment of tobacco consisted of an improvement in the capacity for dense packing and, accordingly, the degree of expansion, which serves as a conveyor belt.

permeable wire mesh, guide plates to form a ribbon of tobacco leaves of the required width, a steam nozzle with a slit outlet, and a steam suction device located under the ribbon. Subsequent processing was carried out with saturated steam.

The most important processing parameters are shown in the following table. one.

Table 1

High pressure treatment Subsequent heat treatment Gas supply Below Steam production About 10 kg / h Gas outlet Up Nozzle slot About 8 mm Amount of tobacco 300 g Slot width About 160 mm Tobacco capacity PVC pipe / slatted floor Innings About 5 cm / s

Tobacco samples were straightened in flat plastic cups and conditioned in standard climatic conditions at a temperature of 21 ° C and a relative humidity of 62%. The capacity for dense packing of tobacco was determined using a Borgwaldt densitometer and the specific volumes were counted in ml / g for a given humidity of 12% by weight and a given temperature of 22 ° C. From the data of the raw comparative sample, and the base and the loosened sample, the relative improvement in the dense packing capacity of tobacco, also called the degree of swelling, is calculated by the following formula, in which P _в means the capacity for dense packing of the base and Re means the capacity for dense packing of the loosened tobacco:

Δ% = (Ρε-Ρβ) * 100% / Ρβ

The experiments were carried out with the moisture values of tobacco 8, 12 and 14, as well as a comparison of 18 wt.%. Operating temperatures were set by temperature control of 40, 60 and 80 °. The final pressure was 700 bar, the pressure decrease was carried out in the time interval of about 0.5 min. All experiments were based on a single blend of virgin tobacco and on the described methods for further processing with saturated steam.

The results of the experiments are shown in the following table. 2, the results of comparative experiments - in table. 2a In tab. T _And means the temperature of the tobacco directly after removal from the autoclave and Δ% - relative

table 2

Slave. temp. ° C Humidity tobacco 8 wt.% Humidity tobacco 12 wt.% Humidity tobacco 14 wt.% ° С Ta δ% ° С Ta δ% ° С Ta δ% 40 61 - 59 53 - 70 48 - 76 60 48 - 70 25 - 79 18 - 83 80 15 - 78 -3 81 0 73

Table 2a

Operating temperature, ° С Humidity tobacco 18 wt.% Ta ° C δ% 40 -41 80 60 -12 76 80 one 54

A comparison of the above table clearly shows the positive effect of higher temperatures of 60-80 ° C on improving the capacity for dense packing, when tobacco is used with moisture values less than 15% by weight.

Claims (3)

1. A method of improving the ability to densely pack tobacco, for example chopped tobacco leaves, veins of tobacco leaf or herbal additives in tobacco, by treating tobacco material having not more than 15 wt% of the original moisture with a processing gas consisting of nitrogen and / or argon, at a pressure of 50-1000 bar during continuous or stepwise compression, followed by continuous or stepwise decompression, the compression and decompression operations being carried out either in an autoclave or when cascading in several autoclaves, and by subsequent heat treatment of the unloaded tobacco material, characterized in that the compression is carried out at a working temperature above 55 ° C. 2. The method according to claim 1, characterized in that the compression is carried out at an operating temperature of 60-90 ° C. 3. The method according to claim 1, characterized in that the initial moisture content of the tobacco material is from 8 to 14 wt.%.