EP2730180B1 - Tobacco preparation product - Google Patents

Description

The invention relates to the field of tobacco preparation in the context of the production of smoking articles, in particular cigarettes. Specifically, the invention relates to a tobacco preparation product obtained by a tobacco preparation method in which a tobacco material is prepared by at least one extrusion process.

In conventional tobacco processing most of the process steps, such as conditioning, sifting, cutting, drying and expanding, are carried out in separate standard apparatuses such as drums, steaming tunnels, air-stream dryers, belt dryers and the like. All these apparatuses are fed with tobacco as bulk material. During the process, the tobacco is generally not subjected to any particular compression; an exception here is only tobacco cutting. The tobacco is thus largely processed with its natural filling capacity, and this results in large-volume processing equipment that must be placed in appropriate buildings.

From the DE 10 2004 043 833 it is known to arrange processing equipment on top of each other ("vertical tobacco preparation") to reduce the space requirement. Of course, tall buildings must be provided for this purpose. Furthermore, it is common practice to use buffer boxes for decoupling processes, which in turn increases the overall space requirements.

A typical example of a specialized standard tobacco preparation according to the prior art is the FIG. 5 refer to. The different tobaccos have individual processing lines, and each box in FIG. 5 represents a process step with associated apparatus. The different apparatus are connected to conveying elements such as gutters or ribbons. A process step can often be represented by different apparatuses, ie the work step Drying can be carried out for example in a drum dryer or air dryer. The partially observed and evolutionary versatility of tobacco preparations is fundamentally opposed to the concern of standardization.

As a rule, tobacco preparation plants are difficult to relocate when consolidating plant structures, since often tailor-made solutions can not easily be transferred to other locations.

From the DE 10 2004 059 388 B4 A method for the production of shredded tobacco material is known, wherein it is shown how a shredded, fibrous material is produced from tobacco rib material with the aid of a screw extruder, which can be used directly in smoking products.

Furthermore, in the DE 10 2005 006117.6 discloses a method which allows to extrude mixtures of tobacco rib materials with the addition of, for example, tobacco dusts for the production of flavored fibrous materials comparable to cut tobacco and suitable for the direct production of smoking products.

The WO 2006/061117 A1 discloses a method for producing shredded tobacco material in which a tobacco raw material is heated and pressurized, and the heated and pressurized material is passed under relaxation through a shear gap and defibered. Further, it describes an apparatus for producing shredded tobacco material having a pressure chamber having a tobacco material inlet on the low pressure side and a tobacco material outlet on the pressure side and a conveyor.

It is the object of the present invention to provide an optimized tobacco preparation product.

This object is achieved by a tobacco preparation product according to claim 1. The subclaims define preferred embodiments of the invention.

In the tobacco preparation method according to the invention, a tobacco material is prepared by at least one extrusion process, which comprises compression with pressure and temperature increase and mechanical processing and sudden expansion drying of the material at an extruder outlet. The tobacco material, which serves as input material here, according to the invention comprises a tobacco laminate material. In other words, the present invention may use an extrusion process to substantially accomplish the entire tobacco preparation process needed for a laminate material, that is, the highest quality tobacco material. The invention has thus recognized that extrusion is suitable not only for the preparation of tobacco by-products, such as dust, winnowing, cutter knockouts, stem fibers, scraps, short stems, but also as an attractive and compact solution for lamina tobacco preparation especially for a complete replacement of a conventional tobacco preparation. With the present invention, therefore, the realization is realized that such an extrusion is equivalent to a classical tobacco preparation in lines, with a great advantage is that space and energy can be saved and thus an environmentally friendly operation with increased process flexibility can be provided. In particular, the invention can realize an integrated mode of production without the tobacco by-products incurred and guaranteed high material yields. The practiced line specialization (Virginia, Burley, Orient, Rippen) can be maintained in principle.

As regards the compactness of the process according to the invention and its apparatus implementation, this results especially from the processing of a compressed product in the extruder, because this allows more product to be processed in a shorter time and on a smaller control room. Characteristic for the design of production facilities and treatment facilities are the bulk density of the tobacco mixture and the annual nominal capacity. The throughput and thus the annual capacity is a fixed size, whereas the bulk density, which is usually in the range of about 200 kg / m ³ , according to the invention can be influenced. Because the invention manages to run the tobacco processing processes in a "compressed tobacco phase" (at about 800 kg / m ³ ) by the extrusion processing, the processing volume becomes reduced to a quarter. Because additional process steps on the compressed tobacco volume can be performed quasi simultaneously (eg conditioning) in an extruder, there are also time advantages.

Thus, according to the invention, the tobacco laminate material or a tobacco material comprising such a tobacco laminate material can be processed more compactly and faster, and the economic importance of this knowledge according to the invention is considerable, since huge equipment for conditioning, threshing, drying, etc. can be superfluous.

The tobacco material supplied as input material to the method according to the invention may comprise a tobacco laminate material and a tobacco rib material, in particular a mixture of a tobacco laminate material and a tobacco rib material, especially substantially all tobacco leaves. This shows one of the greatest advantages of the present invention, in particular in the mixture processing. Namely, the process can be fed either raw tobacco directly after harvesting as a whole leaf or after threshing in a green leaf threshing plant (GLT) separately as lamina (strips) and rib. Oriental tobaccos basically find their way as a whole leaf into the tobacco industry. The advantages of the possible delivery of mixtures of lamina (tobacco leaf) and ribs are obvious and relate to the merger of separate process steps. If full leaf is used, there is a high saving potential, because the threshing, ie the separation of rib and leaf, practically unnecessary.

The method according to the invention comprises a plurality of extrusion processes, of which at least one material used as input material or a tobacco laminate material, wherein the extruded products produced by the respective extrusion processes together or in mixture form a tobacco preparation product. The advantage of such an arrangement is that the various tobacco materials can also be processed differently in the usual way.

• bei zwei Prozessen insbesondere Burley-Tabaklaminamaterial einerseits und ein Gemisch von Virginia- und Orient-Tabaklaminamaterial andererseits getrennt aufbereitet werden, und
• bei drei Prozessen insbesondere Burley-Tabaklaminamaterial, Virginia-Tabaklaminamaterial und Orient-Tabaklaminamaterial getrennt aufbereitet werden.

One of the extrusion processes may treat tobacco fin stock while several extrusion processes of the tobacco preparation process may use as input material a tobacco laminate, in particular two or three processes, wherein:

• two processes in particular Burley-Tabaklaminamaterial on the one hand and a mixture of Virginia and Oriental Tobacco Lamamaterial on the other hand are treated separately, and
• in particular, Burley tobacco laminate material, Virginia tobacco laminate material and Orient tobacco laminate material are separately processed in three processes.

The indicated extrusion processes take place in parallel (temporal and spatial), and there is a possibility that one, two, three or more extrusion processes for tobacco laminate material are coupled with an extrusion process for tobacco rib material, the tobacco preparation product resulting from the products of these extrusion processes.

A tobacco preparation unit associated with the tobacco preparation product according to the invention has at least the following components: a metering conveyor and an extruder which performs a compression of a tobacco material with pressure and temperature increase and a mechanical treatment and sudden relaxation drying of the material at the extruder outlet. The components are formed overall as a modular unit for processing a tobacco material comprising a tobacco laminate material. In other words, the tobacco preparation unit on the one hand in its smallest form necessary, but on the other hand with optional additional components a module, so a separate, self-contained unit, which allows flexible use and flexible handling, even spatial displacement. This modular design results in compact and universally applicable, in particular also transportable tobacco preparation units.

• einen dem Dosierförderer vorgeschalteten Tabakmaterialspeicher (1); und
• eine dem Extruder nachgeschaltete Kühlvorrichtung (4) für das extrudierte Tabakvorbereitungsprodukt.

In an extended embodiment, but still in module assembly (in associated individual units, which can always be combined in the same or a similar way and thus form a spatial unit), the tobacco preparation unit still comprises at least one of the following components:

• a tobacco material storage (1) upstream of the dosing conveyor; and
• a downstream of the extruder cooling device (4) for the extruded tobacco preparation product.

Of course, the tobacco preparation aggregate may be configured to be suitable for performing a tobacco preparation process, as described above in various embodiments. In particular, the corresponding unit parts or device parts are provided for this purpose, which are necessary for carrying out the method steps.

In the same sense, an arrangement of several tobacco preparation aggregates is to be designed to carry out one of the methods as explained above with regard to "several extrusion processes". It is possible to provide an aggregate for each extrusion process and to collect the tobacco preparation products of aggregates for further processing in the smoking article production process, in particular to collect on a conveyor (belt conveyor, gutter conveyor, etc.).

• Burley-Tabaklaminamaterial;
• Virginia-Tabaklaminamaterial;
• Orient-Tabaklaminamaterial;
• Tabakrippenmaterial.

For each aggregate, a tobacco material reservoir may be provided with a different input material or a different input material combination, wherein the input material or the input material combination comprises in particular one or a combination of the following materials:

• Burley tobacco lamina;
• Virginia tobacco lamina;
• Orient tobacco lamina;
• Tobacco stem material.

• mindestens einer der Tabakmaterialspeicher ist ein Silo, speziell ein hochgestellter Silo, aus dem das Tabakmaterial nach unten durch Schwerkrafteinwirkung abgegeben wird;
• der Dosierförderer ist ein Schneckenförderer;
• der Extruder ist ein Schneckenextruder mit verstellbarem Scherspaltauslass;
• die Kühlvorrichtung ist ein Förderbandkühler;
• das Tabakvorbereitungsprodukt wird durch ein Förderband vom jeweiligen Aggregat abtransportiert, und gegebenenfalls werden die Produkte mehrerer Aggregate auf einem Förderband gesammelt.

Said aggregate or aggregates of an aggregate arrangement are characterized according to advantageous embodiments by at least one of the following features:

• at least one of the tobacco material stores is a silo, especially a raised silo, from which the tobacco material is discharged downwardly by gravity;
• the dosing conveyor is a screw conveyor;
• the extruder is a screw extruder with adjustable shear gap outlet;
• the cooling device is a conveyor belt cooler;
• the tobacco preparation product is removed by a conveyor belt from the respective unit, and optionally the products of several aggregates are collected on a conveyor belt.

Further, a smoking article or cigarette manufacturing apparatus having an aggregate or aggregate arrangement as described above in various embodiments is disclosed. The aggregate or aggregate arrangement is preceded by a cigarette maker (secondary unit or cigarette manufacturing machine) as a tobacco preparation module (primary module), in particular placed directly on an interface. Here is the universal and optimal usability or handling of modular tobacco preparation with all its advantages visible. The modular tobacco preparation can be shipped anywhere because of their small footprint and high throughput and especially because of the wide adjustment options in terms of quality and quantity of the final product (conditioning in the extruder) and used instead of the previously required large-scale tobacco preparation systems. In particular, it may e.g. already shipped to tobacco manufacturing countries, where - for the reasons given above - can also save the Threshing, so that can be produced much faster, cheaper and more space-saving.

• Entrippungsprozess in der "Green Leaf Threshing Plant", weil eine Ganzblattverarbeitung grundsätzlich möglich ist;
• typische Konditionier- und Schneiderlinien;
• Burley-Prozess-Toasten (Doppeltrocknung);
• Tabaktrocknung durch Kontakt an warmen (heißen) Oberflächen in Trommeln bzw. durch Konvektion in Luftstromtrocknern, Wirbelschichttrocknern oder durch kapazitive Trocknung in Schneckenförderelementen wie Extrudern; und
• Apparate zur Flavourisierung.

In its basic concept and in its various embodiments, tobacco preparation thus implements the following features:
Process steps of conventional tobacco preparations are combined or eliminated altogether, and in addition, a building volume enclosed by a "condensed mode of operation" (building area) is saved. The moisture profile can during Passage between delivery moisture and processing moisture can be varied once to a maximum of 25%, which of course considerably reduces the energy consumption and the accumulation of vapors and exhaust gases. In addition, there are no existing restrictions on the choice of starting materials; it can even be used whole leaf. Process steps that can be saved or replaced are essentially at least some of the following:

• Dipping process in the "Green Leaf Threshing Plant", because a whole leaf processing is basically possible;
• typical conditioning and tailoring lines;
• Burley process toasting (double drying);
• Tobacco drying by contact on warm (hot) surfaces in drums or by convection in air-flow dryers, fluidized bed dryers or by capacitive drying in screw conveyor elements such as extruders; and
• Apparatus for flavoring.

The infrastructure of the cigarette factory is essentially relieved of capacity in terms of capacities of plants subject to emissions legislation, such as Dedusting plants, vapor treatment plants and wastewater treatment plants.

Figur 1

eine schematische Darstellung eines Extrusions-Tabakvorbereitungsmoduls;

Figur 2

Varianten einer Aggregatsanordnung in Tabellenform;

Figur 3

mehrere Tabakvorbereitungsaggregate für unterschiedliche Tabakmaterialien, zusammengeschaltet zu einem Produktionsmodul;

Figur 4

die Zusammenschaltung eines Tabakvorbereitungsmoduls mit einem Zigarettenmaker, zu einer Zigarettenherstellungsanlage bzw. Zigarettenfabrik in schematischer Darstellung; und

Figur 5

die herkömmliche Tabakvorbereitung für verschiedene Tabakmaterialien als Ablaufdiagramm, auf das einleitend bei der Erörterung des Stand des Technik Bezug genommen wurde.

The invention will be explained in more detail below with reference to various embodiments and with reference to the accompanying figures. It may comprise the features described herein individually and in any combination, and be understood as a method, apparatus or use of the corresponding assignable features. In the accompanying drawings show:

FIG. 1

a schematic representation of an extrusion tobacco preparation module;

FIG. 2

Variants of an aggregate arrangement in tabular form;

FIG. 3

a plurality of tobacco preparation aggregates for different tobacco materials interconnected to a production module;

FIG. 4

the interconnection of a tobacco preparation module with a cigarette maker, to a cigarette manufacturing plant or cigarette factory in a schematic representation; and

FIG. 5

the conventional tobacco preparation for various tobacco materials as a flowchart, which was initially referred to in the discussion of the prior art.

• Konditionierung mit Wasser/Dampf ggfs. zusätzlich Casing;
• Verdichtung, Mischen, Erhitzen, Verweilen, Geschmacksbildung, Aromatisierung;
• Formgebung von in der Länge geschnittenen Tabakfasern zu einem Tabakhaufwerk unter Entspannungstrocknung bei gleichzeitiger Wiederherstellung der natürlichen Füllfähigkeit durch Expansion auf Umgebungsdruck.

In the embodiment, in the FIG. 1 has shown, a processing unit, ie an extrusion module on the following components: a mixing silo 1, composed in the tobacco material as a batch and thereby formulating a recipe; a metering screw 2, which makes a volume metering or mass dosage and removes the tobacco material from the silo 1; an extruder 3 to which the metered tobacco material is delivered and in which the following steps are carried out:

• Conditioning with water / steam if necessary additionally casing;
• Compacting, mixing, heating, lingering, flavoring, flavoring;
• Shaping length-cut tobacco fibers into a tabacco-run under relaxation-drying while restoring natural fillability by expansion to ambient pressure.

Finally, the entire module still has the cooling unit 4, which serves to fix the structure and the extraction of adhering vapor. As regards the mixed silo 1, the feeding of this silo with whole packages can be carried out either with the aid of a slicer or a crusher before entering the mixing container. Furthermore, the thus pre-crushed bulk material can then be homogenized with a silo mixer and further processed.

It should be noted that the extruder may include a heatable pressure chamber having a tobacco material inlet on the low pressure side and a tobacco material outlet on the pressure side, and a conveying direction (plug screw for conveying the tobacco material from the inlet to the outlet). The tobacco material outlet has a flow channel cross section (defined by Gap + profiling) for the passage of the tobacco material under relaxation, and the flow channel cross-section preferably has mutually movable gap walls, which may have roughening or profiling. The gap walls can also be moved away from each other and toward each other, biased towards the closed state of the gap and be movable against each other at a fixed or fixed distance (0.01 mm to 2 mm). The roughening may be grooves or cross-profiling, and the gap may be an annular gap, cylinder gap or a conical gap whose gap walls in particular against each other are continuously or intermittently back and forth. The extruder screw may have measures that reduce the chamber volume to the area of the outlet, in particular degressive screw pitches or progressive extruder shafts, and it is possible to arrange mechanical pre-shredding or pre-shredding means in the pressure chamber. At the pressure chamber inlets for conditioning or casing or steam may be present.

The enclosed FIG. 2 shows variants in tabular form together with the number of extruders required (extruder cells or extruder modules). When whole leaf is used without tobacco specialization, minimal extruder is necessary. Then, as in FIG. 1 shown, realized the mixing recipe in a silo of the extrusion module, and it is not differentiated, for example, Virginia, Burley, Orient and ribs process technology. In the case of the use of whole leaf, the proportion of the scaffold cellulase corresponds to the natural content in the leaf and is therefore considered to be particularly advantageous in terms of product properties.

Embodiments are conceivable in which a separate extruder treatment of different tobacco materials or Lamina varieties takes place, and in the second line shows the FIG. 1 a variant in which threshed tobacco used so rib and lamina are treated separately. For this minimal two extruders are necessary, and it can be set different cutting widths for rib and lamina or different Casingvariationen be selected.

If according to the third and fourth variant in FIG. 2 To maintain the classic line specialization, three to four extrusion modules are needed, namely Burley, Virginia, Orient and Rib. The advantage of this approach is that specialization can be provided by different process parameters and casing applications as well as other parameters (burley extruder toasting, etc.). When rib and burley are processed separately, but Virginia and orient together, there are a minimum of three extruders when rib, burley, virginia and orient are processed separately, at least four extruders are needed and the invention becomes a representation of standard tobacco processing but with extruder modules and the associated space savings and all the other advantages already described.

Of course, combinations are possible, such as rib and blade separate processing, Burley, Virginia and Orient being processed together in an extrusion module.

One of the above versions is in the FIG. 3 1, wherein a rib processing module 10, a Virginia / Burley processing module 20 and an Orient module 30 each perform an extrusion tobacco preparation and then deliver the extruded product respectively via the conveyors 15, 25 and 35 to a common conveyor 50, then the Interface for further cigarette making or cigarette maker forms.

The FIG. 4 shows as a whole a cigarette manufacturing device or a "small cigarette factory" with an extrusion module 40 (silo 1, metering screw 2, extruder 3, conveyor 55, dryer 4), which is directly upstream of a cigarette maker 60. Thus, the tobacco preparation module 40 thus belongs to one (or a small group of) cigarette machine (s) in quasi a 1: 1 relationship. With the introduction of such a conception or the modular tobacco preparation, it becomes possible to create independent manufacturing modules for tobacco preparation and cigarette production, and a future factory could consist of integer multiples of such mini-factories, as described in the FIG. 4 are shown. With this concept, an extensive flexibility of the cigarette production or the smoking article production is achieved.

A performance adjustment in terms of tobacco throughput to the cigarette machine need (maker need) can be done either with the metering conveyor of the extruder itself (small adjustment range by speed variations) or with the number of extruders per silo (large adjustment range by multiplying the basic unit). The flavoring can also be included here, for example as proven online flavoring during cigarette production. But it can also be done in advance in a flavor drum along with a mixing of the material before it is passed on to the tobacco silo.

An extrusion cell used in the Figures 3 and 4 For example, with 20, 30 or 40 shown, can need a pitch of 15 x 15m with a capacity of up to 1000kg / h. In summary, it should be noted that the invention provides a resource-saving tobacco processing (energy, vapor attack, etc.), without pretreatment of the tobacco material with a nearly 100% raw material yield in a compact extrusion module.

In a method example of the tobacco processing according to the invention various Virginia grades are provided in the form of strips and mixed in a silo 1 with cutting mixing organs for fibrous plant materials without moisturizing according to a recipe. The batch size is set to 4000 kg. During the mixing, additionally a comminution of the fragile leaf material is consciously accepted. The resulting dust serves to stabilize the process flow. It can be quite advantageous to make tobacco dust or other tobacco small materials from other sources to the recipe component.

The batch prepared in this way is fed to the extruder 3 with the aid of a metering screw 2, where it is formed into a fibrous tobacco product as already described.

The yield is almost 100%. The sudden expansion produces attractive filling capabilities of e.g. 5.1 ml / g and the product is visually indistinguishable from the classic product. The dust or other small tobacco particles are bound during the compression and extrusion process to the resulting fibrous tobacco material, resulting in the high material yield. The produced cigarettes are of high quality and are easily in the range of the quality of the classical tobacco processing. In addition, they are visually indistinguishable from cigarettes that have been used for classic tobacco processing. The hardness of the cigarettes is even improved in the tobacco preparation according to the invention, namely reduced.

The present invention thus makes it possible to produce a perfect smoke product with all the advantages mentioned with regard to the handling of tobacco preparation, its productivity, as well as the savings in parking space, energy and equipment costs.

Claims (7)

1. Tobacco preparation product, obtained by a tobacco preparation method in which a tobacco material is prepared by means of at least one extrusion process which comprises a compression by increasing the pressure and temperature, as well as a mechanical processing and sudden flash drying of the material at an extruder outlet, wherein the tobacco material comprises a tobacco lamina material,
   characterised in that
   the tobacco preparation method comprises several extrusion processes for various tobacco materials, of which processes at least one uses a tobacco lamina material as an input material or material to be prepared, wherein the extrusion products generated by the respective extrusion processes form the tobacco preparation product together or in a mixture, wherein the extrusion processes take place in parallel in the tobacco preparation method.
2. Tobacco preparation product according to claim 1, wherein the tobacco material comprises a tobacco lamina material and a tobacco rib material, in particular comprises a mixture of a tobacco lamina material and a tobacco rib material, specifically substantially comprises entire tobacco leaves.
3. Tobacco preparation product according to claim 1, wherein, in the tobacco preparation method, one of the extrusion processes prepares a tobacco rib material.
4. Tobacco preparation product according to claim 1, wherein, in the tobacco preparation method, several of the extrusion processes use a tobacco lamina material as the input material or material to be prepared, in particular two or three processes, wherein:

   - in two processes, in particular Burley tobacco lamina material, on the one hand, and a mixture of Virginia and Oriental tobacco lamina material, on the other hand, are prepared separately, and

   - in three processes, in particular Burley tobacco lamina material, Virginia tobacco lamina material and Oriental tobacco lamina material are prepared separately.
5. Tobacco preparation product according to one of claims 1 to 4, wherein, in the tobacco preparation method, one, two, three or more extrusion processes for tobacco lamina material are coupled with an extrusion process for tobacco rib material, and the tobacco preparation product results from the products of these extrusion processes.
6. Tobacco preparation product according to one of the preceding claims, wherein tobacco flakes are bonded to the resulting fibrous tobacco material during the extrusion process.
7. Smoking article, in particular cigarette, comprising a tobacco preparation product according to one of the preceding claims.

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