FR2598599A1 - IMPROVEMENTS IN OR RELATING TO SMOKING ARTICLES - Google Patents

Abstract

A CIGARETTE 1 INCLUDES AT ITS END ON THE MOUTH SIDE A BUFFER CARRYING NICOTINE 7 IN A POLYMERIC PRODUCT SUCH AS POLYETHYLENE, POLYPROPYLENE AND POLYSTYRENE. WHEN SMOKING THIS CIGARETTE, THE NICOTINE CONTENT IN THE MAIN STREAM OF SMOKE IS HIGHER THAN THAT OF THE SMOKE AT THE OUTLET OF THE DOWNSTREAM END OF THE TOBACCO BLANKET 2.

Description

ANIELIORATIONS CONCERNA [TIS ARTICLES A FUNER

  The present invention relates to smoking articles. We have proposed imitations in patents

  smoking articles comprising a tubular sheath and a support body disposed within the sheath.

  According to these proposals, the support is treated with an agent which volatilizes when air is sucked through the sheath. Proposals of this nature are contained in US Pat. Nos. 2,721. 551, 2,800,638 and 10,404,692, in South African patent no. 697,737 and in British patent no. 2,032,244. According to US Pat. Nos. 2,860,638, ZA no. 697,737 and GB no. 2,032,244, the volatile agent with which the

  carrier is, or may be nicotine.

  Means have also been proposed in other patents for increasing the content of nicotine in the main smoke stream in cigarettes. US Patent No. 3,422,819 proposes to treat the paper envelope of a cigarette with a nicotine salt, the cigarette 20 being provided with a second outer envelope to prevent the envelope treated with the nicotine salt from coming in contact with the smoker's lips. British Patent No. 1,032,330 proposes to contact a particulate ion exchange resin with nicotine and to incorporate into cigarette filters

  the resulting nicotine-ion exchange resin complex.

  According to the specification of US Pat. No. 3,584,630, the nicotine is adsorbed on a finely divided weak adsorbent, which is then incorporated into tobacco or into tobacco smoke filters. The preferred adsorbents in US Patent No. 3,584.G30 are types of carbon black. European patent no. 74445 describes imitations of smoking articles comprising a short carbonaceous combustible element and a substrate carrying an aerosol forming substance, the combustible element and the substrate both being in contact with conduction means. the heat. Nicotine can be

carried on the substrate.

  It is an object of the present invention to provide, in an improved manner, a cigarette, or similar smoking article, in which, when smoked, the nicotine content of the smoke from the cigarette is greater than the nicotine content of the smoke as it exits through the downstream end of the rod

cigarette smoking product.

  It is another object of the present invention to advantageously provide means by which the nicotine / tar ratio of the main smoke stream of a smoking article can be increased regardless of the nicotine content of the article.

  smoking product of this smoking article.

  The present invention provides a smoking article comprising a rod of smoking product and a nicotine release element attached to the rod at the mouth side end thereof, this element comprising a body permeable to smoke from a polymer product consisting only of carbon and hydrogen atoms, the surface of this product being hydrophobic and devoid of chemical functionality, said body carrying nicotine, resulting in that, when smoking this article, the smoke sucked through this element from the rod causes the release

  in the nicotine smoke from the body.

  The smoking product is preferably made up

  with tobacco, which tobacco is appropriately in the conventional form of scaferlati.

  Tobacco can be of the air-dried, flue-cared, Burley or oriental type, or it can be a mixture of these 3.5 types. A certain proportion of the tobacco may be tobacco which has been subjected to an expansion process. The smoking product may also include a reconstituted tobacco product or a tobacco substitute. Preferably, the smoking product comprises

a source of nicotine.

  The rod of smoking product may have a passage extending to its downstream end, from which it follows that, when this article is smoked, the hot smoke is transported to the downstream end of the rod. For further details of smoking articles having such a passage, reference may be made to British Patent No. 2,149,287 A. The polymer product may be a fibrous, cellular or particulate product, and the body of this polymer product has , suitably, a cylindrical shape. The upstream and / or downstream end of the body of nicotine-bearing polymer product may be in abutment against

  a filter pad, for example made of cellulose acetate.

  Appropriate use is made of both upstream and downstream filter pads if the polymeric product

  present in particulate form.

  The polymer product of the nicotine-bearing body is advantageously polyethylene. Other suitable products are: polypropylene and polystyrene. The use of such products provides notable advantages over previous proposals. These products can closely conform to predetermined physical and chemical specifications. One can also precisely form such products, for example by extruding them to obtain a rod from which these cylindrical pads can be cut. These pads can be used as

  which is to say, they do not require to be wrapped in a cuff for dimensional stability. Furthermore, these products are inexpensive and are suitable for use in cigarette manufacturing processes.

  The nicotine carried by the polymeric product body can be free nicotine, a nicotine salt or a nicotine derivative. In addition to nicotine, one or more volatile perfumes can be incorporated into the body of the polymer product, menthol being such a perfume. The nicotine carried by the nicotine-carrying body must be in direct contact with the polymer product of the body, i.e. it must not

to be locked up.

  If the nicotine of the nicotine release element is free nicotine, another smoke permeable element, which other element carries an acid, may be disposed adjacent to the nicotine release element. By virtue of such an arrangement, with appropriate relative charges of nicotine and acid, it is possible to form, when smoking the smoking article, a salt having a pH value of between 5 15 and 7. The resulting variation in the current pH

  smoke principal, which could otherwise be greater than 7, is used to enhance the sensory characteristics of smoke. Lactic acid and tartaric acid are suitable for this purpose of pH regulation.

  Although it is possible to load a pH control acid onto the nicotine release element at the very place where the nicotine is located, it has been found that with such an arrangement the nicotine content of the stream main smoke was not much higher than that of smoke exiting the downstream end of the smoking rod. A much more effective arrangement is to charge the acid on a separate member disposed adjacent to the nicotine release member. The separate acid carrying member is suitably disposed on the side of the nicotine release member which is furthest from the rod of the smoking product. In another arrangement, the nicotine-releasing element and the acid-carrying element are arranged in the same longitudinal region of the smoking article, these elements occupying respective portions in the cross section of this region. . When this arrangement is adopted, it is preferable to install between the two elements a partition formed by a

vapor impermeable product.

  Figures 1 and 2 of the accompanying drawing show, by way of example, cigarettes produced according to the present invention. The cigarette represented in FIG. 1, which is identified as a whole at 1, comprises a cigarette rod of 64 am 2, a nozzle 3 and a cuff 4 which serves to attach the nozzle 3 and the tube 2. The tube 2 comprises, as a smoking product, a charge of scaferlati flue-cared 5 with low nicotine content, and a envelope of cigarette paper 6. The end piece 3 comprises a cylindrical pad 7 of polyhylene with open cells, which is impregnated with 3 to 10 mg of free nicotine, and a cylindrical filter pad 8 made of cellulose acetate. As can be seen in the drawing, the pad 7, which constitutes the nicotine release element, is placed between the cigarette rod 2 and the filter pad 8

and is in abutment with these.

  When the cigarette 1 is smoked, the tobacco smoke coming from the rod 2 passes through the tampon 7 and, therefore, causes the nicotine contained in this tampon to volatilize. The nicotine vapor and the tobacco smoke then pass through the filter pad 8. In this way, the nicotine content of the main smoke stream is increased compared to the content that would be obtained if the cigarette does not

  did not contain buffer 7 loaded with nicotine.

  The cuff 4 can be perforated at the level of the pad 7 and / or of the pad 8 to allow the entry of ventilation air. Preferably, if there are ventilation perforations, these must be

  located in the buffer region 8.

  The cigarette 1 'shown in Figure 2 has similar marks to those in Figure 1 with respect to the like parts. The cigarette 1 ′ in FIG. 2 has the same structure as the cigarette 1 in FIG. 1, except that the end piece 3 comprises, in place of the filter pad, another cylindrical pad r of open cell polyethylene marked at 8 ′ . The pad 8 ', which has the same length and the same physical constitution as the pad 7, is impregnated

lactic acid.

  It was found that when the buffer 7 of the cigarette of FIG. 2 was impregnated with 10 mg of free nicotine and that the buffer 8 ′ of this cigarette was impregnated with 10 mg of lactic acid, the nicotine content of the main stream of smoke flowing through the 8 'pad, when smoking a cigarette, was, measured over 9 puffs of a smoking machine, increased by approximately 75% compared to a homogeneous control cigarette, that is to say - say without tip, having the same cigarette rod as the cigarette of figure 15 2. Expressed as a percentage of the particulate matter (water and free nicotine), the nicotine in the main stream of smoke reached 13, while in the case of the control cigarette, this percentage was

only 5.8.

  We could get with the cigarette from the

  Figure 1 an increase in the nicotine content of the main smoke stream similar to that obtained by the cigarette of Figure 2, if the buffer 7 of the cigarette of Figure 1 was loaded with 10 mg of nicotine.

  In another test, the contents of puff by puff nicotine were measured for cigarettes, each of which included a tobacco rod from a standard English cigarette with a medium tar content, a cellulose acetate filter element of mm in length. stop with the tobacco rod and a 10 mm long nicotine release element in stop with the filter element. The nicotine release was a polyethylene pad impregnated with 10.8 mg of nicotine. The nicotine contents of the smoke coming from these cigarettes were compared to those of control cigarettes constituted by tobacco rods of the same standard type mentioned above with medium tar content and by cellulose acetate filter elements of 10 mmn length as in the case of experimental cigarettes. This test showed that the average increase in the nicotine content of the smoke of the experimental cigarettes containing the nicotine release element, compared to the control cigarettes, decreased by 0.10 mg from puff n '1 until 0.07 lg for the final puff, the

puff 7.

REVEI [IICATIOIS

  1. - Smoking article (1) comprising a tube (2) of a smoking product (5) and a nicotine release element (7) fixed on the mouth side end of this tube, characterized in that this element 5 (7) comprises a body permeable to the smoke of a polymer product consisting only of carbon and hydrogen atoms, the surface of this product being hydrophobic and devoid of chemical functionality, this body carrying nicotine, or it follows that when smoking this smoking article, the smoke sucked through this element from the rod causes the release

  in the nicotine smoke contained in this body.

  2. - smoking article according to claim 1, characterized in that the polymer product is chosen from the group comprising polyethylene,

polypropylene and polystyrene.

  3. - Smoking article according to any one of

  claims 1 and 2, characterized in that the

nicotine is free nicotine.

  4. - Smoking article according to any one of the

  Claims 1, 2 and 3, characterized in that the smoking product consists, at least mainly, of tobacco, and in that, when smoking this article, the nicotine content in the main stream of smoke n is no more than 50% greater than the nicotine content in homogeneous control cigarette smoke.

  5. - Smoking article according to any one of

  previous claims, characterized in that the nicotine content of the main smoke stream is between 0.05 and 3.0 mg.

  6. - Smoking article according to any one of

  previous claims, characterized in that when smoking this article the ratio of nicotine in the main stream of smoke to the particulate matter, water and free nicotine therein

  I 9 main stream of smoke, is greater than the same

  report in the case of a homogeneous control cigarette.

  7. - Smoking article according to any one of

  preceding claims, characterized in that it comprises, in the region of the tip of this article, a

  acid (8) which can react with nicotine to

get a salt.

  8. - smoking article according to claim 7,

  characterized in that this acid is disposed at a location other than nicotine.

  9. - Smoking article according to any one of

  previous claims, characterized in that this

item is a cigarette.

  10. - Smoking article according to any one of the preceding claims, characterized in that the

smoking product is scaferlati.