GB871952A - Improved tobacco products and preparation thereof - Google Patents

Abstract

871,952. Treating tobacco. MORRIS Inc., PHILIP. Dec. 22, 1958 [Dec. 24, 1957], No. 41319/58. Class 130. Tobacco stalks or stems cut into small pieces, treated with water or alkalis to loosen the fibres, and then treated in a beating apparatus of the type used in paper-making to produce a slurry containing gelatinized tobacco particles in a colloidal suspension mixed with tobacco fibres of over 2 mm. length, the proportion by weight of fibres to particles being not less than 1 to 3 and not more than 1 to 1. The slurry has sufficient adhesive properties to form coherent sheets on its own, or to form a binder for mixture with dry ground tobacco to form a coherent sheet, or to form a binding layer to both sides of which dry ground tobacco 70, Fig. 6, adheres to form a multi-layer coherent sheet. In Fig. 1 the tobacco is first treated in one or more steps with water in an extractor 11, the extracted liquids being retained at 13, 20, and then with dilute alkaline solutions such as sodium, potassium or ammonium hydroxides heated preferably to a temperature of 120‹ to 150‹ C. After draining, the tobacco is washed and then passed with water into a beating apparatus to form the colloidal slurry to which small amounts of additives such as preservatives, humextants, and adhesives may be added. The slurry is applied as a sheet at 64 to a moistened moving belt 61 to form, after drying at 67, a coherent tobacco sheet which is rolled at 69. The sheet may be subsequently ground up and mixed with tobacco. Alternatively a layer of ground tobacco is applied to the belt 61 at 63, followed by the layer of slurry at 64 and a further layer of ground tobacco at 65, the slurry binding the two tobacco layers into a composite sheet, Fig. 6. The ground tobacco may have various additives such as flavourers or plasticizers added thereto and the sheet may be moistened at 68 by the liquid extract a. In modified processes the preliminary treatment of the ground-up tobacco stems only includes heating them with either water or alkali solutions.