Japan Tobacco Inc.

Other

Katsuhiko Kan

Yukio Nakanishi

Takashi Ogawa

Hiroaki Narita

Hiromi Uematsu

Kensuke Uchiyama

Naohiko Shimono

Hironori Watanabe

Akinori Ota

Mitsuru Chujo

Toshiki Iijima

Shigeru Watanabe

Masaru Sakuma

Yoshio Takai

Yoshisato Miyakoshi

Shinichi Kudo

Kiyotaka Kawai

Kouichi Hagiwara

Masami Nakamura

Sheet tobacco according to the present invention includes a carrier sheet made of nonwoven plant fibers, and a tobacco powder layer formed on the carrier sheet and containing a powder mixture of tobacco lamina powder and binder powder. In a sheet tobacco manufacturing process according to the present invention, a carrier sheet of plant fibers is formed by a nonwoven fabric production process, a tobacco powder layer is formed by spreading the powder mixture on the carrier sheet, and a cover sheet of plant fibers is optionally formed on the tobacco powder layer. Subsequently, the carrier sheet, the tobacco powder layer and the optical cover sheet are all together subjected to heating and pressing, thereby producing sheet tobacco with a two- or three-layer structure. The present invention also provides a manufacturing system for carrying out the sheet tobacco manufacturing process.

Sheet tobacco

A foreign substance eliminating apparatus transfers raw material by passing the raw material between an upstream conveyor ( ) and a downstream conveyor ( ), and detects a foreign substance on the upstream transfer conveyor with a foreign substance detector ( ). An eliminating airflow (R) is ejected from a row of air nozzles ( ) when the detected foreign substance falls down, and deflects the falling direction of the foreign substance. At this point, a small foreign substance (B ) is blown off by the eliminating airflow, and sent to the foreign substancereceiving box ( ). On the other hand, a large foreign substance (B ) goes across the eliminating airflow, and falls down onto the bar screen conveyor ( ). The bar screen conveyor captures the large foreign substance, and removes it outside of the conveyor.

Foreign substance eliminating apparatus

Swollen tobacco material manufacturing method

A method of plumping cut tobacco includes impregnating the cut tobacco with an adjuvant plumping agent and forcing the adjuvant plumping agent to expand in order to inflate the tissues of cut tobacco (plumping step), idly storing the plumped tobacco with a low moisture content level (idle storage step) and remoisturizing the cut tobacco after the idle storage step by adding moisture to achieve a predetermined final moisture content level (moisture content regulating step). With such a method, cut tobacco can be remarkably plumped before it is used for cigarette production.

Method for plumping and moisture regulating cut tobacco

Growing community of inventors

Tokyo, Japan

Katsuhiko Kan