Philip Morris USA Inc.

Philip Morris Products S.a.

Robert C Lanier, Jr

Stephen J Bellamah

Steven M Campbell

Tejinder Gill

Martin T Garthaffner

Charles Gary Atwell

John Dawson

A filter making apparatus includes a positioning device having a passageway therethrough, with the passageway guiding a continuous flavor element such as a continuous strand of textile material from an inlet of the passageway to an outlet of the passageway. A liquid flavorant is introduced into the passageway at a desired flow rate and the strand of material carries the supplied liquid flavorant out of the positioning device at a rate substantially equal to the desired flow rate. A portion of the passageway can form a bath of the liquid flavorant supplied to the passageway through a separate inlet at approximately atmospheric pressure. A portion of the positioning device guides the continuous strand of material through the bath, or guides the strand to pass along the bottom of the passageway, and the saturated or partially saturated strand of material then exits from an outlet of the passageway to a point in the path of filter tow material that is being converged to form a filter rod.

Method and apparatus for making cigarette filters with a centrally located flavored element

The present invention is directed at various apparatus, systems and methods for forming a sealed concentric or sealed concentric hollow core tobacco rod. The methods of the invention at least comprise passing a trimmed column of metered tobacco and paper between a tongue and garniture to form a concentric shaped tobacco rod or tobacco rod with an inner hollow core; maintaining the concentric shape; and outputting a sealed concentric tobacco rod or a concentric hollow tobacco rod.

Concentric core tobacco rod maker with air transporter

A system and process for monitoring a continuous element being incorporated within a cigarette filter includes a light source and a photoresponsive device facing each other and on opposite sides of a measuring gap, and passing the continuous element through the measuring gap and detecting movement of the continuous element by the effect of the movement on at least one light beam present between the light source and the photoresponsive device. Individual lengths of the continuous cigarette filter rod being produced can be selectively rejected based on a determination of whether the continuous element has a break or a knot along its length.

Process and system for monitoring a continuous element being incorporated within a cigarette filter

A flavor monitoring system comprises a photo-ionization detector based sensor for measuring the amount of flavor in flavored cigarette filters The sensor has an intake port and an exit port open to the atmosphere. An enclosure with a removable cover is connected to the intake port of the sensor, and the enclosure is constructed and arranged to receive a flavored cigarette filter to be analyzed. The photo-ionization detector based sensor draws a gaseous sample from the flavored filter within the enclosure, ionizes the flavor sample and displays a reading representative of the amount of flavor in the filter. Subsequently the reading may be converted to a flavor amount in milligrams by multiplying the reading by a correlation factor.

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Moseley, VA, United States of America

Robert C Lanier, Jr