SMOKING ARTICLE INCLUDING ACIDS

Description

TECHNICAL FIELD

The present disclosure relates to a smoking article including acids.

BACKGROUND ART

In general, tobacco refers to a perennial plant belonging to the Solanaceae of the dicotyledonous plant order, and recently, also collectively refers to a product manufactured for the purpose of smoking in which leaves of tobacco are wrapped with cigarette paper and a filter portion is formed at one side. There are thousands of kinds of cigarettes worldwide, and cigarettes have been released in various shapes and forms.

Tobacco smoke is generated when tobacco is burned or heated. Tobacco smoke generated through smoking may be divided into mainstream smoke delivered to a mouth by passing through a tobacco filter, and sidestream smoke generated in the air without passing through the filter. Such tobacco smoke includes nicotine.

Nicotine in tobacco smoke includes free nicotine and nicotine salts. Nicotine salts provide a mild taste with relatively low irritation, but free nicotine causes sharp and minor irritation and a harsh tobacco taste during smoking to impair a smoker's satisfaction with smoking.

There is a demand for tobacco that may reduce a negative smoking taste, that is, sharp and minor irritations, off-flavors and off-odors, and the like, caused by smoke components, during smoking. Accordingly, attempts have been made to form a nicotine salt by adding an acid that may neutralize free nicotine, however, There is a continuing need for smoking articles that provide more improved smoking tastes.

DISCLOSURE OF THE INVENTION

Technical Goals

Accordingly, to overcome the above problems and/or limitations of existing technologies, a composition containing at least one from a group consisting of pyruvic acid, lactic acid, and citric acid is applied to a filter portion and a cigarette column portion of a smoking article. Pyruvic acid, lactic acid, and citric acid are most excellent in stability and irritation reduction effect among various acids added to a smoking article, and thus the present disclosure has been completed. Here, the filter portion and the cigarette column portion may contain compositions that are identical to or different from each other. An aspect is to provide a smoking article that provides the most excellent smoking taste by applying a combination of the above acids to the filter portion and the cigarette column portion.

However, goals obtainable from the present disclosure are not limited to the above-mentioned goal, and other unmentioned goals can be clearly understood from the following description by one of ordinary skill in the art to which the present disclosure pertains.

Technical Solutions

According to an embodiment of the present disclosure, there is provided a smoking article including a filter portion and a cigarette column portion. The filter portion and the cigarette column portion may contain compositions that are identical to or different from each other, and the compositions may include at least one selected from a group consisting of pyruvic acid, lactic acid, and citric acid.

Effects

Using the present disclosure, it is possible to reduce negative irritations during smoking, provide a soft tobacco taste, and increase smoking satisfaction.

It should be understood that the effects of the present disclosure are not limited to the above-described effects, but are construed as including all effects that can be inferred from the configurations and features described in the following description or claims of the present disclosure.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating a smoking article 100 including a filter portion 10 and a cigarette column portion 20 according to an embodiment of the present disclosure.

BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION

Hereinafter, embodiments will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawing. However, various alterations and modifications may be made to the embodiments. Here, the embodiments are not meant to be limited by the descriptions of the present disclosure. The embodiments should be understood to include all changes, equivalents, and replacements within the idea and the technical scope of the disclosure.

The terminology used herein is for the purpose of describing particular embodiments only and is not to be limiting of the embodiments. The singular forms “a”, “an”, and “the” are intended to include the plural forms as well, unless the context clearly indicates otherwise. It will be further understood that the terms “comprises/comprising” and/or “includes/including” when used herein, specify the presence of stated features, integers, steps, operations, elements, and/or components, but do not preclude the presence or addition of one or more other features, integers, steps, operations, elements, components and/or groups thereof.

Unless otherwise defined, all terms including technical and scientific terms used herein have the same meaning as commonly understood by one of ordinary skill in the art to which the embodiments belong. It will be further understood that terms, such as those defined in commonly-used dictionaries, should be interpreted as having a meaning that is consistent with their meaning in the context of the relevant art and will not be interpreted in an idealized or overly formal sense unless expressly so defined herein.

When describing the embodiments with reference to the accompanying drawing, like reference numerals refer to like components and a repeated description related thereto will be omitted. In the description of embodiments, detailed description of well-known related structures or functions will be omitted when it is deemed that such description will cause ambiguous interpretation of the present disclosure.

In addition, terms such as first, second, A, B, (a), (b), and the like may be used to describe components of the embodiments. These terms are used only for the purpose of discriminating one component from another component, and the nature, the sequences, or the orders of the components are not limited by the terms.

A component, which has the same common function as a component included in any one embodiment, will be described by using the same name in other embodiments. Unless otherwise described, the description on one embodiment may be applicable to another embodiment and thus, redundant description will be omitted for conciseness.

The term “smoking article” used herein may refer to an article capable of generating an aerosol, such as a cigarette (tobacco), cigar, and the like. The smoking article may include an acrosol generating material, or an aerosol forming substrate. In addition, the smoking article may include a solid material based on tobacco raw materials such as a reconstituted tobacco sheet, cut tobacco leaves, reconstituted tobacco, and the like. A smoking material may include a volatile compound.

A smoking article 100 according to an embodiment of the present disclosure may include a filter portion 10 and a cigarette column portion 20. The filter portion 10 and the cigarette column portion 20 may contain compositions that are identical to or different from each other, and the compositions may include at least one selected from a group consisting of pyruvic acid, lactic acid, and citric acid.

According to an embodiment of the present disclosure, the filter portion 10 may desirably include pyruvic acid.

Here, the pyruvic acid may be in an amount of 0.01% by weight (wt %) or greater to less than 0.1%, desirably in an amount of 0.03 wt % or greater to less than 0.1 wt %, and most desirably in an amount of 0.04 wt %, with respect to cut tobacco leaves.

In addition, the cigarette column portion 20 may include lactic acid, and desirably include lactic acid and citric acid. Here, the lactic acid may be in an amount of 0.01 wt % or greater to 2 wt % or less and desirably in an amount of 0.1 wt %, with respect to the cut tobacco leaves, and the citric acid may be in an amount of 0.01 wt % or greater to 10 wt % or less, desirably in an amount of 0.1 wt %, with respect to the cut tobacco leaves. However, embodiments are not limited thereto.

If the amounts of the above acids are less than 0.01 wt % with respect to the cut tobacco leaves, free nicotine may fail to be sufficiently neutralized, which may cause sharp and minor irritation. If the amounts of the acids are out of the above ranges, off-flavors and off-odors may be caused by the acids.

In the smoking article 100 according to another embodiment of the present disclosure, the filter portion 10 including 0.01 wt % or greater to less than 0.1% of pyruvic acid with respect to the cut tobacco leaves may further include a flavoring material.

Desirably, the flavoring material may be 0.005% of undecalactone with respect to cut tobacco leaves, but is not limited thereto.

In the smoking article including the filter portion, the cigarette column portion may include 0.01 wt % or greater to 2 wt % or less of lactic acid and 0.01 wt % or greater to 10 wt % or less of citric acid, with respect to cut tobacco leaves.

Hereinafter, configurations of examples are described with reference to a table.

EXAMPLE 1

A smoking article including pyruvic acid in a filter portion and lactic acid and citric acid in a cigarette column portion was manufactured. Here, 0.04 wt % of the pyruvic acid, 0.1 wt % of the lactic acid, and 0.1 wt % of the citric acid are included with respect to cut tobacco leaves.

EXAMPLE 2

A smoking article was manufactured in the same manner as in Example 1, except that only lactic acid was included in the cigarette column portion.

COMPARATIVE EXAMPLE 1

A smoking article including 0.04 wt % of pyruvic acid in a filter portion with respect to cut tobacco leaves was manufactured.

COMPARATIVE EXAMPLE 2

A smoking article including 0.1 wt % of lactic acid in a filter portion with respect to cut tobacco leaves was manufactured.

COMPARATIVE EXAMPLE 3

A smoking article including 0.1 wt % of citric acid in a filter portion with respect to cut tobacco leaves was manufactured.

COMPARATIVE EXAMPLE 4

A smoking article including 0.04 wt % of pyruvic acid in a cigarette column portion with respect to cut tobacco leaves was manufactured.

COMPARATIVE EXAMPLE 5

A smoking article including 0.1 wt % of lactic acid in a cigarette column portion with respect to cut tobacco leaves was manufactured.

COMPARATIVE EXAMPLE 6

A smoking article including 0.1 wt % of citric acid in a cigarette column portion with respect to cut tobacco leaves was manufactured.

COMPARATIVE EXAMPLE 7

A smoking article including 0.04 wt % of pyruvic acid and 0.1 wt % of lactic acid in a filter portion with respect to cut tobacco leaves was manufactured.

EXPERIMENTAL EXAMPLE 1: SENSORY EVALUATION FOR IRRITATION REDUCTION EFFECT ACCORDING TO APPLICATION OF SMOKING ARTICLES

Sensory evaluation was conducted to determine the irritation reduction effect by applying the smoking articles of Examples 1 and 2 and Comparative Examples 1 to 6. Through the sensory evaluation, cigarette tastes that smokers felt during smoking were identified and expressed by numerical values. The sensory evaluation was conducted on “12” evaluation panel members, based on a total score of seven points.

The results of the sensory evaluation are shown in Table 2 below.

Among the cases (Comparative Examples 1 to 3) in which the above acids were added to the filter portions, and the cases (Comparative Examples 4 to 6) in which the above acids were added to the cigarette column portions, the irritation reduction effect of Comparative Example 1 was the best. Accordingly, based on Comparative Example 1 which is most effective, the sensory evaluation was performed by adding an acid to a filter portion or a cigarette column portion.

When pyruvic acid and lactic acid, which were most effective, were added together to the filter portion (Comparative Example 7), a difference in irritation reduction effect from Comparative Example 1 was insignificant, however, a problem of generating acidic and off-flavor due to the lactic acid in the filter portion occurred.

Meanwhile, the Example 2 showed the excellent irritation reduction effect result, in comparison to Comparative Example 1. In other words, when pyruvic acid is added to the filter portion and when lactic acid is added to the cigarette column portion, irritation during smoking may be reduced in comparison to when only pyruvic acid is added to the filter portion.

The smoking article of Example 1 was superior in irritation reduction effect to that of Example 2 and exhibited a more significant effect in reducing irritation than that of Comparative Example 1. That is, when pyruvic acid is added to the filter portion and when lactic acid and citric acid are added to the cigarette column portion, a smoking article that has little of an unpleasant taste and flavor and excellent irritation reduction effect may be provided.

Based on the above experimental example, it can be found that there is an irritation reduction effect within the range of a mass ratio of the acids described in the claims of the present disclosure.

EXPERIMENTAL EXAMPLE 2: SENSORY EVALUATION FOR FLAVOR, SMOKING TASTE, AND IRRITATION ACCORDING TO APPLICATION OF SMOKING ARTICLES

Sensory evaluation was conducted to find out a change in flavor, smoking taste, and irritation by applying the smoking articles of Examples 1 to 3 and Comparative Example 1.

Ingredients and amounts of Examples 1 to 3 and Comparative Example 1 are shown in detail in Table 3 below. For the sensory evaluation, a target material was injected into each of a filter portion and a cigarette column portion by an amount shown in Table 3. Specifically, a target material was diluted in MCTG and injected into each filter portion, and a target material was diluted in alcohol (ethanol) and injected into each cigarette column portion.

TJNS is a transfer jet nozzle system filter, and MCTG is a medium chain fatty acid triglyceride.

The sensory evaluation was conducted on “12” evaluation panel members, based on a total score of seven points. The results of the sensory evaluation are shown in Table 4 below.

The smoking article of Example 1 is excellent in the smoking taste and irritation reduction, in comparison to the control group. Due to acidic odors of acids, the intensity of fragrance was increased.

The result of the sensory evaluation for Example 1 shows the intensity of smoking taste and irritation reduction effect corresponding to the amount of flavoring material added. To the present example, a small amount of undecalactone, which is one of raw flavoring materials and used as a flavoring material to impart a soft taste and flavor to tobacco, was added. The undecalactone was included in an amount of 0.005% with respect to cut tobacco leaves.

Therefore, it can be confirmed that the smoking article, including 0.01 wt % or greater to less than 0.1 wt % of pyruvic acid in the filter portion with respect to cut tobacco leaves and including 0.01 wt % or greater to 2 wt % or less of lactic acid and 0.01 wt % or greater to 10 wt % or less of citric acid in the cigarette column portion with respect to the cut tobacco leaves, is excellent in the effect of reducing irritation and a negative intensity of smoking taste.

While the embodiments are described with reference to drawing, it will be apparent to one of ordinary skill in the art that various alterations and modifications in form and details may be made in these embodiments without departing from the spirit and scope of the claims and their equivalents. For example, suitable results may be achieved if the described techniques are performed in a different order, and/or if components in a described system, architecture, device, or circuit are combined in a different manner, and/or replaced or supplemented by other components or their equivalents.

Therefore, other implementations, other embodiments, and equivalents to the claims are also within the scope of the following claims.