A method for designing cigarette leaf blend formulations

Abstract

This invention pertains to the tobacco industry and specifically relates to a method for designing cigarette blend formulations. Addressing the complexity, time-consuming nature, and high subjectivity of traditional methods, this invention introduces tobacco volatiles into a discharge device. This device breaks down the introduced gas, and a photosensitive coupling element collects the molecular spectral information after the volatiles dissociate. This method directly and efficiently obtains the characteristic peak intensities of key components from various tobacco leaves without the need for complex spectral models. Through sensory evaluation of the tobacco leaves, the aroma, flavor, and smoke characteristics are determined, establishing a correspondence between the aroma, flavor, and smoke characteristics of the tobacco leaves and the characteristic peak intensities of their key components. At this point, different tobacco leaves can be selected according to the personalized needs of the actual blend formulation, their characteristic peak intensities determined, and compared with the characteristic peak intensities of tobacco leaves with known aroma types to confirm the specific aroma. The basic design of the blend formulation is then completed as needed, eliminating the need for extensive manual and repeated smoking experiments. This achieves a scientific, intuitive, and convenient approach to cigarette blend design, and this formulation method is highly targeted and operable.

Description

Technical Field

[0001] This invention belongs to the field of tobacco industry applications, specifically relating to a method for designing cigarette leaf blend formulations. Background Technology

[0002] Due to the complexity of tobacco itself, in traditional cigarette product design, key technical aspects mainly rely on the experience of technical personnel. This means that the work requires a lot of tobacco expertise and rich experience in sensory evaluation and formulation design. This has led to problems such as difficulty in quantifying design indicators, strong subjectivity, and relatively low design efficiency in cigarette product design, resulting in a waste of a lot of raw materials and making it difficult to meet the needs of tobacco technology development.

[0003] The formation of tobacco quality has an objective material basis. If relatively objective and scientific methods are used to quantify differences in tobacco quality, it can provide more direct, accurate, objective, and practical services for cigarette product design and maintenance, realizing a shift from traditional semi-empirical design to scientific design. Therefore, tobacco companies urgently need to use analytical methods combined with scientific formulation methods to achieve efficient and objective quality evaluation and formula maintenance of tobacco leaves, ensuring product quality stability and improving product competitiveness. Some studies have also attempted to establish numerous models and predictive methods for cigarette formula design using information technology and data mining techniques; however, these techniques are very time-consuming, difficult to implement and promote, and lack practicality. Therefore, current cigarette product design still mainly relies on repeated manual experiments.

[0004] The most prominent characteristic of tobacco and tobacco smoke samples is their complex composition, containing thousands of components, making analysis quite challenging. A key objective is to quickly and accurately determine the characteristics of different tobacco leaves, thereby enabling the scientific and efficient design of cigarette blend formulations.

[0005] To address the above problems, this invention is proposed. Summary of the Invention

[0006] There is a correlation between the aroma type of tobacco leaves and their headspace aroma components. This invention utilizes headspace aroma components to characterize the aroma type of tobacco leaves. Specifically, this invention focuses on headspace aroma components and develops a technical means for rapid response analysis, enabling the identification of different tobacco leaf characteristics and thus scientifically and efficiently designing cigarette blend formulations.

[0007] Furthermore, this invention provides a method for designing cigarette blend formulations. Based on the complexity, time-consuming nature, and high subjectivity of traditional methods, it overcomes the limitations of other devices that can only operate in a liquid environment. A simple discharge device is specifically designed to introduce tobacco volatiles into this device. Under a certain voltage environment, the discharge device can break down the introduced gas, causing the volatile components to dissociate. At this point, a photosensitive coupling element is used to collect the molecular spectral information of the dissociated volatiles, thus conveniently obtaining the characteristic peak intensities of key components of the tobacco leaf. This method eliminates the need for establishing complex spectral models and can directly and efficiently obtain the characteristic peak intensities of key components from multiple tobacco leaves. Through sensory evaluation of the tobacco leaves, the aroma type and other characteristics are determined, and the correspondence between the aroma type, taste, smoke characteristics, and other characteristics of the tobacco leaves and their characteristic peak intensities is established and classified. Then, according to the personalized needs of the actual blend formulation, different tobacco leaves can be selected, their corresponding characteristic peak intensities of key components can be collected, and these can be compared with the characteristic peak intensities of key components of tobacco leaves with known aroma types to confirm their specific aroma type. The basic design of the blend formulation can then be completed as needed, without the need for extensive manual repeated smoking experiments. This method makes the design of cigarette leaf formulations more scientific, intuitive, and convenient, and it is highly targeted and easy to implement.

[0008] This invention provides a method for designing cigarette leaf blend formulations, the method comprising the following steps:

[0009] (1) Crush a certain type of tobacco leaves, place them in an empty bottle with an open top, and heat the bottle.

[0010] (2) Introduce carrier gas into the bottle to remove the volatile substances released after the tobacco leaves are heated;

[0011] (3) Introduce the gas carrying volatile substances from step (2) into the discharge device;

[0012] (4) The discharge device breaks down the introduced gas, causing the volatile substances to dissociate. The molecular spectral information of the dissociated volatile substances is collected by the photosensitive coupling component to obtain the characteristic peak intensity of the key components of the tobacco leaf.

[0013] (5) Obtain the characteristic peak intensities of key components of various tobacco leaves using steps (1) to (4);

[0014] (6) Perform sensory evaluation on the various tobacco leaves in step (5), and determine the characteristics of each tobacco leaf by referring to the sensory evaluation results of the tobacco leaves. The sensory evaluation results of each tobacco leaf in step (5) are matched with the intensity of the key component characteristic peaks of the obtained tobacco leaf.

[0015] (7) Classify the characteristic peak intensities of various tobacco components in step (6) according to the sensory evaluation results; the classification is recorded as A, B, C, D, E, F..., and the tobacco leaves under each category are recorded as A1, A2, A3, A4...An, B1, B2, B3, B4...Bn, C1, C2, C3, C4...Cn, D1, D2, D3, D4...Dn, E1, E2, E3, E4...En, F1, F2, F3, F4...Fn...;

[0016] (8) Based on the personalized requirements of the actual target tobacco leaf group formula, select tobacco leaf samples and repeat steps (1)-(4) to obtain the characteristic peak intensity of the key components of the tobacco leaf sample.

[0017] (9) Compare the characteristic peak intensity of the tobacco sample obtained in step (8) with the characteristic peak intensity of each characteristic peak in the classification set in step (7). If the average deviation of the characteristic peak intensity in the key component spectrum is less than 1%, the result is considered to be a match, thereby determining the sensory characteristics of the tobacco sample in step (8).

[0018] (10) Continue to select tobacco leaf samples according to actual needs, and repeat steps (8) and (9) until all tobacco leaf samples have been screened;

[0019] (11) The selected tobacco leaf samples are combined to complete the design of the target tobacco leaf formula.

[0020] Preferably, in step (1), the heating temperature is 250-350℃.

[0021] Preferably, in step (2), the carrier gas is selected from, but not limited to, argon and helium.

[0022] Preferably, in step (3), the discharge device includes a hollow cavity, which is a channel for the introduction of gas carrying volatile substances;

[0023] An electrode is installed inside the hollow cavity, and another electrode is wrapped around the outside of the hollow cavity. The two electrodes are respectively connected to a small high-voltage generator.

[0024] Preferably, the hollow cavity material is selected from, but not limited to, quartz and glass.

[0025] Preferably, the electrode material is selected from, but not limited to, platinum and copper.

[0026] Preferably, the operating voltage of the small high-voltage generator is 2-5kV.

[0027] Preferably, in step (6), the characteristics of the tobacco leaves determined by sensory evaluation include, but are not limited to, aroma, taste, and smoke characteristics.

[0028] Compared with the prior art, the present invention has the following advantages:

[0029] 1. This invention addresses the problems of high subjectivity and relatively low design efficiency in the design of tobacco leaf formulations. Based on the characteristic that headspace aroma components can characterize the aroma type of tobacco leaves, a simple discharge device is designed. High-voltage ionization is used to cause the volatile components to dissociate. There is no need to build a complex model. The molecular spectral information of the dissociated volatiles is collected by a photosensitive coupling component, which can easily obtain the characteristic peak intensity of the key components of the tobacco leaf. It can efficiently obtain the characteristic peak intensity of the key components of various tobacco leaves, which is more efficient and convenient than some current methods such as near-infrared and chromatographic analysis.

[0030] 2. According to the personalized needs of the actual leaf blend formula, different tobacco leaves can be selected, and the characteristic peak intensity of their corresponding key components can be collected and compared with the characteristic peak intensity of tobacco leaves with known aroma types to confirm their specific aroma type. The basic design of the leaf blend formula can be completed as needed without the need for a large number of repeated manual smoking experiments.

[0031] 3. This invention realizes the scientific, intuitive and convenient design of tobacco leaf formulations. Such a formulation method is highly targeted and operable. Detailed Implementation

[0032] The present invention will be further described below, but it is not intended to limit the present invention in any way. Any modifications or substitutions made based on the teachings of the present invention shall fall within the protection scope of the present invention.

[0033] This embodiment describes a method for designing a tobacco leaf blend with a prominent aroma, the method comprising the following steps:

[0034] (1) Crush tobacco leaves A, place them in an empty bottle with an open top, and heat the bottle to a temperature of 270°C.

[0035] (2) Introduce carrier gas into the bottle to remove the volatile substances released after the tobacco leaves are heated. The carrier gas is argon.

[0036] (3) Introduce the gas carrying volatile substances from step (2) into the discharge device;

[0037] The discharge device includes a hollow cavity, which serves as a channel for the introduction of a gas carrying volatile substances. An electrode is disposed within the hollow cavity, and another electrode is wrapped around the outside of the cavity. Both electrodes are connected to a small high-voltage generator. The hollow cavity is made of quartz. The electrodes are made of platinum. The small high-voltage generator operates at 3.5 kV.

[0038] (4) The discharge device breaks down the introduced gas, causing the volatile substances to dissociate. The molecular spectral information of the dissociated volatile substances is collected by the photosensitive coupling component to obtain the intensity of the key characteristic peaks of XF1 tobacco leaves.

[0039] (5) Obtain the characteristic peak intensity of key components of XF1, XF2, XF3...XF100 tobacco leaves by using steps (1) to (4).

[0040] (6) Perform sensory evaluation on the various tobacco leaves in step (5), and determine the characteristics of each tobacco leaf by referring to the sensory evaluation results. In this embodiment, the aroma type is used as an example. The sensory evaluation results of each tobacco leaf in step (5) are correlated with the intensity of the key component characteristic peaks of the obtained tobacco leaf; the intensity of the key component characteristic peaks corresponding to the tobacco leaves with a prominent aroma are (x1=153, x2=390, x3=1100).

[0041] (7) Classify the various tobacco component spectra in step (6) according to the sensory evaluation results.

[0042] (8) Based on the actual situation, it is necessary to design a leaf group formula with a prominent aroma, select an appropriate amount of tobacco leaves, and obtain the characteristic peak intensity of the key components of the selected tobacco leaves according to steps (1)-(4).

[0043] (9) If the average deviation between the peak intensity of the key component of the tobacco sample obtained in step (8) and the peak intensity of the key component of the tobacco with prominent aroma in step (7) is less than 1%, then the tobacco sample is selected as a candidate.

[0044] (10) Continue to select tobacco leaf samples according to actual needs, and repeat steps (8) and (9) until all target tobacco leaves A1-A10 are screened. See Table 1.

[0045] (11) The selected candidate tobacco leaves A1-A10 were blended to complete the basic design of the light-aroma leaf blend formula. Then, the blended tobacco leaves were rolled into cigarettes and subjected to sensory evaluation. After sensory evaluation, it was found that the leaf blend formula had a prominent light aroma and clear characteristics, which conformed to the characteristics of a light-aroma leaf blend formula, proving the scientific effectiveness of the method. The sensory evaluation scores are shown in Table 2. The sensory evaluation was conducted in the following way: 50 well-trained evaluation experts evaluated the tobacco leaves according to tobacco industry standards, and then scored 10 quality test indicators. Finally, the average score of each quality test indicator was taken as the score of that quality test indicator. Sensory evaluation mainly examines three aspects: aroma, smoke, and taste characteristics, including 10 indicators: aroma quality, aroma quantity, off-flavors, concentration, strength, smoothness, irritation, dryness, cleanliness, and sweetness. The scoring values ​​for these 10 quality test indicators are as follows: aroma quality 0-10 points, aroma quantity 0-10 points, off-flavors 0-10 points, concentration 0-10 points, strength 0-10 points, smoothness 0-10 points, irritation 0-10 points, dryness 0-10 points, cleanliness 0-10 points, and sweetness 0-10 points. The higher the score, the stronger the sensation of that evaluation indicator during the inhalation process.

[0046] Table 1. Characteristic peak intensities of key components in tobacco leaves

[0047]

[0048] Table 2 Sensory Evaluation Score Table

[0049]

Claims

1. A method for designing a cigarette leaf blend formulation, characterized in that, The method includes the following steps: (1) Crush a certain type of tobacco leaves, place them in an empty bottle with an open top, and heat the bottle. (2) Introduce carrier gas into the bottle to remove the volatile substances released after the tobacco leaves are heated; (3) Introduce the gas carrying volatile substances from step (2) into the discharge device; (4) The discharge device breaks down the introduced gas, causing the volatile substances to dissociate. The molecular spectral information of the dissociated volatile substances is collected by the photosensitive coupling component to obtain the characteristic peak intensity of the key components of the tobacco leaf. (5) Obtain the characteristic peak intensities of key components of various tobacco leaves using steps (1) to (4); (6) Perform sensory evaluation on the various tobacco leaves in step (5), and determine the characteristics of each tobacco leaf by referring to the sensory evaluation results of the tobacco leaves. The sensory evaluation results of each tobacco leaf in step (5) are matched with the intensity of the key component characteristic peaks of the obtained tobacco leaf. (7) Classify the characteristic peak intensities of various tobacco components in step (6) according to the sensory evaluation results; the classification is recorded as A, B, C, D, E, F..., and the tobacco leaves under each category are recorded as A1, A2, A3, A4...An, B1, B2, B3, B4...Bn, C1, C2, C3, C4...Cn, D1, D2, D3, D4...Dn, E1, E2, E3, E4...En, F1, F2, F3, F4...Fn...; (8) Based on the personalized requirements of the actual target tobacco leaf group formula, select tobacco leaf samples and repeat steps (1)-(4) to obtain the characteristic peak intensity of the key components of the tobacco leaf sample. (9) Compare the intensity of the characteristic peak in step (8) with the intensity of each characteristic peak in the classification set in step (7). If the average deviation of the characteristic peak intensity of the key component is less than 1%, the result is considered to be a match, thereby determining the sensory characteristics of the tobacco sample in step (8). (10) Continue to select tobacco leaf samples according to actual needs, and repeat steps (8) and (9) until all tobacco leaf samples have been screened; (11) The selected tobacco leaf samples are combined to complete the design of the target tobacco leaf formula.

2. The method according to claim 1, characterized in that, In step (1), the heating temperature is 250-350℃.

3. The method according to claim 1, characterized in that, In step (2), the carrier gas is selected from argon or helium.

4. The method according to claim 1, characterized in that, In step (3), the discharge device includes a hollow cavity, which is a channel for the introduction of gas carrying volatile substances; An electrode is installed inside the hollow cavity, and another electrode is wrapped around the outside of the hollow cavity. The two electrodes are respectively connected to a small high-voltage generator.

5. The method according to claim 4, characterized in that, The hollow cavity is made of quartz or glass.

6. The method according to claim 4, characterized in that, The electrode materials are selected from platinum and copper.

7. The method according to claim 4, characterized in that, The operating voltage of the small high-voltage generator is 2-5kV.

8. The method according to claim 1, characterized in that, In step (6), the characteristics of the tobacco leaves determined by sensory evaluation include aroma, taste, and smoke characteristics.

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