When Were Cigarette Filters Introduced

Cigarette Filters

What are cigarettes and filters made of?

Cigarettes are made from four components, each of which is depict below.
1. Filters
2. Tobacco
3. Additives
4. Cigarette wrapper
Cigarettes today are typically 85 or 100 mm long, and accept diameters of about 8 mm. Their filters are ordinarily 20 to 30 mm long, so a typical cigarette has 55 to 80 mm of tobacco.

1. Filters:
Cigarette filters are specifically designed to absorb vapors and to accumulate particulate smoke components. Filters likewise prevent tobacco from entering a smoker's oral fissure and provide a mouthpiece that volition not collapse as the cigarette is smoked. Filters more often than not have the following components:

A "plug" of acetate cellulose filter tow
95% of cigarette filters are fabricated of cellulose acetate (a plastic), and the balance are fabricated from papers and rayon. The cellulose acetate tow fibers are thinner than sewing thread, white, and packed tightly together to create a filter; they can expect like cotton fiber. Other materials have been tried and rejected in favor of the taste that acetate produces. Filters vary in filtration efficiency, depending on whether the cigarette is to be "lite" or regular.

How many fibers are in a cigarette filter?
The following is quoted from a inquiry paper past researchers from the New York Country Department of Health, the Roswell Park Cancer Institute, and Cornell University. Click here for full commodity.

"Viewing the white face of the cigarette filter with the naked eye and compression of the filter cavalcade with the fingers would suggest that the filter is made of a sponge-similar fabric. However, opening the cigarette filter, by cutting it lengthwise with a razor, reveals that it consists of a fibrous mass. Spreading apart the matrix reveals some of the more than 12 000 white fibers. Microscopically, these fibers are Y shaped and comprise the delustrant titanium dioxide. The fibers are made of cellulose acetate, a synthetic plastic-similar substance used ordinarily for photographic films. A plasticiser, triacetin (glycerol triacetate), is applied to bond the fibers."

An inner paper wrapper (plug wrap) and gum
The paper used to wrap the acetate cellulose plug is impervious to air for regular cigarettes, or is ventilated and very porous in "calorie-free" cigarettes, allowing more air to enter the smoke mix. A polyvinyl acetate emulsion is used as the mucilage to adhere the plug to the wrapper, and to seam the wrapper.

An outer paper (tipping paper)
The tipping paper, oftentimes printed to await like cork, covers the filter plug and attaches the filter to the column of tobacco. Tipping paper is formulated to not attach to the lips of smokers.

Other Filter components
The filters of some cigarettes, such as Parliament, also contain charcoal as an additional filtration amanuensis. The "micronite filter" on Lorillard'south' Kent make cigarettes from 1952 to 1957 contained the deadliest form of asbestos - crocidolite. While advertisements at the time promoted the filter as making Kents healthier than other cigarettes, at that place are currently several lawsuits pending confronting Lorillard from families of smokers who died from a rare cancer caused primarily by crocidolite.

2. Tobacco and Nicotine in Cigarettes:
Cultivated tobacco, Nicotiana tabacum, is a member of the nightshade family of plants. It is a broadleaf native of tropical America that is cultivated equally an annual. Depending on the type of tobacco and its growing location, the leaves of the tobacco establish take different tastes, burning properties, aromas, colour, and nicotine content. Tobacco leaves contain several alkaloids (see below), including the highly toxic alkaloid nicotine. Nicotine is the drug in tobacco that causes habit in smokers according to the United states Department of Health and Human Services.

Nicotine is a powerful insecticide and amid the deadliest of all plant products in its pure form. Co-ordinate to the Us Department of Health and Human Services, it raises blood force per unit area, affects the key nervous system, and constricts claret vessels in humans. Nicotine is a colorless liquid that is highly soluble in water, and is readily captivated through the pare in its pure class.

3. Additives to tobacco:
Potentially hundreds of additives are mixed with tobacco during the manufacturing process. Additives to smoking tobacco include flavorings and humectants that are used to keep tobacco moist. According to a publication written for the tobacco industry, additives can constitute ten percent of the weight of the "tobacco" portion of a cigarette, and iv per cent of the unabridged cigarette.

The complete list of one,400 potential tobacco additives, which include sweeteners and flavors such cocoa, rum, licorice, sugar, and fruit juices is considered a trade secret. Since tobacco is non classified equally a food or drug, there are no legal maximums on agricultural chemicals or chemical additives cigarettes may contain.

A widely used cigarette additive is menthol with its power to provide flavor and to serve as an anesthetic. When burned, many additives form new compounds, possessing unique properties. For example, glycerol produces acrolein, a chemical which has been establish to interfere with the normal immigration of the lungs (Whelan, 1984)

"Tar" in cigarette filters:
The "tar" ofttimes referred to in connection with cigarettes is not a black petroleum tar production, but instead refers to the hundreds of substances and additives found in tobacco. Tar, when absurd, is a sticky yellow-brown substance and the U.S. Section of Health and Human Services states that it is equanimous of organic and inorganic chemicals, including some carcinogens. The U.S. Federal Trade Committee defines tar as "total particulate matter…less nicotine and water."

Contents of Cigarette Fume:
When smoked, the tobacco and additives in a cigarette undergo complex chemic processes to course smoke that contains more than 4000 chemicals, including carbon monoxide, hydrogen cyanide, nicotine, ammonia, arsenic and vinyl chloride (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 1989). Forty-3 constituents of tobacco smoke are known carcinogens including nitrosamines, quinoline, benzpyrene, cadmium, ammonia, nitrogen dioxide, formaldehyde, hydrogen cyanide, arsenic, and hydrogen sulfide (U.S. Department of Health and Man Services, 1989, and other sources).

Most Alkaloids:
According to The Curtailed Oxford Lexicon of Phytology (editor: Michael Allaby, 1992), alkaloids are … "A grouping of basic, nitrogenous compounds of a complex nature. Alkaloids are derived from plants and accept powerful pharmacological effects. More than one thousand alkaloids are known from 1200 plants species. Their part is uncertain merely in some species, they confer a degree of protection from insect attack. Pharmacologically powerful alkaloids derived from plants include cocaine, morphine, and strychnine."

4. Cigarette Wrapper and Glue
More often than not, the paper used to wrap the tobacco is made course flax or linen fiber. Manufacturers add various chemicals to the paper, including salts, monoammonium phosphate and sodium and potassium citrates to accelerate or command the burning rate. The burn down rate has an important issue on the number of puffs that tin can be obtained past the smoker, and the smoke yield. A whitening paint—calcium carbonate—is added to the newspaper, partly to ensure the cosmos of an attractive ash every bit the cigarette burns (Browne, 1990). The wrappers' seams are glued with an adhesive that is a modified starch or natural glue (Browne, 1990).

Click here for newspaper articles about how communities are trying to reduce cigarette litter.

Read all nigh cigarette butt litter!

Click here to read an commodity that was published in the August 2000 issue of the American Coastal Club journal, The Underwater Naturalist. This article, by CVW's Executive Director Kathleen Chiliad. Register, includes background data, such as the fact that ii.one billion pounds of cigarette filters were discarded worldwide in 1998, along with results of her research showing that leached chemicals from cigarette filters are deadly to the h2o flea Daphnia magna, a small crustacean at the lower end of, only important to the aquatic food chain.

Students and Teachers:

Are you interested in doing a science fair projection on cigarette litter? Click here for ideas and data.

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