Method of and apparatus for manipulating bales of condensed tobacco particles

US5139035A · kind A · utility

Assignees

• Korber AG · DE
• British-American Tobacco (Holdings) Limited · GB

Inventors

• Manfred Lasch · Hamburg, DE
• Klaus-Georg Hackmack · Hamburg, DE
• Reinhard Hohm · Pinneberg, DE
• Ian Ernest Tatham · Coulsdon, GB
• Eric H. Dennis · Earby, GB

Key dates

• Filing date: Mar 16, 1990
• Grant date: Aug 18, 1992
• Expiry date: Mar 16, 2010

Classification

• Technology area (CPC A): Human Necessities
• CPC primary: A24B3/06
• WIPO field: Other consumer goods
• WIPO sector: Other fields

Abstract

Bales of compressed tobacco ribs and/or tobacco leaf laminae having a moisture content of 8-11 percent are advanced past a battery of microwave generators or through one or more electric high frequency fields to raise the temperature of particles in the bales to between 30.degree. and 90.degree. C. The bales or portions of the bales are thereupon loosened, prior to complete cooling back to starting temperature, by the pins of a conveyor which delivers the particles of loosened bales or portions of bales into the magazine of a shredding machine wherein the particles are cut. The moisture content of shreds is raised to 12-13.5 percent at which the shreds are ready for processing into smokers' products, or above 13.5 percent, for example, to between 21 and 30 percent. Such moisturizing to above the processing moisture content is or can be followed by drying of the shreds.