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EP-3979849-B1 - AEROSOL-GENERATING ARTICLE COMPRISING A MOUTH-END COOLING ELEMENT

EP3979849B1EP 3979849 B1EP3979849 B1EP 3979849B1EP-3979849-B1

Inventors

  • BATISTA, Rui Nuno
  • GUIDOTTI, ENRICO

Dates

Publication Date
20260506
Application Date
20200527

Claims (15)

  1. An aerosol-generating article (10; 50) for producing an aerosol upon heating, the aerosol-generating article comprising: a rod (12) of aerosol-generating substrate comprising an aerosol former, the aerosol-generating substrate having an aerosol former content of greater than 10 percent on a dry weight basis; a hollow tubular support element (14) positioned immediately downstream of the rod (12) of aerosol-generating substrate; an aerosol-cooling element (16) downstream of the hollow tubular support element (14), the aerosol-cooling element (16) extending all the way to a downstream end of the aerosol-generating article, wherein the aerosol-cooling element (16) comprises a hollow tubular segment having a transverse wall (26) at a location between an upstream end and a downstream end of the hollow tubular segment, such that the hollow tubular segment defines a first cavity (28) upstream of the transverse wall (26) and a second cavity (30) downstream of the transverse wall (26); wherein the transverse wall (26) comprises one or more openings (32; 34; 36) establishing a fluid communication between the first cavity (28) and the second cavity (30).
  2. An aerosol-generating article according to claim 1, wherein the transverse wall (26) has a single substantially central opening (32) having an equivalent diameter of between 0.3 millimetres and 0.6 millimetres provided therein.
  3. An aerosol-generating article according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the transverse wall (26) has a plurality of substantially equally circumferentially spaced apart openings (34), each opening having an equivalent diameter of between 0.1 millimetres and 0.5 millimetres.
  4. An aerosol-generating article according to claim 1, wherein the transverse wall (26) has a plurality of substantially radial slits (36) extending from a centre of the transverse wall over a length less than a radius of the transverse wall.
  5. An aerosol-generating article according to any one of the preceding claims wherein a length of the aerosol-cooling element (16) is at least 5 millimetres.
  6. An aerosol-generating article according to any one of the preceding claims wherein a length of the aerosol-cooling element (16) is less than 20 millimetres.
  7. An aerosol-generating article according to any one of the preceding claims wherein a length of the first cavity (28) is less than a length of the second cavity (30).
  8. An aerosol-generating article according to any one of the preceding claims wherein a ratio between a length of the first cavity (28) and a length of the second cavity (30) is from 0.15 to 0.8.
  9. An aerosol-generating article according to any one of the preceding claims wherein a length of the first cavity (28) is at least 3 millimetres.
  10. An aerosol-generating article according to any one of the preceding claims wherein a length of the first cavity is less than 13 millimetres.
  11. An aerosol-generating article according to any one of the preceding claims wherein a length of the second cavity (30) is at least 5 millimetres.
  12. An aerosol-generating article according to any one of the preceding claims wherein a length of the second cavity (30) is less than 17 millimetres.
  13. An aerosol-generating article according to any one of the preceding claims wherein a thickness of a peripheral wall (24) of the hollow tubular segment is at least 2 millimetres.
  14. An aerosol-generating article according to any one of the preceding claims wherein an outer diameter of the hollow tubular segment is at least 3 millimetres.
  15. An aerosol-generating article according to any one of the preceding claims comprising a further aerosol-cooling element between the tubular support element (14) and the aerosol-cooling element (16), wherein a length of the further aerosol-cooling element is from 4 millimetres to 20 millimetres.

Description

The present invention relates to an aerosol generating article comprising an aerosol-generating substrate and adapted to produce an inhalable aerosol upon heating. Aerosol-generating articles in which an aerosol-generating substrate, such as a tobacco-containing substrate, is heated rather than combusted, are known in the art. Typically in such heated smoking articles, an aerosol is generated by the transfer of heat from a heat source to a physically separate aerosol-generating substrate or material, which may be located in contact with, within, around, or downstream of the heat source. During use of the aerosol-generating article, volatile compounds are released from the aerosol-generating substrate by heat transfer from the heat source and are entrained in air drawn through the aerosol-generating article. As the released compounds cool, they condense to form an aerosol. A number of prior art documents disclose aerosol-generating devices for consuming aerosol-generating articles. Such devices include, for example, electrically heated aerosol-generating devices in which an aerosol is generated by the transfer of heat from one or more electrical heater elements of the aerosol-generating device to the aerosol-generating substrate of a heated aerosol-generating article. Substrates for heated aerosol-generating articles have, in the past, typically been produced using randomly oriented shreds, strands, or strips of tobacco material. More recently, alternative substrates for aerosol-generating articles to be heated rather than combusted have been disclosed, such as rods formed from gathered sheets of tobacco material. By way of example, the rods disclosed in international patent application WO-A-2012/164009 have a longitudinal porosity that allows air to be drawn through the rods. As a further alternative, international patent application WO-A-2011/101164 discloses rods for heated aerosol-generating articles formed from strands of homogenised tobacco material, which may be formed by casting, rolling, calendering or extruding a mixture comprising particulate tobacco and at least one aerosol former to form a sheet of homogenised tobacco material. In another embodiment, the rods of WO-A-2011/101164 may be formed from strands of homogenised tobacco material obtained by extruding a mixture comprising particulate tobacco and at least one aerosol former to form continuous lengths of homogenised tobacco material. Substrates for heated aerosol-generating articles typically further comprise an aerosol former, that is, a compound or mixture of compounds that, in use, facilitates formation of the aerosol and that preferably is substantially resistant to thermal degradation at the operating temperature of the aerosol-generating article. Examples of suitable aerosol-formers include, but are not limited to: polyhydric alcohols, such as propylene glycol, triethylene glycol, 1,3-butanediol and glycerin; esters of polyhydric alcohols, such as glycerol mono-, di- or triacetate; and aliphatic esters of mono-, di- or polycarboxylic acids, such as dimethyl dodecanedioate and dimethyl tetradecanedioate. It is also common to include in an aerosol-generating article for producing an inhalable aerosol upon heating one or more additional elements that are assembled with the substrate in a same wrapper. Examples of such additional elements include a mouthpiece filtration segment, a support element adapted to impart structural strength to the aerosol-generating article. US 2008/216851 A1 discloses an aerosol-generating article comprising a tobacco rod and a filter connected with the tobacco rod by a tipping paper. In the tobacco rod an aerosol former, such as glycerin, is added to tobacco cut filler in order to favour a reduction in the cresols/tar and the phenols/tar ratios even when the amount of plasticised cellulose acetate in the aerosol-generating article is lowered. US 2008/216851 A1 discloses including from about 4 wt % to about 35 wt % glycerin in the tobacco rod. In an embodiment of the aerosol-generating article of US 2008/216851 A1 the filter comprises, in sequential alignment, a first upstream filter segment and a flow restricting filter segment comprising a restrictor disc having a flow restriction orifice. The restrictor disc separates an internal volume of the filter into a first upstream cavity and a second downstream cavity. US 4574820 A describes a device for the buccal end of a ventilated smoking rod, the device comprising a tubular core which is arranged, in use, to be connected at its upstream end to the buccal end of a tobacco rod whereby smoke from the tobacco rod and ventilating air are drawn through the core by the smoker. The interior of the core is provided partway along the core with a transverse cross wall having a plurality of constricting orifices formed through the wall. It has also been proposed to include in an aerosol-generating article for producing an inhalable aerosol upon heating a cooling element ada