Tobacco Science & Technology, 2011, 9, p. 5-11., ISSN.1002-0861

Removing pectin in tobacco stems for reconstituted tobacco manufacturing

ZHANG JUN(1,2); CAO QIAN(1); LI XIN-SHENG(3); CHEN MIN(1); WANG JUN(1)
1. College of Food Science & Nutritional Engineering, China Agricultural University, Beijing 100083, P.R. China; 2. Technology Center, Shanghai Tobacco (Group) Corporation, Key Laboratory of Cigarette Smoke Research of CNTC, Shanghai 200082, P.R. China; 3. Taicang Haiyan Company of Tobacco Sheet, Shanghai Tobacco (Group) Corporation, Jiangsu 215433, P.R. China

In order to reduce the negative effect of pectin on the smoking taste of reconstituted tobacco, the improved sulfuric acid-carbazole analysis method with desugarization was used to quantitatively evaluate the effectiveness of some extractive agents, including water, EDTA, sodium hexametaphosphate, diammonium phosphate and ammonium oxalate, on the extraction of pectin in tobacco stems. Taking the factors of process technologies and energy consumption into account, the experimental analysis method based on secondary subtraction of response surface method was established to optimize the extraction conditions. The optimal conditions were: 1.2% ammonium oxalate solution, ratio of solution to tobacco stems 10:1, extracting for 30 minutes at 60 °C.