When Recon Marries HNB

For decades, reconstituted tobacco has been an indispensable commodity used in numerous products. Now HNB was added to that list of applications. Tobacco Asia talked to one of the main suppliers of recon.

By Thomas Schmid

Different forms of reconstituted tobacco (RT) have been in use in the production of a wide range of consumer products for many years. For example, various proportions of RT rag find their way into many cigarette tobacco blends, but RT also is an important ingredient in most if not all RYO tobaccos.

Furthermore, RT sheet is commonly deployed as a binder for machine-rolled cigars. But with the advent and stellar rise in consumer popularity of heated tobacco products (also: heat-not-burn, or HNB), a completely new application area has opened up for the commodity, making it more sought-after than ever before.

The ideal filler for HNB sticks

“Reconstituted tobacco is best suited for a successful HNB product,” confirms Alpe Çetin, engineering sales manager at Istanbul-based Star Agritech International (SAI). The reason, he explains, is that RT can actually produce a smoke-like, nicotine-enriched vapor when heated to just below the combustion point; something that regular tobacco is incapable of achieving at comparatively low temperatures.

ALSO: Recon to the Rescue

The implications are very clear and almost don’t need to be explained: the entire point behind HNB technology is that tobacco is no longer burnt, thus preventing the release of tar and most other hazardous chemicals. An HNB stick solely filled with regular tobacco thus won’t work, as the temperature generated within the device simply wouldn’t be high enough.

Reconstituted tobacco, on the other hand, provides - due to its manufacturing process - a much larger surface than cut tobacco leaves, thus being able to release its aromas and nicotine content even when heated well below actual combustion. This particular property currently makes RT the prime – or shall we say one and only – raw material of choice in the production of HNB sticks and cartouches. “Although it is still the early days in this emerging sector [of HNB], but we are nevertheless already seeing that demand of RT is being driven up,” remarks Çetin,

Not every recon type is suited

Not every type of reconstituted tobacco can be used in HNB sticks, though.

“The main type for HNB purposes is nanofiber reconstituted tobacco,” Çetin explains but adds that in some cases band-cast (also known as slurry-type) recon may be deployed too. And while RT used in cigarette and loose tobacco blends is generally manufactured using debris like fines, dust, and stems left over from primary processing and cigarette production, reconstituted tobacco fit for HNB products must be derived from quality ingredients. “You cannot just use low-grade leftovers, but HNB recon requires good quality raw material; in other words, it must be made from actual tobacco leaf,” insists Çetin.

During processing the raw material is mechanically spliced up into extremely fine fibers with individual diameters of just a few nanometers (1nm = one billionth of a meter). The subsequent reconstitution of these fibers into sheets with the help of water and adhesive agents results in a product whose internal surface is vastly increased, responding quickly and evenly to low-temperature heating.

“China also produces what is called ‘airlaid reconstituted tobacco’, which, as the name suggests, uses pressurized air to lay down the fibers in sheets,” discloses Çetin. “This type can be used for HNB too, but as far as I know no companies outside of China are manufacturing this type of recon yet.”

Rising nanofiber RT demand may trigger shortage

But back to nanofiber RT, which is made using a technology that was only developed as recently as 2008, according to Efe Abdullahoğlu, SAI’s business development manager. He says that the commodity “has now become the benchmark for the best-quality reconstituted tobacco in the world in terms of tensile strength, aromatic preservation, flavor fullness, filling power, and cost efficiency. “Being made from actual leaf instead of debris and stems, it has a naturally lower nicotine content than the raw material, owing to water dilution during its production. Its nicotine level also is more stable than in natural leaf and, moreover, it can be adjusted [i.e. increased or decreased] by blending different tobacco types.

But the sudden explosion in nanofiber RT demand carries the risk that there might be a supply shortage – if it’s not already here. “We are currently experiencing an incredible boom in the HNB product segment in countries like Japan, South Korea, the US, and others,” observes Abdullahoğlu, “If demand continues to increase as sharply as it presently does, supplies, particularly of nanofiber recon, are likely to be insufficient in the short term. There currently are just a few supplier companies that have implemented this [nanofiber] technology, while many others are still working to get it up and running,” he warns. Yet Abdullahoğlu also anticipates that a supply bottleneck may be relatively short-lived. “In my point of view, all suppliers will have their own HNB recon operational within a couple of years at most.”

Not a dawdler, but a vivid investor

Star Agritech International is of course not among the dawdlers. As a major global tobacco supplier, the company has always kept abreast of important market developments, adopting new technologies and integrating new products in its portfolio whenever warranted, never shying away from necessary investments. It is this striving for remaining alert and up-to-date that has made SAI “into one of the biggest international reconstituted tobacco suppliers in the world, with the latest manufacturing technology at its disposal,” Abdullahoğlu points out. He adds that in 2018 the company opened “a nanofiber line in Brazil to increase our company’s global supply chain power, as well as a new band-cast line in Bondowoso, Indonesia, to satisfy local demand. “And for the present year 2019, SAI even aims at doubling its nanofiber RT capacity by setting up an additional manufacturing base.

“We are confident in the future of RT, particularly the nanofiber type, and we thus continue focusing our investments on that product group,” Abdullahoğlu confides.

Recon to the Rescue

Up to 20% of a cigarette tobacco blend can be comprised of reconstituted tobacco, most commonly slurry-type RT. The addition of the commodity into the blend lowers production cost without greatly affecting the product’s aroma qualities. And since recon generally also has a very stable nicotine content when compared to conventional rag, its addition to a blend helps adjust the nicotine level across production batches.

But recon might attain even more crucial importance in the near future, once the USFDA’s dreaded rule that all cigarettes sold in the US must have “minimally addictive” nicotine levels comes into effect. Star Agritech International’s Efe Abdullahoğlu says there “is absolutely no doubt that cigarette companies are going to increase the RT proportion in their blends to achieve the compulsory ‘minimally addictive’ nicotine level. They practically have no other choice.”

But he also points out that not all RT types are suitable to be used at a substitution level of more than 20%. Nanofiber RT, on the other hand, he says, is perfect for exactly that purpose because it imparts more aroma and flavor than other recon types thanks to it comprising of about 70% high-quality tobacco-leaf-derived fines. And because water dilution during its production generally gives recon a lower nicotine level than tobacco rag, nanofiber RT can “adjust down” a cigarette’s nicotine content so it becomes FDA-compliant.