Foam forming: an effective approach to fabricate highly bulky, uniform and soft reconstituted tobacco sheets

Highly bulky reconstituted tobacco sheets (RTS) as a cellulosic product are always the pursuit of the paper industry and tobacco industry due to the advantages of improving the performance of cigarettes and the reduction in harmful substances. In this work, foam forming as a novel approach was applied in the preparation of RTS to improve paper performance. The properties of liquid foam induced by sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) were also investigated. Results showed that the liquid foam induced by SDS and mechanical stirring was relatively stable when the dosage of SDS was over 0.4 g/L, which can keep cellulosic fiber and tobacco fiber dispersed well during the forming process. Foam forming can endow the sheets with better uniformity, bulk, absorption and softness compared to traditional wet forming methods. Notably, the bulk of the sheets can be increased by 12% when 0.6 g/L of SDS was applied. In addition, foam forming can also help to increase the total retention rate, which was beneficial to reduce the production cost. Graphic abstract: [Figure not available: see fulltext.]