Some Effects of Adding Sugar to Tobacco

A series of cigarettes made from Burley tobacco containing different levels of added reducing sugar (10.5 to 17.8 %) have been examined. Compared to the control cigarette there was virtually no change in the deliveries of aldehydes and carbonyl constituents. However, an increase in the delivery of 2-furfural was observed, especially when fructose was the added sugar: even so, the conversion efficiency was only 1-2 %. A similar increase in the delivery of 2-furfural was also observed when glucose was added to flue-cured tobacco. An additional finding was that the addition of glucose and fructose reduced the delivery of nicotine. Radioactivity balance experiments on flue-cured cigarettes with added glucose indicated that this was probably due to an increase in the nicotine filtration efficiency of the cigarette rod. Filtration studies using air-cured cigarettes demonstrated that, on addition of glucose, there was a significant increase in the nicotine filtration efficiency of the tobacco rod and that less of the available nicotine was directed into the mainstream.