Manufacture
The raw material for the manufacture of cigarette filters is cellulose (obtained from wood). The cellulose is acetylated (i.e. making it into a material called celluose acetate or simply "acetate" for short), dissolved, and spun as continuous synthetic fibers arranged into a bundle called tow. The cellulose is a substituted diacetate (actually 2.35 - 2.55 substitution range) cellulose, due to its chemical and physical processing. This tow is opened, plasticized, shaped, and cut to length to act as a filter.
In the early 1950s, Kent brand cigarettes used crocidolite asbestos as part of the (Micronite) filter. Asbestos fiber is heatproof, insoluble and forms extremely fine fibers — but has been proven to cause lung cancer when inhaled. Other filter variations include Lark cigarettes, which featured a chamber filled with activated charcoal granules.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture price support for the various grades of tobacco favored the use of #4 and 5 grade, which included what were known as sand lugs and floor sweepings at 10 cents/lb versus #1 grade at close to 70 cents. During the 1940s, it was less expensive to manufacture a filtered cigarette than a regular one.
Read more about this topic: Cigarette Filter
Famous quotes containing the word manufacture:
“The great cry that rises from all our manufacturing cities, louder than the furnace blast, is all in very deed for this—that we manufacture everything there except men.”
—John Ruskin (1819–1900)
“I believe that the miseries consequent on the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors are so great as imperiously to command the attention of all dedicated lives; and that while the abolition of American slavery was numerically first, the abolition of the liquor traffic is not morally second.”
—Elizabeth Stuart Phelps (1844–1911)
“Yes, that’s what I needed. Living flesh from humans for my experiments. What difference did it make if a few people had to die? Their flesh taught me how to manufacture arms, legs, faces that are human. I’ll make a crippled world whole again.”
—Robert Tusker, and Michael Curtiz. Wells (Preston Foster)