Effects of common ammonium salt on the thermal behavior of reconstituted tobacco sheet

Understanding the role of chemical burn additives on modifying the toxic gaseous constituents and thermal behavior of reconstituted tobacco sheet (RTS) has recently taken center stage through a number of initiatives. In this current study, the effects of ammonium chloride (AC), ammonium sulfate, diammonium phosphate, and monoammonium phosphate on the formation of evolved gaseous products, specifically carbonyl compounds and thermal behavior were investigated. Results on cigarette smoking tests revealed that ammonium salt was a potential burn additive to reduce carbonyl compounds delivery in the cigarette mainstream smoke of RTS. The yield per puff of carbonyl compounds of pure RTS was decreased from 247.8 µg to 133.30 µg with the incorporation of AC. Thermogravimetric analysis (TG) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) were used to investigate the thermal decomposition of RTS. TG results revealed that the incorporation of ammonium salt into RTS could improve the thermal stability of RTS. The DSC results showed that the maximum exothermic peak was drastically decreased with the addition of ammonium salt, for example, from 14.8 mW mg^?1 of pure RTS to 10.27 mW mg^?1 of AC-RTS. Results on Fourier transform infrared spectrometer (FTIR) which was employed to investigate the generation of evolved volatile products showed that these four ammonium salts as burn additives were efficiently high enough to decrease the formation of gaseous products. From our findings, compared with the virgin RTS and other three modified RTS, AC-RTS could significantly decrease the yields of nicotine and phenolic compounds in the cigarette mainstream smoke of RTS.