Abstract: This invention relates to methods of increasing the viscosity of a dispersion containing an alginate by subjecting the dispersion to high shear, such as the shear in a laboratory valve homogeniser. The viscosity of the dispersion increases within the range of two fold to five hundred fold.The method of increasing viscosity is useful in tobacco reconstitution or tobacco substitut processes, especially where either low levels of binder are required or improved taste characteristics over cellulosic binders, for example, are important.

Abstract: Smoking articles comprise a smoking material rod wrapped with a paper wrapper including aluminum hydroxide and an organic acid salt of a group I or II metal. The article exhibits at least 30% reductions in visible sidestream smoke when lit.

Abstract: A smoking article such as a cigarette comprising a smoking-material rod enwrapped in a wrapper paper with an inherent air permeability of 3 to 45 Coresta units and comprising at least one hydroxide compound and at least one organic compound of the group comprising lithium hydroxide, aluminum hydroxide, calcium hydroxide, potassium formate, sodium formate and sodium acetate, at a total loading level of the compounds of not less than two g/m.sup.2 whereby the total particulate matter (TPM) in the side-stream-smoke emanating from the lit end of said article during the smoking thereof is reduced by at least 30% in relation to the TPM which emanates from the lit end of an otherwise identical smoking article comprising conventional wrapper paper and smoked under the same smoking conditions.

Abstract: A rod of smoking material, for use as a smoking article or a part thereof is formed by a multiplicity of laminiform self-sustaining smoking-material elements, for example discs, extending transversely of the rod and located in face-to-face contact with one another. The thickness of the elements, which may be up to 2.5 mm, is suitably within a range of 0.1 to 0.8 mm. It may vary within the rod or from element to element along the rod. The material of the elements may have inherent smoke-permeability sufficient to afford an acceptable pressure drop through the rod or the elements may be formed or provided with smoke passages therethrough, with either the same relative distribution of passages from one element to the next or with adjacent elements so oriented in relation to each other as to provide smoke passages of predetermined form through the rod. The smoking material of the elements preferably extends over an area less than the cross-sectional area of the rod, suitably over 10 to 40% of that area.