Filtering tobacco smoke
OwnerAvery B. Smithinventor
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A tobacco smoke filter cartridge comprises essentially a wrapper of an electrically insulating material, a bed of particles of an electrically conductive or semi-conductive material packed into the filter chamber defined by the wrapper, and two spaced electrodes in electrical contact with the bed of particles for passing an electric current therethrough. The cartridge may be mounted in a cigarette or cigar holder or the stem of a pipe with a miniaturized electric supply circuit built into the holder.
Claims7
In an apparatus for filtering tobacco smoke, and having a source of electrical power;
- a tobacco smoke filter cartridge comprising:
- a wrapper of an electrically insulating material, the wrapper defining a filter chamber,
- a bed of particles of material packed into the filter chamber, the material having conductivity at least equal to the conductivity of a semiconductor, and
- two spaced electrodes, in electrical contact with the bed of particles, mounted for connection to the power source.
An apparatus for filtering tobacco smoke comprising:
- A. a tobacco smoke filter cartridge including
- 1. a wrapper of an electrically insulating material, the wrapper defining a filter chamber,
- 2. a bed of particles of material packed into the filter chamber, the material having conductivity at least equal to the conductivity of a semiconductor, and
- 3. two spaced electrodes in electrical contact with the bed of particles, and
- B. a holder of an electrically insulating material for a smoking article, the holder defining a cartridge chamber for receiving the cartridge, including
- 1. a miniaturized direct current source arranged in the cartridge chamber of the holder,
- 2. a supply circuit for supplying direct current from the source to the electrodes, and
- 3. a switch in the supply circuit.
A method of filtering tobacco smoke, comprising the steps of connecting a source of direct current to two spaced electrodes which are in electrical contact with a bed of adsorbent or absorbent particles of material having conductivity at least equal to the conductivity of a semiconductor in order to cause each of the particles to have a site of negative polarity and a site of positive polarity, and passing the smoke through the packed bed of particles whereby noxious materials in the smoke are subjected to electrochemical reactions at said sites and the reaction products are absorbed or adsorbed.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.