Process for isolating plant extract fractions

A process for producing and isolating intermediate molecular weight fractions from tobacco extracts, which fractions are stable and non-volatile under ambient temperature conditions and are useful as flavoring agents, comprising:

• (a) contacting tobacco with a solvent to produce a crude tobacco extract;
• (b) concentrating said crude tobacco extract;
• (c) subjecting said concentrated crude tobacco extract to a size exclusion process wherein said concentrated crude tobacco extract is fractionated into a series of fractionated tobacco extracts including said intermediate molecular weight fractions;
• (d) isolating said fractionated tobacco extracts into fractions including said intermediate molecular weight fractions by using a suitable detection method to detect when said intermediate molecular weight fractions have been eluted from said size exclusion process and to trigger a fraction collection means in order to collect said isolated intermediate molecular weight fractions as subfractions;
• (e) concentrating said intermediate molecular weight subfractions;
• and
• (f) optionally contacting said subfractions from step (d) which contain nicotine detectable by suitable nicotine detection means with an ion-exchange material to essentially remove the nicotine.

A process for producing and isolating intermediate molecular weight fractions from plant extracts, which fractions are stable and non-volatile under ambient temperature conditions and are useful as flavoring agents, comprising:

• (a) contacting plant matter with a solvent to produce a crude plant extract;
• (b) concentrating said crude plant extract;
• (c) subjecting said concentrated crude plant extract to a size exclusion process by fractionating said concentrated crude plant extract into a series of fractionated plant extracts, said extracts falling within a range of intermediate molecular weight fraction of equal to or greater than approximately 600 Daltons and equal to or less than approximately 100,000 Daltons;
• and
• (d) isolating said fractionated plant extracts into fractions including said intermediate molecular weight fractions by using a suitable detection method to detect when said intermediate molecular weight fractions have been eluted from said size exclusion process and to trigger a fraction collection means in order to collect said isolated intermediate molecular weight fractions.