Complex components

Individualization, the environment and next-generation products are the key drivers of today’s filter business.
By Stefanie Rossel
In late July, Rhodia Acetow announced the launch of two new tow grades—7,0Y15 and 9,5Y12—complementing the company’s range of super-slim tows. With its broadened portfolio in this segment, Rhodia Acetow caters to a trend in the tobacco landscape that started roughly a decade ago and since then has gathered momentum: As consumption of combustible cigarettes continues to shrink on a global basis, customers are looking for an ever-greater variety of products.
Individualization, customization and differentiation have become buzzwords throughout the tobacco industry, and filters play a major role in this development. In the future, special filters and filter innovations are expected to be the main differentiators and growth drivers in the traditional cigarette segment. According to data that Rhodia Acetow presented during its Filter Colloquium in April, the market of special filters was around 1,100 billion sticks in 2016, which corresponds to 19 percent of world consumption.
Again, according to Rhodia, charcoal filters currently account for 48 percent of all special filters, super-slims rank second with 23 percent followed by recessed filters at 10 percent. With a 6 percent market share, capsule filters have now overtaken nonwrapped acetate (NWA) filters (5 percent). Among special filters, capsule filters and super-slim filters are the fastest-growing segments; the latter category is expected to stand at slightly below 700 billion sticks by 2022, with growth coming more or less exclusively from China, where analysts forecast an increase of 27 percent by 2021.
The trend keeps filter makers and raw material suppliers plenty busy. “We’ve seen a large growth in our flavor capsule filters, our filters that include a hollow acetate tube and our Dual Sensation filter, which allows consumers to include both,” says Colin Fairs, head of the European development center of Essentra, a supplier of special filters and scientific services based in the U.K.
“The Dual Sensation provides a number of different combinations for consumers to choose from, including either a capsule segment with a carbon segment or a capsule segment with a visually distinctive filter segment, such as the Corinthian,” says Fairs. “These have proved particularly popular as they present consumers with the choice and ability to personalize their product through several unique taste, smell and visualization options.”
For suppliers of special filters, the ongoing desire of consumers for new and different products has brought about its own challenges. “The biggest challenge is the manufacture of so many different products, all with specific parameters that we must ensure are correct and to the highest quality standard,” he says.
Before 2005, explains Fairs, the only parameters that were routinely considered were length, weight, circumference, pressure drop, roundness and, where applicable, carbon loading. “Now, with a rise in capsules and tube segments, we must consider all of the above plus parameters such as capability requirements for capsules, filament distribution, capsule size, capsule positioning, tube stability, tube wall thickness and tube hole centricity when manufacturing our filters,” he says. “It is an ever- expanding list, which continues to grow.”
Stable demand
The world market for filter tow, as highlighted at the Rhodia Filter Colloquium, decreased less in 2017 than did the global cigarette market. According to Euromonitor International, global cigarette volume sales including China declined by 1.4 percent in 2016–2017. Excluding China, they declined by 3.1 percent.
However, thanks to volume growth in the world’s biggest cigarette market, China—which after two years of decrease returned to slow growth in 2017—the pace of overall decline has slowed down. The world’s cigarette retail volume recorded the best year-on-year performance since 2014. Euromonitor even projects a relative volume stability including and excluding China over the next five years.
Global filter tow consumption declined by 0.3 percent to 740,000 tons in 2017, according to Rhodia Acetow. The decrease was mainly due to a 0.8 percent drop in the world’s largest cigarette market, China, which consumed about 290,000 tons of filter tow in 2017. Of that, 31,000 tons were imports, a slight reduction.
As far as individual regions are concerned, minor growth was observed in Latin America (23,000 tons, +3 percent), Europe (131,000 tons, +3 percent), Asia (145,000 tons, +1 percent) and the Commonwealth of Independent States (36,000 tons, +1 percent) in 2017. The Middle East, one of the world’s few growth regions for tobacco products, saw an increase of only 1 percent to 35,000 tons last year, down from 24 percent in 2016. With 41 percent in 2017, Africa, which consumed 32,000 tons last year, showed an even more impressive growth rate.
“With a large amount of strict regulation around the world, the amount of innovation is limited in some markets,” explains Fairs. “Therefore, the most interesting markets are those where there is a lot more freedom for us to create and introduce more novel filters. The Middle Eastern and African (MEA) markets are still relatively young and more open, with legislation focusing more on smoking in public places, advertising, packaging and imported goods, rather than tobacco content, ingredients and flavorings. Furthermore, according to 2017 Euromonitor data, overall the MEA region has seen a steady growth since 2011. In addition, the China market, with a strong premium sector, still offers good potential for our ‘more interesting’ filters.”
New regulation expected
The filter tow market is divided between a handful of international players. Eastman leads the market, with a share of 28 percent, followed by Celanese (25 percent), Rhodia Acetow (21 percent), Daicel (18 percent) and Mitsubishi (5 percent.) In addition, there are several Chinese manufacturers that together account for 3 percent, according to Rhodia Acetow.
Concentration of the sector was almost taken to new heights in mid-June 2017 when Blackstone, the holding company of Rhodia Acetow, and Celanese were in talks to form a joint venture. In late 2016, U.S. private equity firm Blackstone Group had acquired Rhodia Acetow’s filter tow division from its holding company Solvay, a Belgium-based supplier of advanced materials and specialty chemicals.
The deal between Blackstone and Celanese would have created the world’s largest acetate filter tow company. In March of this year, however, the companies abandoned the plan because of what they described as “excessive” divestment requirements by European Union (EU) antitrust regulators.
In addition to the challenge of supporting the tobacco industry in its efforts to create more individualized products, manufacturers of filter tow and special filters are faced with regulatory and environmental requirements.
Recently, titanium dioxide (TiO2), a delustering agent that has been used in paints, printing inks and many other applications including filter tow for about 100 years, made it back into the headlines as a possible cancer-causing substance. Although TiO2 has no substance-specific toxicity, is not mutagenic or genotoxic, it is currently under review by the EU for classification as potentially hazardous to health. Needless to say, such a classification would have major implications for tow manufacturers. While there is no regulation as of yet, Rhodia Acetow plans to introduce a TiO2-free standard tow in November (Also see “Filter Forum,” Tobacco Reporter, June 2018.)
Going green
The biodegradability of cigarette filters remains an important topic for filter and tow manufacturers. Due to its excellent retention and filtration properties, cellulose acetate tow today is the most widely used filter material. Its decomposing ability, however, is rather poor and further compromised by the synthetic glue used to bond the individual fibers together when forming the filter rod.
The most commonly used resin is triacetin, a plasticizer. Decomposing of a cellulose acetate filter can hence take up to a decade. Cigarette butt littering is a serious environmental problem around the globe. It is estimated that three quarters of the 6 trillion cigarettes smoked annually do not end up in a dustbin, but as litter. This corresponds to a mountain of 750,000 tons of waste worldwide.
Manufacturers of filter tow and filters have developed a range of products to tackle this problem. “With regard to biodegradability, Essentra has and still offers a wide range of filters—paper, infused, ROA, BiTech—as more degradable alternatives to cellulose acetate tow,” says Fairs. “We continue developments in this area, as well, and are working with a number of customers to continue developing alternatives in this area.”
In June, Rhodia Acetow launched its new generation Rhodia DE-Tow, which has been designed for accelerated biodegradability in versatile environments. The tow has been recognized with three third-party biodegradability certificates.
The segment has also attracted players that had not supplied the tobacco industry before. McAirlaids Vliesstoffe, a German manufacturer of tows, woven and nonwoven fabrics specialized in absorption materials, uses a patented manufacturing process to produce cigarette filters made from pure cellulose fibers with no glue added. The littered filters will disperse within weeks, the company claims.
Several Chinese suppliers offer cigarette filters made from polylactic acid thathave similarly good biodegradation properties but cost more than conventional cellulose acetate tow filters. Bio Fil of the U.S. has turned to jute to manufacture an environmentally friendly cigarette filter (see sidebar).
High hopes on HnB
As far as future business opportunities are concerned, filter and tow suppliers are eyeing the heat-not-burn (HnB) segment, which has been growing rapidly in some markets. HnB consumables, however, require only an estimated 50 percent to 80 percent of the cellulose acetate tow used in conventional cigarette filters, which means they cannot necessarily be counted on to make up for losses in conventional product sales.
Technologically, the filter of an HnB consumable is more complex than that of a combustible cigarette, and it has to meet different requirements. Part of the function of the HnB filter is to support aerosol formation through cooling. At the same time, it must survive the heating process. In contrast to conventional cigarette filters, filters of HnB consumables must have a low filtration efficiency to achieve the desired tar:nicotine ratio, as the tobacco weight in an HnB product is only 30 percent to 40 percent of that of a combustible cigarette. In addition, an HnB filter must have sufficient structural strength to allow for insertion into the heating device.
Research and development in the field of HnB filters hence has top priority for most suppliers. “We are extremely active in this area across all the areas of our business,” confirms Fairs. “We are making commercial orders, working with our partners in innovation to develop new materials/filter constructions and are also developing the analytical capability within our Scientific Services business to be able to analyze exactly how these new developments and existing products perform,” he says.
 

Biodegradable filter maker seeks investors

When smoker Thuan Lu, who used to discard his finished cigarette butts in his backyard, realized how many butts had accumulated—and how big the problem must be on a global scale—he decided it was time to do something. “Even after months lying out in the open, the filters had not decomposed,” he says.
Thuan, a Chinese-born U.S. citizen living in Centennial, Colorado, started researching the composition of traditional cigarette filters and their poor degradation properties. According to the Center for Marine Conservation, cigarette butt litter accounts for one in every five items collected during cleanups, making it the most prevalent form of litter on earth. Having decided to fight this environmental problem, Thuan began to experiment with various natural materials in his little workshop, searching for a fully biodegradable, organic filter.
In the end, jute showed the best results. Jute is a long, soft, shiny vegetable fiber that can be spun into coarse, strong threads. It also features an exceptionally low thermo-conductivity—an essential property for use in cigarette filters to prevent smokers from burning their lips. As the hard fibers were unsuitable for use in a cigarette filter, Thuan developed a process for which he hopes to receive patent protection in October. The method consists of decompressing, drying and purifying the fibers and results in fibers many times thinner than a human hair.
With this raw material, Thuan designed a filter that, he claims, is highly absorbent and has better filtering properties than conventional acetate plugs. “Filter specifications and draw strength can be adjusted as required,” Thuan says. “Compression and thickness of the filter paper will solve this requirement.”
The filter has been designed in such a way that it will break into two parts when discarded.
“Thus, environmental moisture can enter the filter and break up the fibers within hours,” explains Thuan. “The fibers will then disperse with the wind or water current and turn into compost. The filter will break down within six months.” Apart from its biodegradability and filtering potential, Thuan adds, the Biofilter, as he has branded it, is as inexpensive to manufacture and produce as a traditional cigarette filter. “When the FDA [U.S. Food and Drug Administration] proposed nicotine reduction in cigarettes, I came back to modify the filter. I now do believe that our filter will reduce the nicotine level in cigarettes, too.”
To market his invention, Thuan in 2017 founded Bio Fil, which was qualified by the Securities and Exchange Commission to sell shares in March 2018. Now, the company is looking for investors.
“Currently, we have not manufactured any filter for the market yet,” says Thuan. “To do this, we need to apply to the FDA for permission. We also need to get equipment to use in the process, and we don’t have the funds to do this.”
Tobacco companies to whom he presented his invention said they first wanted to see some consumer tests, he relates. “So far, we only do tests of the filters by making samples of the filters attached to smoking rods and then give them out to friends to try,” says Thuan. “We have not sent the filter to the lab for a formal testing yet because we just don’t have the funds needed. If we can find and have a large investor or company who is willing to put the money to pay for all this, we won’t have any problem getting a formal test.”
He says that Bio Fil is also actively seeking companies that will rent out their machinery to produce the product outside of the U.S. “The reason for this is that we don’t have the capital needed and we also do not have to deal with the FDA. The FDA application fee for tobacco products is at least $750,000. After all, our point is to produce a biodegradable filter to replace those on the market out of environmental concerns.”—S.R.