Cytrel is a
cellulose
Cellulose is an organic compound with the formula , a polysaccharide consisting of a linear chain of several hundred to many thousands of β(1→4) linked D-glucose units. Cellulose is an important structural component of the primary cell wall ...
-based
tobacco
Tobacco is the common name of several plants in the genus '' Nicotiana'' of the family Solanaceae, and the general term for any product prepared from the cured leaves of these plants. More than 70 species of tobacco are known, but the ...
substitute used in some low-tar
cigarette
A cigarette is a narrow cylinder containing a combustible material, typically tobacco, that is rolled into thin paper for smoking. The cigarette is ignited at one end, causing it to smolder; the resulting smoke is orally inhaled via the opp ...
brands. It formerly constituted 25% of
Silk Cut cigarettes.
Development began on a replacement for tobacco in cigarettes in the 1950s, to reduce undesirable tobacco smoke components present in cigarettes. Cytrel was developed by
Celanese
Celanese Corporation, formerly known as Hoechst Celanese, is an American technology and specialty materials company headquartered in Irving, Texas. A Fortune 500 corporation, the company is the world’s leading producer of acetic acid, produc ...
Fiber Marketing Company.
The fiber went through a difficult development, with scientists struggling to achieve acceptable smoking, taste, and manufacturing properties. However, the product was of a lower density than tobacco and useful as a bulking agent so development continued. After five revisions the Celanese Fiber Marketing Company released Type 308 to the market.
It was one of the ''NSM'' (
New Smoking Material New Smoking Material was a £7 million product development project run by Imperial Tobacco and Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) mainly in the 1970s intended to reduce the harmful content of cigarette smoke. Research and commercialisation was done ...
s) that came into popularity in the 1970s.
See also
*
Silk Cut
External links
* https://web.archive.org/web/20110517111059/http://tobaccodocuments.org/rjr/501012107-2191.html
Cigarettes
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