Determining of moisture content of tobacco for hookah

Abstract

One of the most important characteristics affecting the technological and consumer’s properties of tobacco, tobacco products, including tobacco for hookah, is humidity. Methods for determining the moisture content in hookah tobacco do not exist. The review of literature on the existing methods for humidity determination of food and tobacco products has been carried. In order to adapt existing in tobacco industry methods for determining humidity in hookah tobacco their review has also been carried. The purpose of researches was studying the various drying regimes for obtaining objective information on humidity of tobacco for a hookah. Two temperature regimes of 95 °C and 105 °C with various drying duration has been studied. Statistical analysis of experimental data, confirming the accuracy of the experiments has been carried. It has discovered that curing duration at studies temperatures of hookah tobacco samples does not affect greatly the content determination, but temperature of curing affects greatly. Method of continuous drying at ambient temperature is considered to be the most accurate, and has been taken as a comparison. It was found that the experimental results of moisture content determination in hookah tobacco greatly differ from the comparison; this can be probably explained by the peculiarities of the composition of hookah tobacco. Hookah tobacco includes hot only tobacco particles but also honey, sugar beet molasses, volatile compounds (flavorings and glycerin). Glycerin is non-volatile at ambient temperature, but at higher temperatures it begins to evaporate rapidly. This mass loss of studied hookah tobacco samples caused by increased temperature considered to be water, so final result on water content determination is inaccurate. The obtained results are not final and further researches should de continued.