Study On The Isolation Of Microorganisms And Causes Of Moldy Cigarettes

The tobacco is an important industrial crop in many areas around the world,andalso an significant source of our national finance.In recent years, the moldy cigarettesnot only causes the economic loss for tobacco enterprises,but also huge damage to theimage of the brand. The mildew of cigarettes is caused by the growth of mould.Normally, there has been a major change of chemical components and debasement ofquality after the cigarette mildews. And the value of cigarette is completely destroyedwhen the problem gets more serious.The methods of microbiological test suitable for tobaccos and cigarettes werestudied based on GB4789.15. The technology included flapping the samples withinterscience bag mixer, isolating the microorganism from tobaccos with five mediums,cultivating the fungus and bacteria at28and36degrees respectively, and counting themicroorganism with plate countmethod.The comparison of five different brands showed that after storing the samples for6months in artificialenvironment, unpacked samples existed moldy phenomenon, andthe xerophilous mould in unpacked samples was significantly higher than othercontemporaneous samples of YD,TY and CY cigarettes. However, there were nosignificant increase of the microorganism in JQ and BL cigarettes. The studyidentified5moulds in cigarettes through probabilistic research method, whichnumbered A1,A2,A3,A4,A5.According to the colony’s modality and microscopeobservation resulting on spore and mycelium,A1,A2were Aspergillus,A4wasPenicillium, while A3,A5were failed to identify their species.The research of influence factors of mildew showed that, when the moisturecontent of the tobacco was more than13percent, the mold increased significantly.The microorganisms increased remarkably as the storage time extended when thetightness of packing of cigarettes was below60mmH2O. When the cigarettes werestored under the environment of28degrees and80%RH, the mold would increasequickly. The different packing methods of cigarettes would cause the difference ofbacteriaand yeasts, but exerted little influence on the mold. The microorganism comparison of before and after three critical production processes showed that addingfeed liquid would cause the increase of microorganism, which would contribute tomildew as time went by.The microbiological test of main raw material and production environmentshowed that the main source of mold in the cigarettes were from strips, however, therewere little microorganism in other raw materials such as cigarettepaper, lined paper,balsam and feed liquid. Besides, there existed a certain amount of bacteria and fungusin the production environment, and the perfuming process had the highest amount ofmicroorganism. Moreover, the large amount of microorganism in the tobacco powdercollected from the environment also showed that there was a potential contaminationrisk under this production environment.