Simultaneous Measurement of Temperature-Dependent Thermal Conductivity and Heat Capacity of an Individual Cured Tobacco Leaf

The heating process of cured tobacco leaves will largely affect the final composition and content of gas products. The knowledge of the instant thermophysical properties of an individual tobacco leaf are important and necessary for deep understanding and further predicting the process. In this work, the thermal conductivity and volumetric heat capacity of a single tobacco leaf are simultaneously measured using an advanced transient electrothermal technique, in which the heating temperature can be well controlled by simply adjusting the feeding current. The measured thermal conductivities and volumetric heat capacities at different temperatures in the beginning stage of heating shows that the thermal conductivity of a single tobacco leaf decreases against the temperature and dominate the heat transfer process in the tobacco leaves, while the volumetric heat capacity is almost constant in the low temperature range.