How IQOS changed smoking industry

The whole world speaks of a trend towards informed consumption, reduction of harm to health and the environment.

Products that conform to these doctrines come to the fore. So, the technology of heating tobacco appeared in the world, which was fundamentally different from what has been presented on the smoking industry, in particular, from the same vapes.

More than 11 million adult users in the world have changed their lives with IQOS. At the same time, in order to promote technology and improve it, scientists also study the tobacco genome and grow organotypic cell cultures.

In the spring of 2019, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), in its decision, indicated that the presence of the IQOS electric tobacco heating system in the U.S. market was consistent with public health goals and confirmed the possibility of selling the device in the U.S. This decision was made based on a thorough comprehensive assessment of the pre-sale application submitted by the manufacturer to the FDA in 2017. The first IQOS store in the United States opened on October 4, 2019, in Atlanta, Georgia.

Tobacco heating system 

In recent years, scientists from tobacco companies around the world have developed new alternatives - no smoke or ash. Tobacco heating is a fundamentally new way of consuming and perhaps the most significant innovation in the smoking industry in thousands of years.

When burning, the temperature at the tip of the cigarette reaches 800 ° C - at such a high-temperature smoke is formed and harmful substances are released. Therefore, if you lower the temperature, you can reduce the emission of harmful substances. This logic, as well as the desire to create a less harmful alternative for adult smokers, forced to transform the business and invest billions of dollars in research. The first results appeared in the 2010s. Today, brand name IQOS is present in 51 markets of the world.

The innovation lies in the fact that the device heats the tobacco to a temperature sufficient to release nicotine (the maximum temperature in the device does not exceed 350 ° C), but the combustion process does not start, this requires a temperature above 400 ° C. In the process of heating tobacco, it is not smoke that is released, but a kind of tobacco vapor - an aerosol containing nicotine.

Studying the tobacco vapor emitted when using the tobacco heating system, scientists made several interesting and important conclusions. First, the physical properties of the aerosol were investigated, namely, the size of the liquid droplets in a pair. Optimal for inhalation of droplets measure no more than 2.5 micrometers. Also, due to the fact that the tobacco in the device does not burn, but heats up, when IQOS is used, the levels of emitted harmful substances are on average 95% lower than cigarettes.