Scientific Substantiation of the Absence of Combustion in a Novel Heated Tobacco Product
Below is the transcript of the video:
Good morning. My name is Giuseppe Plebani. I am a medical doctor and actually I'm working by PMI as Scientific and Medical Affairs Manager. Today I'm going to show you some data about the Scientific Substantiation of the Absence of Combustion in a Novel Heated Tobacco Product.
As you all know, the toxicants released when combusting tobacco are the primary cause of smoking-related diseases. Heated tobacco products, HTPs, are designed to heat tobacco without combustion, therefore they generate an aerosol and not smoke. As HTPs are a category of products using a different kind of technology and different levels of heating temperatures, each product needs to be scientifically assessed.
I'm going to present the scientific substantiation of the absence of combustion and the significant reduction of toxicants compared to conventional cigarettes from a new HTP. This new HTP has an electronic device where the tobacco stick is inserted. Inside of the device, there is an electronically controlled metal pin that is acting as heater for the tobacco. During this assessment, we measured the temperature of tobacco at three different points. First, the contact point between the tobacco and the pin heater. Then the farthest end from the pin heater in the tobacco plug. And then the middle point between the first and the last one. Additional tests were performed on the oxidative and non-oxidative atmosphere, meaning in the presence or in absence of oxygen, and the chemical analysis of the aerosol was done to assess the potential difference in the emission between the two environments.
In case of combustion, a difference in the aerosol composition would have been measured. Finally, a targeted aerosol chemistry analysis was performed in order to evaluate the levels of HPHCs, harmful and potentially harmful tobacco component in the generated aerosol, in comparison with the smoke generated in the combustion of our 1R6F reference cigarette. Combustion starts at a temperature above 400 Celsius degrees. In our device, the maximum temperature to reach by the pin heater 345 Celsius degrees. Therefore, well below the level needed for combustion.
The maximum temperature reached from tobacco is 309 Celsius degrees. And this is at the point of contact between the tobacco and the pin heater and decreases with the increasing distance from the pin. The drop of the temperature during puffs is an additional confirmation that no combustion occurs. This is because the fresh air coming inside is cooling down the heater. Then, as soon as the heating source is turned off, you see that the tobacco cools rapidly. In addition to that, tobacco is not consumed. There is no smoke and no ash formed. The aerosol composition under oxidative and non-oxidative atmosphere is not changing, demonstrating that oxygen is not playing any significant role. The content of carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxide and nitrogen monoxide plus nitrogen dioxide is massively inferior compared to cigarette smoke.
Overall, these results are additionally demonstrating that oxygen is not playing any important role in the HTP aerosol formation. The targeted aerosol chemistry analysis we performed to evaluate the levels of HPHCs in the generated aerosol in comparison with the smoke generated in the combustion of our 1R6F cigarette showed a significantly lower level of this toxicant in the HTP aerosol compared to the reference cigarette smoke. For most of them it’s more than 90% [reduction compared to cigarette smoke] and as you can see in this slide, 100 is the level of the reference cigarette.
In conclusion, this data provides scientific evidence that tobacco is heated and not burned. The two main arguments of this substantiation are the temperatures generated in the HTP device are far below the level required to initiate a combustion reaction. And the composition of the generated aerosol is not influenced by the presence or absence of oxygen. The levels of HPHCs in the generated aerosol are significantly reduced compared to the cigarette smoke. Now I am at the end of my presentation. Thank you so much for your interest.