1、Automatic tobacco Stick Eject System (SES)

Most heat-not-burn (“HNB”) products on the market employ internal heating blades or rods, a.k.a. heaters, to heat specialized tobacco sticks. Upon the completion of a smoking session, the tobacco sticks are manually separated, i.e. pushing an extractor by hand, from the heater and then removed from the HNB heating devices. If the tobacco stick is not removed from the heater according to the above manual process, the tobacco residues are usually left in the heating devices.

We invented the first HNB heating device with an automatic tobacco removal system in the summer of 2018. When the heating session ends, the sophisticated control system in the heating device automatically separates the tobacco stick from the heater, and then pushes the stick out of the device. The whole process is fully automatic, simple and convenient, with little residues left behind.

2、Auto cleaning technologies

A small amount of tar and solid tobacco residues may be left in a heating device every time an HNB tobacco stick is consumed. If not cleaned and removed timely, the accumulated residues could affect the performance of the device and produce unpleasant odors or even harmful chemicals deteriorate smoking experiences.

We creatively automated the tedious manual cleaning process for HNB heating devices. We invented a special brush with two different bristles, one is made from materials that can remove tobacco stains and residues, and the other is made from materials that can absorb tar. The brush is inserted into a heating device with bristles touching both the heater and the internal radiating tube. By controlling the rotation speeds and the torques of a motor that connects to the brush, and with proper selection of the bristles, we can ensure that the frictions between the bristles and the heaters are within an ideal range, thus quickly cleaning the heating device while ensuring that the heater is not damaged during cleaning, greatly reducing the time cost for cleaning.

3、Self-cooling tobacco sticks

To lower the temperature of aerosols at the mouthpiece of a HNB tobacco stick, the traditional solution, also a patented approach by some large tobacco company, is to set up a cooling segment – usually with phase-change materials – between the tobacco section and the filter such that aerosols are cooled down when passing through this section.

Along with China Tobacco Group in Henan, we have successfully developed a new kind of self-cooling HNB tobacco sticks and obtained corresponding patents. In the new structure, the tobacco section is divided into the first and the second tobacco sections, with the latter lies between the first section and the filter. During a smoking session, only the first tobacco section is heated. High-temperature aerosols pass through the second tobacco section and heat up the aerosol-generating materials in this section. While more aerosols are generated, the high-temperature aerosols are cooled down before entering the filter section. This new approach simplifies the HNB tobacco stick structures and lowers the manufacturing costs. Further, it enables manufacturers to utilize existing machinery that make traditional cigarettes to make HNB sticks, thus achieving significant cost-savings for transitioning to new tobacco technologies.