The First PhD in E-cigarettes

Smoking cessation is higher with vaping use than other nicotine replacement treatments or other methods.

Across England, the e-cigarette remains the most used way to quit smoking:

27.2% of smokers have used an e-cigarette when trying to quit in the past 12 months vs 15.5% of smokers who chose over-the-counter drugs. Most of they vape devices are produced by vape manufacturers in China.

For adults:

• Reduction in the prevalence of smoking: between 13.8 and 16% to date
• 6% of vapers, their number has therefore remained stable compared to the previous year
• 6.1% of vapers have never smoked before
• long-time smokers use vapes more and drugs less
• they prefer open systems to closed systems (pods)
• they appreciate fruity aromas more. Then come the classic and the menthol
• In the UK, is vaping a gateway to youth smoking? The answer is no: only 0.8% and 1.3% of young current vapers have never tried tobacco.

How do the British perceive the e-cigs?

The report indicates that a distortion does exist in the perception of vaping products compared to tobacco. In effect :

• electronic cigarettes are perceived as less harmful than tobacco for only 29% of smokers
• 38% believe that vaping is as dangerous as smoking
• 18% say they don’t know
• 15% consider that being a vaper is more harmful than smoking

These figures prove that it would be wise to conduct an information campaign among the British population on the lesser harmfulness of e-cigs than smoked tobacco. The goal? May the vape make everyone agree.

This is excellent news for the newly graduated vape and for the first time! Sébastien Soulet, a member of Ingésciences, a Biochemical lab in France, obtained his doctorate on the functioning of the electronic cigarette by determining and quantifying the data of the vape within the framework of practical use of a vaper.

Advances research on vaping

For three years, Sébastien Soulet worked on a thesis on the functioning of electronic cigarettes in partnership with the I2M Bordeaux school and co-financed by the Nouvelle-Aquitaine Region. Following his defence on January 22, Sébastien Soulet obtained the very first vaping doctorate.

This thesis is a natural step forward for the vape. Any chemical and toxicological study and conclusion on e-cigs can only be considered in the future if the physical and thermodynamic implementation factors are fair and established beforehand! In other words, the vape’s true notion and the vaper’s feeling must be taken into account in each scientific publication on the electronic cigarette. Otherwise, it isn’t very objective.

Without these parameters of the concept of the vape and the feeling of the vapers, the studies give rise to questionable results. Most of them used smoking machines or heated the electronic cigarette to very high temperatures that had nothing to do with everyday use. as if a vaper was taking a dry hit every day! The researchers had not correctly understood specific data on the use of vaping, resulting in somewhat unfavourable results that were too often published in the press. But now, this thesis gives way to objectivity!

The title of doctor makes it possible to conduct new research. Sébastien Soulet will be able to continue to work on the reality of the daily uses of human vapers. Measuring and quantifying vaping data in practical use opens crucial perspectives for the electronic cigarette to be considered a tool for reducing the risks associated with smoking.

Dr Sébastien Soulet explains his work in a video.

The research steps

To carry out his research work, he focused on:

-understanding the design of e-cigarettes and identifying the groups of equipment available on the market (among the 26 devices selected with the technical characteristics as a reference). He discovered that when the supplier recommends an e-cig for power of less than 30 W, it has:

• a resistive wire whose surface is less than 75 mm²
• air resistance is more significant than 9 Pa0.5.min.L-1, which corresponds to indirect inhalation.

The other group of complementary materials is associated with direct inhalation.

-the study of the influences of the physical parameters, in other words, the various powers and the vaping temperatures. After having selected and tested five materials on the U-SAV robot vaper, the behaviour of an e-cig can be described in three operating modes:

• of underheating, presenting a zero mass of vaporized liquid (called MEV)
• an average energy efficiency translated by its linearity (starting from a minimum power and being characterized by an MEV evolving linearly with the power which is applied.)

overheating (from maximum power and speed identifiable by a break in linearity)

The U-SAV machine is a “vaping robot” designed by Dr Sébastien Soulet which participates in the measurement and quantification of vaping data in the context of daily and regular use by consumers.

– the link with boiling and its consequence in an electronic cigarette. Boiling is the phenomenon that happens inside the atomizer.

This thesis shows that “in an optimal operating regime, an electronic cigarette presents a significantly reduced risk proportional to the mass of liquid vaporized. In an overheating regime, these elements also suggest that the feeling of flavors is altered. understanding that the power range of the overheating regime is an area of use naturally avoided by the consumer.” This overheating regime is the one from which toxic particles begin to appear.