Influence of Coil Power Ranges on the E-Liquid Consumption in Vaping Devices

Abstract

As electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) represent a new constantly evolving product category, the systematic analysis of the developed devices and the e-liquid vaporization is challenging. Indeed, understanding how e-cigarettes work and the role of key parameters in the process are major issues. This work focuses on an experimental study of how the power supplied by the battery to the atomizer coil influences e-liquid consumption. The reproducibility and the repeatability of e-liquid consumption were investigated over 20 series of 20 puffs for one of the tested atomizers. Then, the reproducibility and the repeatability of the e-liquid consumption was investigated over five series of 20 puffs for each tested atomizer. The wire behavior according to the supplied power could be separated into three regimes: under-heating (insufficient power to generate an aerosol), optimal vaporization characterized by a linear trend (vaporization of the e-liquid proportional to the supplied energy) and over-heating (dry-burn occurs). Using a controllable and repeatable energy supply, the reproducibility of the quantity of vaporized e-liquid was verified for each of the five series of 20 puffs programed for all the atomizers except one. Finally, the influence of the supplied power on the vaporization and the consumption of the e-liquid as well as the optimal power ranges were investigated and discussed. The results showed that atomizers with resistance ranging from 1 Ω to 1.8 Ω are efficient using all the energy supplied by the battery to vaporize the e-liquid and reducing the energy lost in the cotton or in the metal part of atomizer coil.

A simple predictive model for estimating relative e-cigarette toxic carbonyl levels

“…In order to address this issue to choose a power level that would afford inter-device consistency, we used the high value of the manufacturers’ recommended range of power settings for each device studied in this work. Alternately, the method of analyzing total carbonyl levels normalized by mass e-liquid consumed could inherently account for power [ 28 , 29 ].…”

Experimental Method of Emission Generation Calibration Based on Reference Liquids Characterization

“…Indeed, the results showed that with two standardized liquids [24] (having different PG:VG ratios but the same quantities of other added molecules), the MVE over 36 experiments presented a standard deviation inferior to 8%. The repeatability of the experiments performed with the Cubis was illustrated in [25]. The MVE was measured over 22 series of 20 puffs (without any refilling) and presented a standard deviation lower than 3%.…”

“…Its reproducibility and repeatability were already performed for the characterization in [25], and the Cubis clearomiser was used as a reference in this work.…”

“…The influence of the power supplied to the Cubis 1Ω coil (presented in Section 2.2.1.) was also characterized in [25]. Three regimes were identified.…”

“…In [25], the number of series (defined in the AFNOR XP-D90-300-3 standard [24]) was proven to have no influence on the MVE. Based on this observation, our experiments were only composed of 40 puffs divided in 2 series of 20 puffs and each series was separated by a 5-min-break referred to as inter-series.…”