Aerosol Generation Product

The following embodiments relate to an aerosol-generating article.

Recently, demands for alternative articles of general cigarettes have increased. For example, there is an increasing demand for a device (e.g., a cigarette-type electronic cigarette) that generates an aerosol by electrically heating a cigarette stick. Accordingly, research on an electrically heated aerosol-generating device and a cigarette stick (or an aerosol-generating article) applied thereto is being actively conducted. For example, KR Patent Application Publication No. 10-2017-0132823 discloses a non-combustion-type flavor inhaler, a flavor inhalation component source unit, and an atomizing unit.

An embodiment is to provide an aerosol-generating article that does not require heating.

An embodiment is to provide an aerosol-generating article that may ensure a uniform amount of nicotine transfer and uniformity of smoking taste during smoking. An embodiment is to provide an aerosol-generating article that may ensure sufficient nicotine transfer in a non-heating state.

An embodiment is to provide an aerosol-generating article without a defect, such as a recessed part.

According to an embodiment, an aerosol-generating article may include a medium segment filled with a medium, and at least one of a first segment disposed upstream of the medium segment and a second segment disposed downstream of the medium segment, wherein the first segment or the second segment may include a cellulose acetate filter including a plasticizer, and a content of the plasticizer may be set to a range in which a recess in the first segment or the second segment does not occur. In an embodiment, the content of the plasticizer may be substantially equal to 11% or less than 11%. The content of the plasticizer may be substantially equal to 4% or greater than 4%.

The plasticizer may be one of triacetin (TA) or triethyl citrate (TEC).

The medium may include at least one component of tobacco granules, reconstituted tobacco, and cut tobacco leaves or a combination thereof.

The medium may be pH-treated and nicotine spread from the medium may be adsorbed into the first segment or the second segment. The medium may be pH-treated to be in a range of 7.0 to 9.5.

According to an embodiment, an aerosol-generating article may include a first segment and a second segment disposed downstream of the first segment, wherein nicotine may be adsorbed into the first segment or the second segment, the first segment or the second segment may include a cellulose acetate filter including a plasticizer, and a content of the plasticizer may be greater than or equal to 4% and less than or equal to 11%.

In an embodiment, the aerosol-generating article may further include a medium segment disposed between the first segment and the second segment, wherein the medium segment may include a pH-treated tobacco medium, and the nicotine adsorbed into the first segment or the second segment may be spread from the medium segment.

In an embodiment, the first segment or the second segment may be manufactured by cutting a filter portion to which free nicotine emitted from a medium raw material including nicotine is spread.

An aerosol-generating article according to an embodiment may implement a transfer of aerosol without heating the aerosol-generating article.

An aerosol-generating article according to an embodiment may ensure a uniform amount of nicotine transfer during smoking.

An aerosol-generating article according to an embodiment may ensure uniformity of smoking taste during smoking.

An aerosol-generating article according to an embodiment may use the aerosol-generating article without preheating a device.

An aerosol-generating article according to an embodiment may not include a defect, such as a recessed part.

According to an aerosol-generating article according to an embodiment, a service life of a device may increase by using the device in a non-heating mode.

The effects of the aerosol-generating article according to an embodiment are not limited to the above-mentioned effects, and other unmentioned effects can be clearly understood from the following description by one of ordinary skill in the art.

Hereinafter, embodiments will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings. However, various alterations and modifications may be made to the embodiments and thus, the scope of the disclosure is not limited or restricted to the embodiments. The embodiments should be understood to include all changes, equivalents, and replacements within the idea and the technical scope of the disclosure.

The terminology used herein is for the purpose of describing particular example embodiments only and is not to be limiting of the example embodiments. The singular forms “a”, “an”, and “the” are intended to include the plural forms as well, unless the context clearly indicates otherwise. It will be further understood that the terms “comprises/comprising” and/or “includes/including” when used herein, specify the presence of stated features, integers, steps, operations, elements, and/or components, but do not preclude the presence or addition of one or more other features, integers, steps, operations, elements, components and/or groups thereof.

Unless otherwise defined, all terms including technical and scientific terms used herein have the same meaning as commonly understood by one of ordinary skill in the art to which example embodiments belong. It will be further understood that terms, such as those defined in commonly-used dictionaries, should be interpreted as having a meaning that is consistent with their meaning in the context of the relevant art and will not be interpreted in an idealized or overly formal sense unless expressly so defined herein.

When describing the embodiments with reference to the accompanying drawings, like reference numerals refer to like constituent elements and a repeated description related thereto will be omitted. In the description of embodiments, detailed description of well-known related structures or functions will be omitted when it is deemed that such description will cause ambiguous interpretation of the present disclosure.

Also, in the description of the components, terms such as first, second, A, B, (a), (b) or the like may be used herein when describing components of the present disclosure. These terms are used only for the purpose of discriminating one constituent element from another constituent element, and the nature, the sequences, or the orders of the constituent elements are not limited by the terms. When one constituent element is described as being “connected”, “coupled”, or “attached” to another constituent element, it should be understood that one constituent element can be connected or attached directly to another constituent element, and an intervening constituent element can also be “connected”, “coupled”, or “attached” to the constituent elements.

The same name may be used to describe an element included in the embodiments described above and an element having a common function. Unless otherwise mentioned, the description on one embodiment may be applicable to other embodiments and thus, duplicated descriptions will be omitted for conciseness.

In the following embodiments, the “moisturizing agent” may refer to a substance capable of facilitating the formation of visible smoke and/or an aerosol. The moisturizing agent may include, for example, glycerin (GLY), propylene glycol (PG), ethylene glycol, dipropylene glycol, diethylene glycol, triethylene glycol, tetraethylene glycol, and oleyl alcohol, but is not limited thereto. In the art, a moisturizing agent may be used interchangeably with a term such as an aerosol former, a humectant, or the like.

In the following embodiments, an “aerosol forming material” may refer to a material that forms an aerosol. The aerosol may include a volatile compound. The aerosol forming material may be solid or liquid. For example, a solid aerosol forming material may include a solid material based on a tobacco raw material, such as cut tobacco leaves, tobacco granules, or reconstituted tobacco. The reconstituted tobacco may be divided into slurry-type reconstituted tobacco sheets and paper-like reconstituted tobacco sheets according to its manufacturing method. The liquid aerosol forming material may include a liquid composition based on nicotine, tobacco extracts, and/or various flavoring agents. However, the scope of the disclosure is not limited to these examples.

In the following embodiments, the term “aerosol-generating article” may refer to an aerosol forming material, in other words, an article that accommodates a medium, in which an aerosol passes through the article and the medium is transferred. A representative example of the aerosol-generating article may be a cigarette. However, the scope of the disclosure is not limited thereto.

In the following embodiments, the term “aerosol-generating device” may refer to a device that generates an aerosol using an aerosol forming material to generate an aerosol that may be inhaled through the mouth of a user directly to the lungs of the user.

In the following embodiments, the term “upstream” or “upstream direction” may refer to a direction away from an oral region of a user (smoker), and the term “downstream” or “downstream direction” may refer to a direction approaching the oral region of the user. The terms “upstream” and “downstream” may be used to describe relative positions of components of an aerosol-generating article.

In the following embodiments, the term “puff” refers to inhalation by a user, and the inhalation refers to a situation in which a user draws in an aerosol into his or her oral cavity, nasal cavity, or lungs through the mouth or nose.

is a block diagram of an aerosol-generating system according to an embodiment,are views schematically illustrating an aerosol-generating system in which an aerosol-generating article is coupled to an aerosol-generating device according to an embodiment, andis a view schematically illustrating the structure of an aerosol-generating article according to an embodiment.

Referring to, an aerosol-generating systemaccording to an embodiment may include an aerosol-generating deviceand an aerosol-generating article.

Referring to, the aerosol-generating deviceaccording to an embodiment may include a battery, a controller, a vaporizer, and an elongated empty space.

Only components related to the present embodiment are shown in the aerosol-generating deviceshown in. Therefore, it is to be understood by those having ordinary skill in the art related to the present embodiment that the aerosol-generating devicemay further include other general-purpose components in addition to the components shown in. In addition, the aerosol-generating devicemay be in the form of a stick or a holder.

In an embodiment, the batterymay supply power to be used to operate the aerosol-generating device. For example, the batterymay supply current to the vaporizerso that the vaporizermay heat a liquid composition. In addition, the batterymay supply power required to operate a display, a sensor, a motor, or the like installed in the aerosol-generating device.

In an embodiment, the batterymay be a lithium iron phosphate (LiFePO) battery, but is not limited to the above example. For example, the batterymay correspond to a lithium cobalt oxide (LiCoO) battery, a lithium titanate battery, a lithium ion battery, and the like.

For example, the batterymay have a cylindrical shape with a diameter of 10 mm and a length of 37 mm, but is not limited thereto. For example, the capacity of the batterymay have a range of 120 mAh to 250 mAh, but is not limited thereto. Further, the batterymay be a rechargeable battery or a disposable battery. For example, when the batteryis chargeable, the charge rate (C-rate) of the batterymay be 10 C, and the discharge rate (C-rate) thereof may be 10 C to 20 C, but is not limited thereto. In addition, for static use, the batterymay be manufactured so that 80% or more of the total capacity may be secured even when charging/discharging is performed 2000 times.

In an embodiment, the controllermay control the overall operation of the aerosol-generating device. Specifically, the controllermay control respective operations of other components included in the aerosol-generating device, in addition to the batteryand the vaporizer. In addition, the controllermay verify a state of each of the components of the aerosol-generating deviceto determine whether the aerosol-generating deviceis in an operable state.

In an embodiment, the controllermay include at least one processor. The at least one processor may be implemented as an array of a plurality of logic gates, or may be implemented as a combination of a general-purpose microprocessor and a memory in which a program executable by the microprocessor is stored. In addition, it is to be understood by one of ordinary skill in the art to which the disclosure pertains that the processor may be implemented in other types of hardware.

In an embodiment, the vaporizermay generate an aerosol by heating the liquid composition and emit the generated aerosol toward the aerosol-generating articleinserted into the elongated empty spacesuch that the generated aerosol may pass through the inserted aerosol-generating article. Therefore, a tobacco flavor may be added to the aerosol that has passed through the aerosol-generating article, and a user may suck one end of the aerosol-generating articlethrough the mouth to inhale the aerosol with the tobacco flavor added. According to an embodiment, the vaporizermay be referred to as a cartomizer or an atomizer. According to an embodiment, the vaporizermay be coupled to the aerosol-generating devicein a replaceable manner.

In an embodiment, the aerosol-generating devicemay further include a heater. The aerosol-generating articleaccording to an embodiment may migrate nicotine in a non-heating condition. In addition, in a low-temperature heating mode through the heater, an amount of nicotine transfer may increase by promoting the nicotine transfer. The low-temperature heating mode by the heatermay implement a higher level of intensity of smoking taste compared to the non-heating mode, and the amount of nicotine transfer may be easily adjusted through the non-heating mode and the low-temperature heating mode.

The heatermay be heated by power supplied by the battery. For example, when the aerosol-generating articleis inserted in the aerosol-generating device, the heatermay be disposed outside the aerosol-generating article. The heated heatermay thus raise the temperature of an aerosol-generating material in the aerosol-generating article.

For example, the heatermay be an electrically resistive heater. In this example, the heatermay include an electrically conductive track, and the heatermay be heated as a current flows through the electrically conductive track. However, the heateris not limited to the foregoing example, and any example of heating the heaterup to a desired temperature may be applicable without limitation. Here, the desired temperature may be preset in the aerosol-generating deviceor may be set by the user. Meanwhile, as another example, the heatermay be an induction heater.

Specifically, the heatermay include an electrically conductive coil for heating the aerosol-generating articlein an induction heating manner, and the aerosol-generating articlemay include a susceptor to be heated by the induction heater.

For example, the heatermay include a tubular heat transfer element, a plate-shaped heat transfer element, a needle-shaped heat transfer element, or a rod-shaped heat transfer element, and may heat the inside or outside of the aerosol-generating articleaccording to the shape of a heat transfer element.

In addition, the heatermay be provided as a plurality of heaters in the aerosol-generating device. In this case, the plurality of heatersmay be disposed to be inserted into the aerosol-generating articleor may be disposed outside the aerosol-generating article. In addition, some of the plurality of heatersmay be disposed to be inserted into the aerosol-generating article, and the rest may be disposed outside the aerosol-generating article.

In an embodiment, the aerosol-generating articlemay be received in the elongated empty space. In an embodiment, the heatermay be disposed to surround the outer surface of the elongated empty space, thereby heating the aerosol-generating article received in the elongated empty space. The heateraccording to an embodiment may be disposed to surround at least a portion of the outer surface of the elongated empty space.

Meanwhile, the aerosol-generating devicemay further include general-purpose components in addition to the battery, the controller, the vaporizer, and the elongated empty space. For example, the aerosol-generating devicemay include a sensing unit, an output unit, a user input unit, a memory, and a communication unit.

The sensing unitmay sense a state of the aerosol-generating deviceor a state of an environment around the aerosol-generating device, and transmit sensed information to the controller. Based on the sensed information, the controllermay control the aerosol-generating deviceto restrict smoking, determine whether the aerosol-generating article(e.g., a cigarette, a cartridge, etc.) is inserted, display a notification, and perform other functions.