Summary In the last decade, tobacco products intended for inhalation without combustion have emerged as alternatives to cigarettes. Tobacco Heating System (THS) 3.0 is an induction heating device combined with specially designed electrically heated tobacco products that offers an improved product performance consistency throughout the device lifecycle and a cleaner user-experience than previous THS versions, which rely on direct heating technologies. THS 3.0 has previously been assessed to emit significantly fewer and lower levels of harmful constituents than cigarettes, resulting in an aerosol with reduced in vitro cytotoxicity and genotoxicity compared to cigarette smoke. In this paper, a rigorous assessment substantiates that no combustion occurs during THS 3.0 operation and that its emission is a liquid-based aerosol that is not smoke, as there is: 1) no ignition, 2) net endothermic degradation, 3) no ash formed, 4) comparable emissions in oxidative and non-oxidative atmospheres, 5) CO/CO 2 ratio typical for when tobacco is heated and not combusted, and 6) no carbon-based solid particles generated. In addition, THS 3.0 satisfies the absence of combustion criteria of mandatory and voluntary product standards issued by national standardization bodies.
Nordlund et al. (Sun,) studied this question.