Heating vs Burning: Why It Matters

Discover how heating tobacco instead of burning it avoids smoke, lowers exposure to toxicants, and supports harm reduction goals.

Harm reduction, while it may be unfamiliar to some, is actually a concept that we encounter frequently in our daily lives without even realising it. It revolves around the idea of minimising the negative impacts of things, and the fascinating part is that you might already be practicing it.

Using tobacco heating products (THPs) instead of cigarettes is a form of harm reduction too. Burning tobacco is the conventional method used by traditional cigarettes, cigars, and pipes to produce smoke, which is inhaled. On the other hand, tobacco heating products heat up specially designed tobacco sticks, capsules, or inserts to release flavors and nicotine as an inhaled aerosol.

What is the difference?

The temperature.

In a cigarette, the tobacco is burned by combustion at temperatures up to 950ºC ^[1], generating smoke.

Cigarette smoke contains more than 7,500 individual chemicals, of which 150 are known to be harmful and more than 60 are known carcinogens ^[2,3,4]. Many of the toxicants found in cigarette smoke are formed by the high temperature degradation of tobacco, both through combustion, and through pyrolysis, the decomposition of a substance by heat. This is where many of the toxicants found in smoke but not present in the original tobacco are formed.

In THPs, the tobacco is heated to much lower temperatures of no more than 400ºC, producing aerosol.

This temperature are low enough to avoid combustion, which is why THPs don’t produce smoke. While THPs heat a consumable of natural material such as tobacco leaf or non-tobacco leaf, the total number of chemicals in Heated product aerosols is approximately >10 times less than in cigarette smoke and their concentrations are significantly reduced ^[5,6,7].

Why does this matter?

The smoke generated by burning tobacco contains thousands of harmful chemicals, including tar, carbon monoxide, and various carcinogens.

While the aerosol released by heating tobacco contains nicotine and flavors, it generally has lower levels of harmful chemicals compared to the smoke produced by burning tobacco. On average, BAT’s Heated Products reduces the nine toxicants recommended by the World Health Organization to be reduced in cigarette smoke by 90-95% when compared to smoke*†^#. Further, Heated Products do not contain tar or carbon monoxide.

At BAT, we utilise a multi-step approach to confirm the absence of combustion. These steps include determining the temperature profile of the Heated Product’s heater and consumable during use; measurement of combustion markers; and mapping the thermal degradation of our Heated Products with consumables.

Burning tobacco can produce a strong and lingering odor that can cling to clothing, breath, and the surrounding environment. It also leaves ash and residue.

Heating tobacco often produces less odor compared to burning tobacco. The aerosol from heated tobacco tends to have a milder scent that dissipates more quickly

Disclaimer:

* Based on the weight of evidence and assuming a complete switch from cigarette smoking. These products are not risk free and are addictive.

† Our Vapour Product Vuse (including Alto, Solo, Ciro and Vibe), and certain products, including Velo, Grizzly, Kodiak, and Camel Snus, which are sold in the U.S., are subject to FDA regulation and no reduced-risk claims will be made as to these products without agency clearance.

# Comparison with smoke from a scientific standard reference cigarette (approximately 9 mg tar) in terms of the average of the 9 harmful components the World Health Organization recommends reducing in cigarette smoke. These products are not risk free and are addictive.

The number of consumers of Smokeless Products is defined as the estimated number of Legal Age (minimum 18 years) consumers of the Group’s Smokeless products - which does not necessarily mean these consumers are solus consumers of these products. In markets where regular consumer tracking is in place, this estimate is obtained from adult consumer tracking studies conducted by third parties (including Kantar). In markets where regular consumer tracking is not in place, the number of consumers of Smokeless Products is derived from volume sales of consumables and devices in such markets, using consumption patterns obtained from other similar markets with adult consumer tracking (utilising studies conducted by third parties, including Kantar).

References:

[1] Baker. R. R., A review of pyrolysis studies to unravel reaction steps in burning tobacco, 2001.

[2] IARC Working Group on the Evaluation of Carcinogenic Risks to Humans, Tobacco Smoke and Involuntary Smoking (No. 83), 2004.

[3] Jenkins, R.A., et al., Mainstream and sidestream smoke, In The chemistry of environmental tobacco smoke: composition and measurement (2nd ed). CRC Press, 2000. p. 49-75.

[4] Rodgman, A. and Perfetti, T.A., The chemical components of tobacco and tobacco smoke. CRC press, 2008.

[5] Azzopardi, D., et al., Chemical characterization of tobacco-free “modern” oral nicotine pouches and their position on the toxicant and risk continuums. Drug Chem Toxicol, 2022. 45(5): p. 2246-2254.

[6] Breheny, D., et al., The in vitro assessment of a novel vaping technology. Toxicol Rep, 2020. 7: p. 1145-1156.

[7] Thorne, D., et al., Assessment of novel tobacco heating product THP1.0. Part 7: Comparative in vitro toxicological evaluation. Regul Toxicol Pharmacol, 2018. 93: p. 71-83.