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REJO Mate Air is the perfect everyday companion. Photo credit: REJO
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Ray Hou posing with the REJO AF1 and compatible heat sticks. Photo credit: Thomas Schmid
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The REJO AF1 will become available in a stylish matte finish and a range of attractive colors. Photo credit: REJO
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The diagram demonstrates the light intensity and tremendous heat emittance of Firstunion’s ground-breaking Alkaid technology. Photo credit: Firstunion
HTP seem to be the one industry sector that keeps on rolling out new technologies left and right.
The number of puffs to get out of a single heated tobacco stick always has been a bit of a disappointment for many consumers. Before you blink twice, the stick tends to be exhausted. A second point of often-heard disenchantment is that the cloud density can be a bit on the thin side, letting consumers miss out on the “full bodied” mouthfeel they were accustomed to from conventional cigarettes.
REJO
REJO Mate Air: an answer to IQOS Iluma?
A new Chinese-manufactured heated tobacco brand, REJO, recognized these problems and went to task addressing them. “This is our answer particularly to PMI’s IQOS Iluma device,” REJO’s product and marketing director Ray Hou beamed as he proudly brandished the sleek, lightweight REJO Mate Air to Tobacco Asia during a recent interview. “We developed it after a study tour of Japan, where we learned that local consumers regularly expressed dissatisfaction about thin clouds and the overly fast exhaustion of their sticks.”
Used in an Iluma, Hou claimed a single Terea heat stick apparently will be done after a mere 12 puffs or so. When analyzing the heating method deployed by Iluma and other brands in its class, Hou and his team found that the tobacco sticks are actually heated from the inside out, with the result that the outer layers of each stick are not heated through. “About 30% of each stick is wasted that way, and we were convinced that we could improve on that,” Hou said.
Turning it outside in
The surprisingly simple solution to the issue was to reverse the heating direction: applying heat from the outside inward instead of from the inside outward. “In our REJO Mate Air we deploy what we call ‘round heating’, where the 30W heating element completely encloses the tobacco stick,” Hou said. He claimed that this increased the heating surface, resulting in “more cloud in less time.” Heating the stick’s outer layer first, the sustained heat gradually works its way into the deeper layers and, eventually, into the core, avoiding wastage. Due to the more efficient heating, users can get 14 to 16 puffs out of every stick instead of 12. While that may not be a huge difference, it is more economical still.
Squeezing out more puffs per stick REJO Mate Air at this point is only compatible with PMI’s proprietary Terea-, Sentia-, Delia- and Levia-branded sticks. But Hou’s company plans to develop proprietary sticks, which, we assume, might tag along with a more favorable retail price. Yet, interestingly, REJO is not squarely positioning itself to wrestle revenue from Iluma per se. Rather, Ray Hou sees the Mate Air as a sort of supplementary or complementary device to the Iluma. “You exhaust your Terea stick in your Iluma, then insert it into the Mate Air to get a few more puffs out of it.” Tobacco Asia was a little skeptical about that idea, of course.
Nevertheless, the Mate Air is already successfully retailing in Japan, with a ‘pro’ version, the REJO T1, basically ready and expected to have been rolled out by November 2024. With its heating further optimized, the T1 supposedly will be able to even squeeze up to 22 puffs out of every stick. If factual, that would be a remarkable improvement. After all, heated tobacco sticks are not exactly dirt cheap these days. The T1 also is a very speedy charger, according to Ray Hou. “A full recharge can be accomplished in as little as 40 minutes.
REJO AF1: designed for granular tobacco
However, REJO has yet another ace up its sleeves with its latest device, the REJO AF1. Having been unveiled to the public at InterTabac 2024, the AF1 was specifically designed for granular sticks. However, at this early point it is only compatible with REJO’s proprietary granulated tobacco sticks, branded OICES, plus its non-nicotine herbal granular sticks, TOZE. Leveraging advanced hot airflow heating technology just like the Mate Air, the AF1 ensures that each tobacco granule is evenly and thoroughly heated through. This preserves the natural tobacco aroma while reducing the production of harmful chemicals, delivering a richer and more satisfying smoking experience.
Hou explained that for granulated tobacco, hot air flow was the best way of heating the sticks. Tobacco granules have a much larger surface than, say, recon. To take full advantage of that, a method different from standard thermal conduction is needed. As every pupil has learned in physics class hot air rises. The agitated hot air molecules will, thus, rise up through the actual heat stick, reaching each and every tobacco granule in the process. “That is why the heating element sits at the bottom of the chamber,” Hou pointed out.
Building on the momentum that it has gained with devices like the Mate Air or AF1, REJO is set to put a particular marketing focus on Europe and the UAE, having identified these regions as key markets for heated tobacco product innovation. A significant step in this strategy was REJO’s recent signing of an MOU with a partner from the Czech Republic. The company also is pushing for a growing presence in Italy. The strategy will be underpinned through localized marketing campaigns and additional partnerships with regional distributors.
FIRSTUNION
Reaching for the stars
Meanwhile, REJO’s competitor Firstunion has every bold intention to reach for the stars. Literally. How about heating your tobacco stick with sun light? Or to be more exact, with a heating method that emits light whose spectrum closely emulates that of our solar system’s central star? At least that is what Dr. Zhu Bin, the scientist in charge of Firstunion’s futuristic Alkaid heating technology, announced to a gape-mouthed audience during his keynote speech at InterTabac 2024. If the method works as claimed, it could be nothing short of sensational; a potential game changer. Alas, at this moment no functional heated tobacco device that actually deploys this technology exists at all. Although Firstunion is frantically working on a market-ready device, it is expected to become commercially available only towards mid-2025.
The end nearing for thermal conduction heating?
Most modern HTP still rely on conduction heating, meaning that heat has to be transmitted layer by layer through the tobacco stick. But, the thermal conductivity of tobacco itself is relatively low, which inevitably leads to uneven and insufficient heating, resulting in a series of issues including unsatisfactory flavor release, prolonged preheating time, and inadequate vaporization efficiency. But that fundamental problem may well become a thing of the past with Firstunion’s Alkaid technology.
“Alkaid draws on the principles of solar energy collection, utilizing the speed and penetration of light to directly heat tobacco materials, allowing for almost simultaneous heating of the entire tobacco segment,” Dr Zhu said during his speech. “Preheating with Alkaid will take only 5 seconds, reducing the usual time by 75% when compared to traditional heating methods. This launch [of Alkaid] thus represents an important milestone for the HTP industry, opening up an unprecedented experiential journey for [end] users.” The heating method is also claimed by Firstunion to – finally – bring out a taste that “closely resembles that of a traditional combustible cigarette.”
4+ years in the making
It took more than 4 years for Alkaid to see the… well… light of day, progressing from initial concept validation to laboratory prototypes, and then on to iterative models. During this process, Dr. Zhu’s team of over 30 members, including material scientists, optical engineers, tobacco industry experts, structural engineers, and electronic engineers, conducted thousands of experiments to optimize heating efficiency and performance. The goal from the beginning was to draw on the principles of solar concentrator heating, utilizing the speed and penetration capability of light to excite the tobacco.
To overcome challenges encountered during development, Firstunion introduced advanced simulation software to optimize the design of the heating elements and light pathways, ensuring uniform heating and effective thermal management of the device. They also improved the materials used for the heating elements to enhance their lifespan and stability. Strict testing protocols were established throughout to ensure that samples under-went durability and safety testing under extreme conditions. “We refined the design structure based on the energy intensity [working on the stick], selecting continuous and high-temperature-resistant materials to maximize safety,” Dr. Zhu said.
More advantages than you can shake a stick at
According to Dr. Zhu, Alkaid offers a host of advantages:
Rapid preheating: 5 seconds instead of the conventional 20 seconds or even longer;
Lower device surface temperature: The outer temperature of traditional devices can reach up to 49°C during use, whereas Alkaid reduces it to 43°C;
Improved nicotine vaporization: With Alkaid, nicotine release efficiency increases by 43%, while total particulate matter (TPM) release efficiency increases by 24%, providing a better user experience through more complete nicotine vaporization;
High safety: Alkaid effectively reduces harmful substances in the smoke, including CO, tar, tobacco-specific nitrosamines, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, formaldehyde, aromatic amines, hydrogen cyanide, and heavy metals (Pb, Cr, Cd), by 20% when compared to traditional HTPs. Also, Alkaid’s heating element, made of extremely heat-resistant SiO2 glass, poses no toxicological risks;
Longevity: Lab tests have shown that after 10,000 puffs Alkaid still performs excellently, demonstrating quality and durability.
Ease of use: The non-contact design of the heating chamber minimizes tobacco residue and requires no cleaning.
At the moment, Alkaid has nearly 10 patents pending, covering various aspects such as the shape of the light-emitting filament, the operating temperature range, the choice of light-transmitting materials, shell design, structural reinforcements, and temperature measurement points of the heating element. Once Alkaid becomes available in an actual device, the heating technology could indeed profoundly change the present market dynamics in the HTP sector, Dr. Zhu opined during his keynote address. “With traditional heating technologies’ patents and barriers allowing only a few large multinational tobacco companies to dominate the market, Alkaid’s innovative heating principles successfully bypass these barriers, providing differentiated technical solutions and creating new competitive opportunities for a broader range of tobacco manufacturers, including small- and medium-sized enterprises.”