This article briefly describes the history of heating without combustion (HNB).
1. Start
The world’s first generation of heat-not-burn product Premier was born in 1988, developed by the American Reynolds Tobacco Company, which is recognized by the industry as the earliest heat-not-burn (HNB).
The heat source at the front of the Premier is carbon. After igniting the carbon, the hot air pumped heats the tobacco roll in the middle, forming smoke into the mouth.
Renault’s product concept is derived from the Arabic shisha.
The Arab shisha originally originated in India 800 years ago, and began to be popular in the Middle East 500 years ago, and was carried forward by the Arabs.
Renault’s carbon-heated tobacco products based on the Arabic shisha concept have gone through four generations, but their essence is a scaled-down version of the Arabic shisha.
Its characteristics:
One is carbon heating,
The second is to distill the smoke substances in tobacco by hot air,
Third, tobacco itself does not participate in burning.
This design greatly reduces the content of harmful substances in tobacco.
Renault’s intentions were good: to turn the Arabian shisha, which can only be smoked indoors in a fixed location, into a portable, low-harm, industrial tobacco product that every smoker has access to.
However, this product market feedback is not good, the main problem is that the experience is poor.
Renault’s efforts of more than ten years have opened up new areas and new ways of smoking, but Renault has not won the recognition of the market and consumers by heating and not burning products.
2. Rise
Philip Morris International took another route, that is, electric heating heating does not burn cigarettes.
Of course, Philip Morris International’s success has not been smooth sailing. The two electric heating products Acord launched by Philip Morris International in 1998 and Heatbar launched in 2007 have not received good feedback. The main problems are high flue gas temperature and insufficient smoke volume, which lead to low consumer acceptance.
So in 2008, Philip Morris hired more than 400 scientists and industry experts and spent more than $3 billion on research and development and scientific testing of its new product, IQOS.
In 2014, PMI took the lead in launching the heating non-combustion product IQOS in Nagoya, Japan, which received a strong response locally, and in 2016 began to fully promote and quickly cut into the European Union, Eastern Europe, Africa, South Korea and other markets, achieving great success.
A brief history of HNB development
The reason for the success of Philip Morris International is that from 1998 to 2016, it insisted on 18 years of research and development and waiting in the field of low-temperature tobacco, and finally ushered in the take-off of the low-temperature tobacco market.
Of course, there is the credit of Renault’s early development, and more importantly, Philip Morris International found the right direction, insisted on, improved and insisted on improvement.
3. Get together
With the global capital in the field of heating and not burning profits and land at the same time, Philip Mo International continued to mine gold, and established a strong patent protection network.
In this case, British American Tobacco and Japan Tobacco missed the best opportunity to heat without burning. China’s heating non-combustion started late, but it has developed rapidly and made breakthroughs in infrared heating technology.
Of course, whether it can rise suddenly still needs to be tested by the market and users. Domestic heating does not burn tobacco development of a single enterprise and R & D units, whether in financial or human resources can not be compared with Philip Mo International, only the relevant enterprises to cast shield, common spear may be able to find opportunities.
A brief history of HNB development
In addition, Heilongjiang China Tobacco Company through cooperation with Guojian Hua Tobacco, jointly launched a joint cigarette set, as well as a supporting cigarette bomb LOPATO. At present, the local China Tobacco Industry companies that have launched HNB products also have Henan China Tobacco with the state single brand “Yuexhang”, Shandong China Tobacco with the Yanyang brand “Fang Cun”, and Anwei China Tobacco with the cigarette brand “Top”.