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\n\t<\/p>\nWhat's really inside vapes? We pulled them apart to find out\n<\/p>\n
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While vapes or e-cigarettes first appeared around 20 years ago as an alternative to smoking, their prevalence and use have increasingly become problematic.\n<\/p>\n
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Governments and regulators are now catching up to what is widely seen as an addictive and unsafe product. Australia has just passed a world-first bill that will ban all vapes from general retail later this year.\n<\/p>\n
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Currently, the most predominant vapes on the market are single-use, disposable products designed to appeal to younger people. Despite their short lifespan, vapes are complex products that contain several valuable resources.\n<\/p>\n
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However, there are no practical means to collect or recycle vapes. Most end up as electronic waste or e-waste in landfill. Some are simply thrown on the street as litter. So what's really inside vapes?\n<\/p>\n
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How do vapes work?\n<\/p>\n
Vapes can be categorised as either reusable or disposable (single use), the more prevalent option.\n<\/p>\n
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Reusable vapes have a rechargeable battery and cartridge or liquid refills offered in a bewildering selection of flavours. More elaborate vapes contain microprocessors that offer customisable features, coloured LEDs and even small coloured screens.\n<\/p>\n
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In their simplest configuration, single-use disposables have the common components found in all e-cigarette types. Vapes contain a battery, a pressure sensor (like a modified microphone), an LED light, a heating element and a reservoir with e-liquid (the \"juice\").\n<\/p>\n
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When the sensor is activated by taking a drag on the device, the battery provides power to a heating element that vaporises or atomises the liquid.\n<\/p>\n
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Tearing down a single-use vape\n<\/p>\n
Analogous to the study of anatomy, teardowns are a technique used by industrial designers and design engineers to systematically disassemble a product.\n<\/p>\n
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This allows us to identify and describe the internal components and their relationships within a product. It can provide useful information about materials, manufacturing processes, assembly and technology.\n<\/p>\n
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Equally, it can provide insights into repairability, upgradability and ease of disassembly for end-of-life recovery for potentially valuable or harmful materials.\n<\/p>\n
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We obtained a random selection of commonly found, depleted, single-use vapes to teardown, identify and describe what is inside.\n<\/p>\n
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Housing\n<\/p>\n
Disposable vapes are not designed to be disassembled. The main housing is made out of aluminium and covered in a paint finish and graphics, closed at the ends with plastic parts.\n<\/p>\n
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Once the housing end caps are removed, which is often not a straightforward task, the internal assembly slides out.\n<\/p>\n
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These internal parts are wedged or taped together within the main housing, and battery terminals are soldered to wires connecting to a pressure sensor and a heating element embedded in an e-liquid reservoir.\n<\/p>\n
![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.abesmoke.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/080924_0345_Whatsreally2.jpg\")
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The vape housing is aluminium with plastic caps Christopher Kidall Park\n<\/p>\n
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Battery\n<\/p>\n
Despite disposable vapes being non-rechargeable, the ones we disassembled all contained a lithium battery. Although much smaller, they are not dissimilar to the bundles of batteries found in products like power drills and electric vehicles.\n<\/p>\n
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![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.abesmoke.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/080924_0345_Whatsreally3.jpg\")
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The 3.7V lithium battery. They should be recycled or disposed of in an electronics waste bin. Christopher Kidall Park\n<\/p>\n
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These cells have high-power density: they can store lots of electrical energy in a relatively small package. This is needed to supply periodic bursts of energy to the heating element, and to outlast the supply of e-liquid in the reservoir.\n<\/p>\n
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All the batteries we tested during the teardown of depleted single-use vapes still maintained a charge that could power a test light bulb for at least an hour.\n<\/p>\n
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Pressure sensor\n<\/p>\n
An air pressure sensor is a semiconductor switching device. Not unlike a microphone that converts vibrations into electrical energy, the pressure sensor detects a drop in pressure and closes an electronic switch.\n<\/p>\n
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![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.abesmoke.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/080924_0345_Whatsreally4.jpg\")
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The pressure sensor, with a small blue dust filter. Christopher Kidall Park\n<\/p>\n
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This occurs during the action of taking a drag on the vape, which creates a partial vacuum within the device. When the switch is closed, a simple (short) circuit illuminates an LED and supplies current to the heating element.\n<\/p>\n
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Heating element: vaporiser\n<\/p>\n
The heating element is embedded in a cap at one end of the e-liquid reservoir and connected to a wick. When the device is activated, an electrical current heats a metal strip that vaporises some of the volatile e-liquid.\n<\/p>\n
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![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.abesmoke.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/080924_0345_Whatsreally5.jpg\")
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The heating element, vaporiser. Christopher Kidall Park\n<\/p>\n
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The e-liquid reservoir\n<\/p>\n
Disposable vapes contain an absorbent foam material saturated with e-liquid and contained in a plastic tube with silicone endcaps.\n<\/p>\n
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In the centre of the reservoir is a wicking material that draws in the surrounding e-liquid to be in contact with the heating element.\n<\/p>\n
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The e-liquid itself contains a range of ingredients such as propylene glycol, nicotine and flavourings, many of them with unknown health impacts.\n<\/p>\n
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![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.abesmoke.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/080924_0345_Whatsreally6.jpg\")
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The heating element is embedded in the fluid cartridge. Different vape designs have larger or smaller cartridges. Christopher Kidall Park\n<\/p>\n
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Designed for the dump\n<\/p>\n
The consumption of vapes has been skyrocketing in recent years, and they now represent a significant proportion of an alarming new category of e-waste.\n<\/p>\n
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![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.abesmoke.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/080924_0345_Whatsreally7.jpg\")
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Christopher Kidall Park\n<\/p>\n
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Single-use e-waste results in a significant loss of valuable materials \u2013 notably aluminium and lithium.\n<\/p>\n
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Worse, when a disposable vape is thrown in the bin, the energy-dense lithium batteries pose a fire danger for waste management workers.\n<\/p>\n
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The materials in vapes also have toxic effects on the environment when released.\n<\/p>\n
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Having potentially valuable metals mixed with other, low-value materials such as plastic makes vapes difficult to separate and recycle. Overall, single-use vapes are clearly wasteful of resources and dangerous in the environment.\n<\/p>\n
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