Vapour products are battery-powered devices that heat e-liquid to produce an inhalable aerosol, commonly known as vapour. Although e-liquid usually contains nicotine originally derived from tobacco, there is no tobacco in vapour products.

The atomiser – the part that produces the vapour – typically consists of a tiny electric heater combined with a wick made from absorbent materials such as glass fibre, cotton or ceramic.

E-liquid is drawn into the wick from a reservoir or tank and is then heated to form a vapour when the consumer puffs on the product.

Vapour products can be classified into either open or closed systems. Open systems offer a customised vaping experience – using a refillable tank, consumers are free to use a wide range of e-liquids. Many open systems also allow consumers to mix and match different atomisers, batteries, and power settings.

Closed systems work with disposable cartridges pre-filled with e-liquid, offering greater convenience for the consumer, and since the consumable and hardware are designed to work specifically together, the resulting optimised system can maximise performance and experience for the consumer. BAT’s market-leading products within this format include the Vuse ePod and Vuse ePen3 – which are convenient, easy to use, and able to deliver high levels of quality and safety by ensuring the e-liquid is optimised and fully tested with the intended device.

Organisations, such as Public Health England (PHE), are clear that vaping is likely to be much less risky than smoking traditional cigarettes when used as a complete substitute for continued cigarette smoking. According to the UK’s Office for National Statistics (ONS), vaping now stands at 6.3% of the population, and smoking levels have dropped to 14.7%, from 23% in 2012, which means that the UK has one of the lowest smoking incidences in Europe.

We have published world’s most comprehensive set of published scientific results on a single vapour product — the Vype ePen — and our scientists continue to build reliable evidence to support our vapour portfolio.

With consumer safety and satisfaction at the forefront of everything we do, product stewardship is paramount at BAT. Our multidisciplinary teams of scientists ensure our products meet high quality standards, whether that’s the battery, device materials, e-liquid ingredients or vapour contents. We use a peer-reviewed risk assessment framework to analyse how existing adult consumers use vapour products, what is in the vapour, how the vapour impacts human cells in the lab, how the vapour affects the body in clinical studies, and what impact the products could have on the vaping adult population.