WO2022253323A1

WO2022253323A1 - Aerosol generation device, heater for same, and preparation method

Info

Publication number: WO2022253323A1
Application number: PCT/CN2022/096910
Authority: WO
Inventors: 武建; 徐中立; 李永海
Original assignee: 深圳市合元科技有限公司
Priority date: 2021-06-04
Filing date: 2022-06-02
Publication date: 2022-12-08
Also published as: CN115428987A; EP4349192A1

Abstract

The present application provides an aerosol generation device, a heater for same, and a preparation method. The aerosol generation device comprises: a chamber for receiving an aerosol generation product; and the heater at least partially extending in the chamber and used for heating the aerosol generation product. The heater comprises: a housing having a hollow portion axially extending; a resistance heating element located in the hollow portion; and an insulator formed by solidification or curing of a molten precursor material in the hollow portion and used for providing electric insulation between the resistance heating element and the housing. According to the aerosol generation device, the insulator is formed by solidification after melting, and can completely penetrate into a slit or gap between the inner wall of the housing of the heater and the resistance heating element, such that the housing and the resistance heating element are basically completely insulated; and the present invention can improve the insulation consistency and yield in mass production.

Description

Aerosol generating device, heater for aerosol generating device and manufacturing method

Cross References to Related Applications

This application claims the priority of the Chinese patent application submitted to the China Patent Office on June 4, 2021, the application number is 202110626465.8, and the name is "Aerosol generating device, heater for aerosol generating device and preparation method", which The entire contents are incorporated by reference in this application.

technical field

The embodiments of the present application relate to the technical field of heat-not-burn smoking appliances, and in particular to an aerosol generating device, a heater for the aerosol generating device and a preparation method.

Background technique

Smoking articles (eg, cigarettes, cigars, etc.) burn tobacco during use to produce tobacco smoke. Attempts have been made to replace these tobacco-burning products by making products that release compounds without burning them.

An example of such a product is a heating device, which releases a compound by heating rather than burning a material. For example, the material may be tobacco or other non-tobacco products, which may or may not contain nicotine. In the known technology, Patent No. 202010054217.6 proposes to use a heater encapsulating a spiral heating wire in a metal outer casing to heat tobacco products to generate aerosols. For the above heaters, the insulation between the spiral heating wire and the metal outer sleeve is usually achieved by filling the metal outer sleeve with inorganic insulating glue or inorganic powder. The porosity affects the transfer of heat between the heating wire and the outer sleeve.

application content

An embodiment of the present application provides an aerosol generating device configured to heat an aerosol generating product to generate an aerosol; including:

a chamber for receiving an aerosol-generating article;

a heater extending at least partially within the chamber and configured to heat the aerosol-generating article; the heater comprising:

a housing with a hollow extending axially;

a resistive heating element located within said hollow;

An insulator formed by solidification or curing of molten precursor material within the hollow space for providing electrical insulation between the resistive heating element and the housing.

In a preferred implementation, the housing comprises a metal or alloy.

In a preferred implementation, the melting point of the precursor material forming the insulator is between 400°C and 1500°C.

In a preferred implementation, the melting point of the precursor material is lower than the melting point of the shell.

In a preferred implementation, the insulator comprises glaze or glass or silicon dioxide.

In a preferred implementation, said resistive heating element is configured in the form of a helical coil extending along said hollow axial direction;

The cross-section of the conductor material of the helical coil is configured flat.

In a preferred implementation, the section of the wire material of the helical coil is configured such that the length extending in the axial direction of the helical coil is greater than the length extending in the radial direction.

In a preferred implementation, said insulator is configured to retain said resistive heating element within said hollow.

In a preferred implementation, the resistive heating element is encased within the insulation.

In a preferred implementation, the resistance heating element has a metal oxide layer formed by surface oxidation.

In a preferred implementation, the insulator comprises alumina or its precursors, silica or its precursors, aluminates, aluminosilicates, aluminum nitride, aluminum carbide, zirconia, silicon carbide, silicon boride , silicon nitride, titanium dioxide, titanium carbide, boron carbide, boron oxide, borosilicate, silicate, rare earth oxide, soda lime, barium titanate, lead zirconate titanate, aluminum titanate, barium ferrite, strontium ferrite, or at least one such inorganic material.

Yet another embodiment of the present application also proposes a heater for an aerosol generating device, the heater comprising:

a housing comprising metal or alloy; said housing is configured as a pin or needle and has a hollow extending axially;

a resistive heating element located within said hollow;

Yet another embodiment of the present application also proposes a method for preparing a heater for an aerosol generating device, comprising the following steps:

obtaining a housing and a resistive heating element; said housing having a hollow extending axially;

Electrical insulation is provided between the housing and the resistive heating element by solidification or solidification of the molten precursor material within the hollow.

In a preferred implementation, the step of solidifying or solidifying the molten precursor material in the hollow comprises:

adding the precursor material into the hollow of the housing and heating the precursor material to a molten state;

After dipping the resistive heating element into the molten precursor material, the molten precursor material is solidified by cooling.

In a preferred implementation, before immersing the resistance heating element in the precursor in the molten state, further comprising:

A metal oxide layer is formed on the surface of the resistance heating element.

In a preferred implementation, the resistance heating coil is heated by supplying power to the resistance heating element under air or an oxygen atmosphere, thereby forming a metal oxide layer on the surface of the resistance heating element.

In yet another preferred implementation, the metal oxide layer is formed on the surface of the resistance heating element by heating the resistance heating element in air or an oxygen atmosphere.

In yet another preferred implementation, the surface of the resistance heating element is sprayed or deposited or formed with an insulating material layer. For example, the insulating material layer is a glaze layer.

The above aerosol generating device, the insulator is formed by solidification after melting, and can completely penetrate into the gap or gap between the inner wall of the heater shell and the resistance heating element, so that they are basically completely insulated; and can improve mass production Consistency and yield of insulation in preparation.

Description of drawings

One or more embodiments are exemplified by the pictures in the corresponding drawings, and these exemplifications do not constitute a limitation to the embodiments. Elements with the same reference numerals in the drawings represent similar elements. Unless otherwise stated, the drawings in the drawings are not limited to scale.

Fig. 1 is a schematic structural diagram of an aerosol generating device provided by an embodiment of the present application;

Fig. 2 is a schematic cross-sectional view of an embodiment of the heater in Fig. 1;

Fig. 3 is a structural schematic diagram of a viewing angle of the heater shell in Fig. 2;

Fig. 4 is a structural schematic diagram of a viewing angle of the resistance heating element in Fig. 2;

Fig. 5 is a schematic cross-sectional view of a viewing angle of the resistance heating coil in Fig. 4;

Fig. 6 is a structural schematic diagram of a resistance heating element in another embodiment;

Fig. 7 is a schematic diagram of a method for preparing a heater according to an embodiment;

Figure 8 is a schematic illustration of the formation of a molten state precursor in the heater housing of one embodiment;

Figure 9 is a schematic diagram of a resistive heating element entering a molten state precursor, according to one embodiment;

Fig. 10 shows the temperature change curve of the heater of an embodiment in use;

Fig. 11 shows the temperature change curve of the heater in use in a comparative example;

Fig. 12 shows the temperature change curve of the heater in another comparative example during use.

Detailed ways

In order to facilitate the understanding of the present application, the present application will be described in more detail below in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and specific implementation methods.

An embodiment of the present application proposes an aerosol generating device, the structure of which can be seen in Figure 1, including:

a chamber within which the aerosol-generating article A is removably received;

A heater 30 extending at least partially within the chamber is inserted into the aerosol-generating article A for heating when the aerosol-generating article A is received in the chamber, thereby causing the aerosol-generating article A to release a plurality of volatile compounds, and these volatile compounds Sexual compounds are formed only by heat treatment;

The electric core 10 is used for power supply;

The circuit 20 is used to conduct current between the battery cell 10 and the heater 30 .

In a preferred embodiment, the heater 30 is generally in the shape of a pin or a needle, which is advantageous for being inserted into the aerosol-generating article A; meanwhile, the heater 30 may have a length of about 12-19 millimeters, about 2 to 4 mm outer diameter size.

Further in an optional implementation, the aerosol-generating product A preferably uses a tobacco-containing material that releases volatile compounds from the matrix when heated; or it can also be a non-tobacco material that is suitable for electric heating and smoking after heating. The aerosol-generating product A preferably adopts a solid substrate, which may include one or more of powder, granules, shredded strips, strips or flakes of one or more of vanilla leaves, tobacco leaves, homogenized tobacco, and expanded tobacco; Alternatively, the solid matrix may contain additional tobacco or non-tobacco volatile flavor compounds to be released when the matrix is heated.

In practice, the heater 30 may generally include a resistive heating element, and an auxiliary substrate that assists in fixing or preparing the resistive heating element. For example, in some implementations, the resistive heating element is in the shape or form of a helical coil. Or in still other implementations, the resistive heating element is in the form of a conductive trace bonded to the substrate. Or in still other implementations, the resistive heating element is in the shape of the substrate of the foil.

Further, Fig. 2 to Fig. 4 show a cross-section and a schematic view of some parts of the heater 30 in one embodiment, including:

The shell 31 is configured as a pin or needle-like hollow 311, and the front end has a tapered tip to facilitate insertion into the aerosol generating product A, and the rear end has an opening to facilitate the assembly of various functional components inside it;

The resistance heating element 32 is used to generate heat; specifically, the structure includes a helical resistance heating coil 320 configured to extend along a part of the axial direction of the casing 31, and first conductive wires respectively connected to the upper ends of the resistance heating coil 320 pin 321 , and a second conductive pin 322 connected to the lower end of the resistance heating coil 320 . In use, the first conductive pin 321 and the second conductive pin 322 are used to power the resistance heating coil 320 .

Specifically, as shown in FIG. 4 , the first conductive pin 321 penetrates the resistance heating coil 320 from the upper end to the lower end thereof, thereby facilitating connection.

In the implementation shown in FIG. 2, the resistive heating coil 320 is fully assembled and held within the hollow 311 of the housing 31, and the resistive heating coil 320 and the housing 31 are thermally conductive to each other after assembly.

In an optional implementation, the material of the resistance heating coil 320 is a metal material, a metal alloy, graphite, carbon, conductive ceramics, or a composite material of other ceramic materials and metal materials with appropriate resistance. Among them, suitable metal or alloy materials include nickel, cobalt, zirconium, titanium, nickel alloy, cobalt alloy, zirconium alloy, titanium alloy, nickel-chromium alloy, nickel-iron alloy, iron-chromium alloy, iron-chromium-aluminum alloy, titanium alloy, iron-manganese At least one of aluminum-based alloy or stainless steel.

The shell 31 is made of thermally conductive metal or alloy material, such as stainless steel. Of course, after assembly, the resistance heating coil 320 and the inner wall of the hollow 311 of the housing 31 are in contact with each other to conduct heat, and at the same time, the housing 31 and the resistance heating coil 320 are insulated from each other.

FIG. 5 shows a schematic cross-sectional view of the resistance heating coil 320 in FIG. 4 . The cross-sectional shape of the wire material of the resistance heating coil 320 is a wide or flat shape different from a conventional circle. In the preferred implementation shown in FIG. 3 , the cross section of the wire material of the resistance heating coil 320 has a dimension extending longitudinally that is greater than a dimension extending radially perpendicular to the longitudinal direction, so that the resistance heating coil 320 has a flattened rectangular shape.

Briefly, the resistive heating coil 320 constructed above is completely or at least flattened in form of the wire material compared to conventional helical heating coils formed from circular cross-section wires. Consequently, the wire material extends to a lesser extent in the radial direction. By this measure, energy losses in the resistance heating coil 320 can be reduced. In particular, heat transfer can be facilitated.

In an optional implementation, the first conductive pin 321 and the second conductive pin 322 are made of a material with a low temperature coefficient of resistance. Meanwhile, the resistance heating coil 320 is made of a material with a relatively large positive or negative resistance temperature coefficient, and the circuit 20 can obtain the temperature of the resistance heating coil 320 by detecting the resistance temperature coefficient of the resistance heating coil 320 in use.

In yet another preferred implementation, the first conductive pin 321 and the second conductive pin 322 are respectively made of galvanic couple materials such as nickel, nickel-chromium alloy, nickel-silicon alloy, nickel-chromium-cold copper, constant bronze, and iron-chromium alloy. prepared from two different materials. Further, a thermocouple that can be used to detect the temperature of the resistance heating coil 320 is formed between the first conductive pin 321 and the second conductive pin 322, thereby obtaining the temperature of the resistance heating coil 320.

In other alternative implementations, the resistance heating coil 320 may also be made of a conventional wire material with a circular cross section. For example, in the resistance heating element 32a shown in Fig. 6, adopt the resistance heating coil 320a of the helical coil that the circular wire material is prepared or constructed; Pin 322a is used for power supply or temperature measurement.

In yet another optional implementation, as shown in FIG. 2 , the hollow 311 of the casing 31 is filled or encapsulated with an insulator 33 , and the insulator 33 provides insulation between the resistance heating coil 320 / 320 a and the casing 31 . At the same time, the insulator 33 also provides retention for the resistance heating coil 320/320a.

In an implementation, the resistive heating coil 320 / 320a is substantially completely encased or buried within the insulator 33 .

Yet another embodiment of the present application also proposes a method for preparing the above heater 30, as shown in FIG. 7, including the following steps:

S10, obtain the shell 31; of course, according to the above description, the shell 31 is a pin or needle with an axial hollow 311, and the material is preferably metal or alloy such as grade 430 stainless steel (SS430);

S20, filling or pouring the precursor 33a forming the insulator 33 into the hollow 311 of the housing 31, and heating the precursor 33a to form a molten state, as shown in FIG. 8;

S30, obtain the resistance heating coil 320/320a made of resistive metal or alloy material, and in the air or aerobic atmosphere, supply power to the resistance heating coil 320/320a to make the resistance heating coil 320/320a generate heat, and then make the resistance heating The surface of the coil 320/320a is thermally oxidized to form a metal oxide layer on the surface;

S40, immerse the resistance heating coil 320/320a formed with the surface oxide layer in step S30 into the molten precursor 33a in step S20, as shown by the arrow in FIG. 33a is cooled and solidified or solidified from a molten state to form an insulator 33, and then the heater 30 shown in FIG. 2 can be produced.

Wherein, the surface oxide layer formed by the surface oxidation of the resistance heating coil 320/320a made of metal or alloy in the above step S30 has a thickness of about 10-100 nm. Probably in practice, the resistance heating coil 320/320a is supplied with power to make it dry-heat to 300-500° C., and the time is about 10 minutes.

Or in yet another alternative implementation, step S30 adopts the method of heating the resistance heating coil 320/320a under air or an oxygen atmosphere, so that the surface of the resistance heating coil 320/320a is thermally oxidized to form a metal oxide layer.

Or in yet another optional implementation, after step S30 may also include:

S31, further form an insulating material layer on the surface of the resistance heating coil 320/320a by means of spraying, deposition, sintering, etc., such as glaze, ceramic layer and the like. It is beneficial to further improve the insulation effect.

In a preferred implementation, the precursor 33a of the above insulator 33 is preferably made of a material with a melting point lower than that of the shell 31 .

In yet another preferred implementation, when the outer shell 31 is usually made of stainless steel, the precursor 33 a of the insulator 33 is prepared from an insulating material with a lower melting point. In the most preferred implementation, insulator 33 is glass or silica or glaze. Then, during the preparation process, after pouring their powder precursors 33a into the shell 31, they can be melted by heating to 650°C.

In other more optional implementations, the precursor 33a of the insulator 33 can also use bismuth oxide with a melting point of about 860°C, or boron oxide with a melting point of about 450°C, or boron and silicon oxide with a melting point of about 680°C. , Aluminum oxide mixed glass.

Or in other variant implementations, when the shell 31 is a metal/alloy or ceramics with a higher melting point than stainless steel, the precursor 33a can have more choices.

In practice, the precursor 33a of the insulator 33 preferably adopts inorganic oxides, carbides, nitrides or inorganic salts with a melting point lower than 1500°C; Its precursors, aluminates, aluminosilicates, aluminum nitride, aluminum carbide, zirconia, silicon carbide, silicon boride, silicon nitride, titanium dioxide, titanium carbide, boron carbide, boron oxide, borosilicate, Silicates, rare earth oxides, soda lime, barium titanate, lead zirconate titanate, aluminum titanate, barium ferrite, strontium ferrite, or at least one of such inorganic materials are relatively readily available and Prepared.

In yet another implementation, the precursor 33 a of the insulator 33 is preferably made of, doped or added with a material with high thermal conductivity, such as silicon carbide; so that the heat of the resistance heating coil 320 / 320 a can be transferred to the shell 31 faster.

In yet another implementation, the precursor 33a of the insulator 33 has a melting point higher than 400°C to avoid melting of the insulator 33 when the heater 30 heats the aerosol-generating article A at a temperature of approximately 400°C. In a more preferred implementation, the melting point of the precursor 33a of the insulator 33 is about 600-1500°C; preferably, it can also be at 600-800°C.

It can be seen from the above that the solidified insulator 33 and the shell 31 and/or the resistance heating coil 320/320a are tightly combined after melting, and there is no need to heat the resistance through other supporting or fixing structures in the heater 30. Coils 320/320a and/or insulator 33 provide support or retention.

As a conventional measure in the prior art, when filling powdery insulating material or insulating glue, the opening of the hollow 311 of the casing 31 needs to be sealed or blocked to avoid powder dropping or glue leakage from the opening of the heater during use. and other conditions; through the heater 30 prepared by the above embodiment, the insulator 33 is obtained by melting and solidifying and is combined inside the lumen of the shell 31, there is no problem such as powder dropping or glue leakage, and the opening of the hollow 311 of the shell 31 can be Keep open or not closed.

Further in the above implementation, the insulator 33 is formed by solidification in a molten state. In the molten state, the precursor 33a can completely penetrate into the gap or gap between the inner wall of the shell 31 and the resistance heating coil 320/320a, and the insulator 33 is basically safe. The inner wall of the housing 31 and the resistance heating coil 320/320a are kept in a non-contact state, so that they are basically completely insulated; the above preparation steps can improve the consistency and yield of insulation in mass production.

In the above preparations, high-temperature melting at a higher temperature and sintering at a lower temperature are used, and the substance of the precursor 33a changes from a crystal phase to a liquid phase through melting, which belongs to a first-order phase transition; while ordinary sintering does not occur a first-order phase transition. The use of melting phase transition can basically completely eliminate internal gaps or pores, which is beneficial for increasing the heat capacity of the heater 30 and reducing temperature fluctuations in the heating process. At the same time, it can also help to improve the structural strength inside the heater and reduce powder shedding.

Specifically, FIG. 10 shows the temperature change curve during use of the heater prepared by using glass glaze as the precursor 33a after melting at 800° C. and then cooling in the SS430 stainless steel shell 31 . Fig. 11 shows the temperature change curve of the heater in a comparative example during use. The heater is formed by filling the SS430 stainless steel shell 31 with conventional alumina ceramic slurry as an insulator, and then sintering at a temperature of 800°C. FIG. 12 shows the temperature change curve of the heater in another comparative example during use. The heater is prepared by filling diamond powder in the SS430 stainless steel shell 31 as an insulator. The above curves in use are all controlled by high-precision PID software to control the power of the power supply, and then sample the fluctuation of its actual working temperature.

It can be seen from the figure that for the conventional heater temperature curve filled with diamond insulating powder shown in Figure 12, the feedback of temperature during operation and the temperature fluctuation during heating process are relatively large, about 30-50 °C; the temperature curve shown in Figure 11 The temperature curve of the heater for alumina ceramic slurry sintering, the temperature fluctuation range during the heating process is about 10-20 °C; the temperature curve of the heater using the melted and solidified glaze as the insulator shown in Figure 10, the temperature during the heating process The beating is relatively small, and the beating range is about 3-5°C; the curve is relatively flat during constant temperature heating.

It should be noted that the preferred embodiments of the application are given in the description of the application and its drawings, but they are not limited to the embodiments described in the description. Further, for those of ordinary skill in the art, they can Improvements or transformations are made according to the above description, and all these improvements and transformations shall fall within the scope of protection of the appended claims of the present application.

Claims

An aerosol-generating device configured to heat an aerosol-generating article to generate an aerosol; comprising:

a chamber for receiving an aerosol-generating article;

a heater extending at least partially within the chamber and configured to heat the aerosol-generating article; wherein the heater comprises:

a housing with a hollow extending axially;

a resistive heating element located within said hollow;

An insulator formed by solidification or curing of molten precursor material within the hollow space for providing electrical insulation between the resistive heating element and the housing.
The aerosol-generating device of claim 1, wherein the housing comprises metal or alloy.
The aerosol generating device according to claim 1, wherein the melting point of the precursor material forming the insulator is between 400°C and 1500°C.
The aerosol generating device according to any one of claims 1 to 3, wherein the melting point of the precursor material is lower than the melting point of the housing.
The aerosol generating device according to any one of claims 1 to 3, wherein the insulator comprises glaze or glass or silicon dioxide.
The aerosol generating device according to any one of claims 1 to 3, wherein the resistance heating element is configured in the form of a helical coil extending along the hollow axial direction;

The cross-section of the conductor material of the helical coil is configured flat.
The aerosol generating device according to claim 6, wherein the section of the wire material of the helical coil is configured to extend in the axial direction of the helical coil longer than in the radial direction.
An aerosol-generating device according to any one of claims 1 to 3, wherein the insulator is configured to retain the resistive heating element within the hollow.
The aerosol generating device according to any one of claims 1 to 3, wherein the resistance heating element is wrapped in the insulator.
The aerosol generating device according to any one of claims 1 to 3, wherein the resistance heating element has a metal oxide layer formed by surface oxidation.
A heater for an aerosol generating device, wherein the heater comprises:

a housing comprising metal or alloy; said housing is configured as a pin or needle and has a hollow extending axially;

a resistive heating element located within said hollow;

An insulator formed by solidification or curing of molten precursor material within the hollow space for providing electrical insulation between the resistive heating element and the housing.
A method for preparing a heater for an aerosol generating device, comprising the steps of:

obtaining a housing and a resistive heating element; said housing having a hollow extending axially;

Electrical insulation is provided between the housing and the resistive heating element by solidification or solidification of the molten precursor material within the hollow.
The method for preparing a heater for an aerosol generating device according to claim 12, wherein the step of solidifying or solidifying the molten precursor material in the hollow comprises:

adding the precursor material into the hollow of the housing and heating the precursor material to a molten state;

After dipping the resistive heating element into the molten precursor material, the molten precursor material is solidified by cooling.
The method for preparing a heater for an aerosol generating device according to claim 13, wherein before immersing the resistance heating element in the precursor in the molten state, further comprising: spraying on the surface of the resistance heating element A metal oxide layer is formed.