This application and its disclosure generally relate to the field of electronic cigarettes.
Vaping, aka smoking e-cigarettes, is a trend that's skyrocketed in popularity over the last few years, especially among teenagers, for whom e-cigarettes are actually illegal. Regular cigarettes burn tobacco, creating a smoke that the user inhales. E-cigarettes, on the other hand, don't burn anything. The technology consists of a small coil wrapped around a wick. The apparatus is soaked in a liquid, usually propylene glycol, vegetable glycerin, flavorants, and nicotine. Heating the coil around the saturated wick creates a vapor of ultrafine particles, including nicotine, which users breathe into their lungs. Both cigarettes and e-cigarettes generate aerosols of ultrafine particles in order to give its users a hard nicotine hit. Further, according to some studies, flavored ingredients in some electronic cigarettes combust to create toxic chemicals that are not listed on the label and could cause lung damage. Therefore, it is desirable to provide a filtering mechanism for filtering out the undesired particles and toxic chemicals.
Some e-cigarettes incorporate internal filtering. However, none of the existing e-cigarettes offer a separate filtering unit, which can be selectively attached to the e-cigarette to filter out undesired particles and toxic chemicals.
In its general aspect, the apparatus is a filtering unit for use with an electronic cigarette that includes a hollow housing and a filter pad located inside the housing. The housing has a first end, a second end, a front wall, and a rear wall. The front wall and the rear wall extend from the first end to the second end of the housing. The hollow housing also including a throughgoing opening formed at the second end and at least one pair of first internally extending prongs, these first prongs forming an internal chamber. The filter pad is positioned inside the internal chamber of the hollow housing. The second end of the hollow chamber is positionable over a portion of the electronic cigarette so as to filter out undesired particles in vapors of the electronic cigarette.
The above aspects, advantages and features are of representative embodiments only. It should be understood that they are not to be considered limitations on the invention as defined by the claims. Additional features and advantages of the invention will become apparent in the following description, from the drawings, and from the claims.
The invention is illustrated by way of examples which are not a limitation, and the figures of the accompanying drawings in which references denote corresponding parts, and in which:
As illustrated in the attached Figures, the apparatus of the present invention is designed to attach to a conventional electronic cigarette and to filter out particles and chemicals before they are inhaled by the user.
As shown in
As shown in
In use, the user will push the filtering unit 10, with the filter pad 38 already inserted therein, onto the pod unit 102 of the electronic cigarette until prongs 34 and 36 snap onto the upper portion of the pod unit, securely attaching the filtering unit with the inserted filter pad to the electronic cigarette. The electronic cigarette can then be used in a usual manner, as illustrated in
Another preferred embodiment of the filtering unit is illustrated in
As shown in
It is empirically studied and concluded that the filtering unit 10 filters out undesired particles. The results of the empirical studies are recorded in Table 1 below. However, it should be understood by a person skilled in the art that the mechanism of the present invention is not limited to filtering out only the particles described below. Any other undesirable particles and chemicals produced by electronic cigarettes can be filtered out by the filtering unit 10 in the manner described in the present specification.
In the preceding specification, the invention has been described with reference to specific exemplary embodiments thereof. It will however, be evident that various modifications and changes may be made thereto without departing from the broader spirit and scope of the invention as set forth in the claims that follow. The specification and drawings are accordingly to be regarded in an illustrative manner rather than a restrictive sense.