A Safer Vape? LTU Professor Wants to Build Chemical Analysis Into That e-Cigarette

As pretty much anyone can tell you, the safest way to vape is to not vape at all.

But a Lawrence Technological University professor has applied for a United States patent on a vape sensor he said could make e-cigarettes safer.

Hao Jiang, assistant professor of biomedical engineering in the LTU College of Engineering, has applied for a patent on his e-cigarette sensor, which can measure the physical and chemical properties of the aerosols in e-cigarette vapor.

“I want to help people identify the health risks of vaping,” he said.

“Users can potentially inhale very dangerous aerosols,” Jiang said of e-cigarettes. In fact, in the research that led to the development of his sensor, “people have brought in e-cigarettes whose vapor is like the exhaust of a car, probably because some e-cigarettes use very high power to heat the liquid in the vape.”

Jiang said his sensor will give users feedback about what they’re inhaling--measuring the physical properties of the aerosols to see if they’re dangerous, and measuring how much of those aerosols they’re inhaling. Included are all aspects of electronic cigarette aerosols, including particle size, distribution, aerosol temperature, and the chemicals present in the aerosol.

If hazardous aerosols are detected, Jiang said, the vape pen will vibrate, and a text warning of toxic chemicals present will be sent to the user’s smartphone.

Jiang said he expects a patent to be granted on the invention by the end of 2024. And in conjunction with the patent application, he’s established a company, called LumCentric Technologies Inc., to make and market the device. That company is housed in the Centrepolis Accelerator, the physical product business accelerator founded in 2018 on the LTU campus by the university and the city of Southfield.

Centrepolis provides fledgling companies like LumCentric with market analysis, manufacturing expertise and strategies, marketing advice, financial support, access to expert mentors and investors, and more.

The LumCentric aerosol sensor would be small enough to be built into vape devices, monitoring and analyzing the generated aerosols in real time and communicating with the cloud through wireless data technology. Jiang is also developing data analysis software, giving e-cigarette manufacturers a complete system to control aerosol output precisely, manufacturing safer and more enjoyable vape devices. And users can take advantage of that data analysis to study and monitor their own vaping habits, predicting future long-term health effects.

The technology can also be used to guide smokers through gradual cessation of traditional cigarette smoking, Jiang said.

Besides the patent application, Jiang's research on the device has also been published in the scientific journal, "Sensors," and "IEEE Sensor" conference.

“We want to make vaping safer for the user, and we want to help the FDA with the regulation of electronic cigarettes,” Jiang said.

Jiang joined the LTU faculty in 2019 after seven years as a postdoctoral research fellow at University of Victoria and Simon Fraser University, in British Columbia, Canada. He earned a Bachelor of Science in electronics from Peking University in China and a Master of Science and Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Western University in London, Ontario.

His Ph.D. research focused on biosensors for detecting the binding of biomolecules, and his research at Simon Fraser University focused on structural color displays.

by Matt Roush