The E-cigarette revolution continues to spread, but as the products have become more popular and are now attracting plenty of players in the market, we have seen incidents and research that has questioned their effectiveness as well as their safety.
A hot topic right now is the stories about e-cig explosions. We have seen incidents around the world where victims have been left with serious burns after their e-cig batteries exploded, with some left with serious burns and permanent damage to the facial area.
Now, some experts believe there is a direct link between the design of the e-cigarette and the potential for damage from explosions.
A Fire Administration report in the U.S. has reportedly linked the design of e-cig products to the severity of injuries suffered when the devices have exploded. The research was looking at why more severe injuries appear to occur when e-cigarettes are damaged as opposed to other popular products containing lithium-ion batteries, like mobile phones.
The upshot of the results from the research was that the design is a contributing factor because the lithium-ion battery is placed in such close proximity to the face as the e-cig is being used to inhale the vapour, so the dangers can be far, far worse.
I appreciate that this may sound like an obvious statement, but the other contributing factor is the fact that a lot of people customise their devices, and this can add to the dangers as well. There are whole areas of the web where people have customised their devices or redesigned their devices to do different things, and this has also been confirmed as another contributory factor.
The writers of the report are actually calling for a ban of lithium-ion batteries being used in e-cigarette devices as a result of their findings. It will be interesting to see what happens as the products face greater regulation here and around the world.