Stackable Substrate Design for Herbal Essence Delivery
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing vapor cartridge designs face challenges in efficiently and consistently delivering controlled doses of herbal essences like cannabinoids due to issues with coating stability and volatilization, leading to incomplete or inappropriate delivery.
Innovation Solution
A stackable substrate design featuring a flat sheet or sheet-mesh configuration with conductive properties, allowing for segmented heating and volatilization of herbal essences, enabling precise control over the delivery of different essences simultaneously or sequentially.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of manufacture
If a single sheet substrate is used for coating herbal essences, then the coating process is simplified, but the delivery precision and control over different essences deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The substrate is divided into multiple stacked sheets, each coated with different herbal essences. This segmentation allows each sheet to be independently controlled and delivered, achieving precise dosage control while maintaining a relatively simple coating process for each individual sheet.
Solution Approach 2:
The solution transitions from a single two-dimensional coating surface to a three-dimensional stacked structure. Multiple sheets are stacked vertically, adding the height dimension to the system. This enables independent control of each layer while maintaining simplicity in the coating process for each sheet.
2Productivity
If the substrate is heated for volatilization, then the herbal essences are delivered, but coating cracking or flaking occurs leading to incomplete delivery
Solution Approach 1:
By dividing the coating into multiple separate sheets stacked together, each sheet can be optimized for thermal stability. The segmentation prevents cracking and flaking that would occur in a single thick coating, ensuring complete and reliable volatilization of each essence layer.
Solution Approach 2:
The stacked substrate structure creates a composite system where multiple thin coating layers are combined. This composite approach improves thermal stability and prevents the cracking and flaking issues that occur with single-layer coatings during heating and volatilization.
3Adaptability or versatility
If multiple essences are delivered simultaneously, then the treatment options are increased, but the control over individual dosage deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
Each herbal essence is coated on a separate substrate sheet, creating distinct segments. This allows the system to deliver multiple essences simultaneously by activating multiple sheets, or to control individual dosages by selectively activating specific sheets, thereby maintaining precise dosage control while offering versatile treatment options.
Solution Approach 2:
The stacked configuration adds vertical layering to the delivery system. Multiple essences are arranged in different vertical layers, enabling simultaneous delivery through multi-layer activation or individual dosage control by selecting specific layers, thus achieving both versatility and precision.
4Ease of manufacture
If a spiral cross-section is used for the substrate, then continuous roll coating is enabled, but the structural complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The continuous spiral substrate is segmented into multiple separate flat sheets stacked together. Each sheet can be manufactured using simple continuous roll coating processes, avoiding the complexity of forming and maintaining a spiral structure. The segmentation maintains manufacturing simplicity while enabling the desired coating process.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
The solution provides a stable and efficient delivery system for herbal essences, preventing coating cracking or flaking and ensuring complete volatilization, thereby offering precise and controlled inhalation of herbal vapors.
Implementation Method 1
The Vapor Cartridge may be activated by application of electrical current to the conductors so as to heat the sheet and/or mesh between the conductors and volatilize the coating of herbal essence between the conductors.
Implementation Method 2
The at least one herbal essence is coated on the substrate and includes such volatilizable essences as cannabinoids, hops, echinacea extracts, terpenoid extracts such as peppermint, spearmint, menthol, and similar volatilizable plant oils, gums, solids and similar essences.
Implementation Method 3
These processes enable regulated condensation or deposit of the herbal essence onto a conductive substrate which can be electronically managed to provide controlled re-volatilization of the herbal essence.
Implementation Method 4
The Thermal Distillation and Wet Extraction Processes described in earlier applications and patents, including for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 9,220,294 and 10,661,036 provide processes for preparation of herbal essence cartridges for use in vapor inhalation delivery systems.
Data Source
AI summary
The present invention is directed to an electrically conductive substrate (1002) coated with one or more herbal essences wherein the substrate may be a flat sheet of conductive metal or polymer. The coating (1120) may be present as separate sections on the substrate and multiple conductor contacts may be present on the substrate or may be separate components. Multiple coated substrates may be stacked together to form a cartridge for use in an herbal essence delivery device.