Propylene glycol in the electronic cigarette

What exactly is propylene glycol? There is a lot of talk about the electronic cigarette without propylene glycol, but what does that actually mean?

There is no longer any propylene glycol in the electronic cigarette sold in France, and it is worth explaining why.

Propylene glycol, or propane-1,2-diol, is a chemical compound widely used as an emulsifier across industry, and in particular in food processing, textiles, tobacco, aeronautics and cosmetics.
In the tobacco field, propylene glycol was used in the manufacture of electronic cigarettes because one of its properties is the production of smoke through evaporation, which occurs at around 60%. That property made it possible to imitate the inhaled smoke of a real cigarette.
The compound is also used in the tobacco industry more broadly. Mixed with water, it is frequently found in the humidifiers fitted to cigar humidors.

Propylene glycol was not regarded as having significant harmful effects on health. Like many products, it can cause allergies. It belongs, however, to the glycol ether family, which is highly toxic, and that led the public authorities to prohibit its use in certain cases and to regulate it closely elsewhere. In France, when the electronic cigarette arrived using this compound, the Direction générale de la santé, the French health authority, expressed considerable reservations about the potential health risks for people with a history of epilepsy. That opinion was issued even though the World Health Organisation had not corroborated the toxicity of the product. In many countries, it is subject to neither a ban nor a restriction on use.

For once the benefit of the doubt went to the consumer, and propylene glycol has disappeared entirely from electronic cigarette refills.

All the electronic cigarettes, Kyf and Edsylver, sold on smoking.fr are free of propylene glycol.