The Consumer's Guide to Purifiers

Allergy-inducing culprits are known as allergens. Allergens can come in the form of dust or pollen as well as pet dander and mold spores. Hazardous smoke particles and airborne gases may also find their way into homes and bedrooms. Because of the significant amount of time most people spend indoors, many wish to ensure air purity.

Purifying Techniques

Various techniques are used in air purifiers in the current market to accomplish indoor air purification. These techniques include mechanical filters, absorbents like charcoal, and electrostatic charges or ionizers.

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Additional setups include germicidal UV light and the emission of ions into the air to react with contaminants and making them harmless enough to breathe. Although air purifiers strive to make the air as clean as possible, no commercial air purifier is capable of producing a room as clean as needed in situations requiring an especially clean environment, such as hospital surgical rooms or sensitive manufacturing like optics or computer processors.

Purifiers Consumer Concerns

When selecting air purifiers, consumers are influenced by several factors,

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including visual appeal, noise level, and frequency of filter replacement. There are many different types of filters, some can be cleaned by water, by hand or by vacuuming while others need to be replaced within a few months or a few years.

The most popular sort of filters for air purifiers is the HEPA filter. The Department of Energy has rigid requirements manufacturers must pass to meet HEPA requirements. Products that say "HEPA-type" or "HEPA-like" may not meet these requirements. HEPA requirements necessitate being able to filter out 99.97% of pollutants in the air of 0.3 micrometres in size.

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While HEPA filters are extremely effective, they are also extremely expensive, and replacements can often cost nearly as much as the air purifier itself. For this reason, many air purifiers utilize both a HEPA filter and a less expensive "pre-filter" to reduce the frequency of HEPA filter replacement.

CADR, or Clean Air Delivery Rating, is a standardized indicator of how well a particular air purifier can function as compared to other air purifiers. The higher it is, the stronger the power of purification.

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CADRs are rated by AHAM, or the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers, and are based on stringent requirements as produced by the association itself.

HEPA Air Filters

A HEPA filter (theoretically) can remove from the air at least 99.97% of dust, pollen, mold, bacteria and any airborne particles with a size of 0.3 micrometres. The 99.97% specification is for particles exactly 0.3 micrometres in diameter because that is what is known as the MPPS or most penetrating particle size. Particles that are smaller or larger are trapped with even higher efficiency. In other words 0.3 micrometres is the worst case particle size and 99.97% is the worst case efficiency.

HEPA filters are composed of a mat of fibers. The air space between fibers is much greater than 0.3 micrometres. The common assumption that a HEPA filter acts like a sieve where particles smaller than the

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hole size get through is entirely incorrect (membrane filters do work that way). In a HEPA filter, particles are trapped (they stick to a fiber) by one of three mechanisms; diffusion, interception or impaction.

The original HEPA filter was designed in the 1940s for and used in the Manhattan Project to prevent the spread of airborne radioactive contaminants. It was commercialized in the 1950s and the original term became a registered trademark and a generic term for highly efficient filters.

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Over the decades, filters have evolved to satisfy the higher and higher demands for air quality in various high technology industries, such as aerospace, pharmaceutical processing and electronic microcircuitry (computer chips). Today, a HEPA filter can be any highly efficient air filter that can attain the same filter efficiency performance standards of at least 99.97% and 0.3 micrometres or larger.

The Controversy Over Ionic Purifiers

As with all health-related appliances, there is some controversy surrounding the claims of certain companies, specifically involving ionic air purifiers.

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This is partly due to the questionable effects of negative ion generators which many skeptics question the effectiveness of. Particularly, these machines generate the pollutant ozone. Ozone from air purifiers can be dangerous in high concentrations.

(Thanks to Wikipedia for this excellent guide.)

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