The arrival of an epidemic has made us all more deeply realize that health is the greatest wealth. In terms of air environmental safety, the ravages of bacteria and viruses, sandstorms, and excessive formaldehyde in new houses have also caused more and more friends to pay attention to air purifiers. The effectiveness of air purifiers has been approved by relevant national departments long ago. Recognized and issued a series of standards.
Because many friends reported that they stepped on a lot of pits when choosing an air purifier, and they are not as familiar with this as other home appliances, I hope we can give them some professional opinions. Given this, write this article.
First of all, I declare that this article is purely my own experience and experience in testing and using air purifiers at work, mainly for your reference.
What Air Purifiers Do Well
The air purifiers that do well in our tests proved in our labs to be good at filtering dust, smoke, and pollen from the air. Multiple studies of room air purifiers show that using HEPA filters results in reductions of 50 percent or higher in particulate matter. In one 2018 study of about 130 households, filtration resulted in about 30 percent reduction in coarse particles, like dust.
But how does that affect health? Almost a dozen studies—including ones conducted in Vancouver, British Columbia; Taipei, Taiwan; and Massachusetts—looked at cardiovascular effects and showed improved cardiovascular health among participants. The EPA’s review of eight studies focused on allergy and asthma symptoms, and showed modest improvements in at least one health area, such as some allergy symptoms (which vary from person to person). And asthmatic participants in a 2018 study by the University of California, Davis (PDF) reported a 20 percent reduction in-clinic visits.
As for the coronavirus, air purifiers with HEPA filters are capable of capturing the droplets that the coronavirus travels in (when people cough, talk or breathe). But you’ll need one that consistently draws in enough air to reduce virus particles.
So before you buy an air purifier, ask yourself a question “Where are you dissatisfied with the indoor air?”
Is the particulate matter exceeding the standard? Such as PM2.5, PM10, mites, bacteria, allergenic pollen;
Or is the volatile organic matter exceeding the standard? Such as formaldehyde, benzene, toluene, xylene, TVOC.
You can only prescribe the right medicine. You don’t even know what you want. How can you buy the right air purifier?
ⅠPhysical filter type
It is a fan with high air volume and high-pressure drop to force the air to pass through the filter screen to filter out a particulate matter or volatile organic matter, or both. At present, only an activated carbon filter is feasible for filtering volatile organic matter, and for particulate matter, the main thing is to talk about the HEPA filter.
First of all, the HEPA filter can only filter particulate matter and does not affect volatile organic compounds, such as formaldehyde!
For example, if you smoke a cigarette in the room, only the air of the HEPA filter can remove the smoke and dust (PM2.5) in the room, but there is no way to remove the smell of smoke. Activated carbon filter that has been visited.
Ⅱ Electrostatic dust collection type
The principle is simply to add a strong electric field in a space, so that the particles are charged and attracted, and hit the filter screen to be adsorbed. It is the same as the electrostatic precipitator used in industry.
Advantages: low wind resistance, low noise, long filter life;
shortcoming:
①The filtration efficiency is low. Compared with the filtration efficiency of the HEPA filter type, which is easily 99%+, the electrostatic dust collection type can generally achieve about 90%-97%
② Due to the existence of a strong electric field, ozone is bound to be produced! Ozone enriched to a certain extent will affect the lungs, causing asthma and even cancer!
But what I want to emphasize is that everyone who talks about toxicity without considering the dose is a hooligan! The specific amount of ozone released needs to be tested by a third-party organization. If the machine you purchased cannot provide relevant reports, then I am more inclined to think in a more pessimistic direction.
If you ask my opinion, anyway, I will not buy any air purifiers without the HEPA filter.
Ⅲ Hybrid
The hybrid type can be regarded as an improvement of the physical filter type, which improves the filtration efficiency by charging the particles. That is to say, under the premise of the same HEPA filter with the same air volume and power noise, the purification efficiency of the hybrid type is better than that of the physical filter type, but it will also increase the probability of ozone generation.
IV Summary
In addition to dust particles, an air purifier with a HEPA filter is required, and an air purifier with a HEPA filter can also capture droplets transmitted by the coronavirus. The air purifier with an activated carbon filter and negative ion function can better remove the peculiar smell in the air. It is not recommended to purchase an air purifier without a HEPA filter.Smart air purifier, negative ion air purifier, household composite filter air purifier, air purifier with HEPA filter are all available.
