Air purifier buying guide: how to choose a home air purifier?HEPA filter is the key!

Air purifier buying guide: how to choose a home air purifier?HEPA filterIt's the key!

Many people know that home renovation is the main source of harmful gases, but in fact, harmful gases come not only from renovation, but also from life. Indoor air number one king of destruction is formaldehyde and TVOC (Total Volatile Organic Compounds). We all know that indoor formaldehyde is very difficult to manage, after all, the release of a variety of complex sources, decoration materials, furniture, decoration, wallpaper, wallpaper, toys, etc. These items may be formaldehyde hiding place. And the release of formaldehyde is a fairly long process, up to 3-15 years, the degree of difficulty can be imagined.

And compared to formaldehyde toluene, TVOC is less heard, but it also can not be ignored. TVOC mainly from the combustion products of self-burning coal and natural gas, smoking, heating and cooking should be things, to carry out the process of indoor renovation, it is also lurking in the paint, coatings and adhesives and other decoration. High concentrations of TVOC can cause poisoning, resulting in drowsiness, headache, dizziness, nausea and vomiting, tightness in the chest and other symptoms, which is very harmful.

In addition, there can be quite a few sources of indoor air pollution, not just from renovations, but also from a variety of everyday household items:

1. PM produced by combustion or heating carried out indoors;

2, released from household products: such as benzene, formaldehyde;

3. Photoelectric reaction products: e.g., ozone produced by UV lamp irradiation;

4, indoor biological pollution: common bacteria, viruses and so on.

Air Purifier Buying Guide

In order to combat air pollutants, it is urgent to buy an air purifier. In the market popular four different purification methods of air purifier, in the end we should choose which one? I would like to say that each of these four has its own advantages and disadvantages, and what is suitable is the most important.

Physical Filtration

The use of activated carbon, diatomaceous earth and other substances with a large specific surface area can filter formaldehyde and other free organic matter, in itself does not bring secondary pollution, but its disadvantage is that any filtering effect has a saturated state, the state of the environment with the temperature and humidity related to the saturated state will be desorbed process should be replaced in a timely manner. Due to the formaldehyde release in some materials for a long time, there may be several years, the replacement process will be very cumbersome.

Chemical decomposition filtration

The use of photocatalyst catalytic negative oxygen ions generated by the oxidation of pollutants decomposed into harmless water carbon dioxide, etc. to achieve the purpose of eradication. Advantages are safe, non-toxic and harmless, long-term effective, completely avoid the secondary rebound, secondary pollution, and play a sterilization and anti-virus effect.

The disadvantage is that it requires the involvement of light, and places with poor or no light require the involvement of auxiliary light. And because of the catalytic efficiency, in some seriously polluted places here for a long time, eager to move in will have a certain impact. And the use of the process will produce ozone, ozone is harmful to human health, the use of people must be away from the scene.

ion technology

Using the principle of ionization, metal electrodes are used to ionize the air, discharging gases containing positive and negative ions, and charged particles capture pollutants, either landing them or separating them. But although the charged particles can make the pollutants settle, but the pollutants are still indoors attached to a variety of surfaces, it is easy to fly into the air again, resulting in secondary pollution. At the same time, the ionization process will produce ozone, although it is generally not exceeded, but it is still a potential risk.

electrostatic dust collection

Through the high-voltage electrostatic generation of ozone, do not raise itself with the role of storage sterilization, with ozone to virus efficiency is relatively high. The disadvantage is that the concentration of ozone is not good control, the concentration is too high on the human body has harm, the concentration is too low and can not realize the role of disinfection.

Summary: In summary, I recommend physical filtration, although the need to replace the frequency of more frequent than other ways of purification, but it will not bring any secondary pollution, relatively safe, reliable and efficient.

Filters are key to choosing a quality air purifier

After determining the purification method of the water purifier, the next step is to look at the filter. The filter is the core of the device to achieve air purification, choose the right filter, air purifier is also half right.

There are two general questions people have about filters:

What types of filters are available?

Is a higher filter rating better?

Air purifiers on the market today generally have three or four layers of filters, and there are also five or six layers, generally including primary filters, activated carbon filters, HEPA filters, formaldehyde removal filters. When choosing air purification filters, you should pay attention to the replacement cycle on the purchase page, and replace the filters in a timely manner. In the season of allergens or to prevent the spread of viruses, we also need to shorten the replacement cycle of filter cartridges to improve the overall awareness of prevention.

Next, let's talk about filter ratings. Filter rating generally refers specifically to the rating of HEPA filters. In the field of air purifiers, the common rating is H, of which H13-14 is recognized as the best filter.

However, we don't need to go overboard with high grade filters because air purifiers are circular filters. The higher the air purifier filter grade represents the better purification effect of the filter, but the higher the grade, the higher the wind resistance, the higher the noise, and the more expensive the cost. It is generally recommended that household filter products in the H11 ~ H12 level, like the British IAM air purifier are used above the H11 level.

For example: choose H11 level filter purification efficiency is 95%, H12 level filter purification efficiency is 99.5%, it looks like H12 will be better. But if the same space for multiple cycles of air purification, the effect of the two is the same, but the greater the density to ensure that the amount of air filtered per unit of time, so that the fan speed must be high, H12 noise will increase.

Recognizing the "2Cs" and teaching you how to choose the right air purifiers

When choosing an air purifier, we notice the presence of two values, that is, "2C". So what exactly are the "2Cs"? They are CADR value and CCM value.

CADR value

We are in an environment where the air is flowing, even if you close all the windows in your house, the air is still moving slowly, and at the same time the pollutants are constantly flowing in and out of the state, so the concentration of particulate matter in the indoor air is maintained in a dynamic balance. A good air purifier is trying to maintain this dynamic balance at a relatively low level, and will produce a corresponding removal rate according to the inflow rate of pollutants, this is the purification efficiency - CADR. it is usually in the air purifier's label or manual can be seen.

This value is generally the higher the value of the better, but there is a CADR value of the source is not uniform, then rely on this to judge the unreliable. But I want to tell you a little trick Oh! CADR value can be used to estimate the range of purification, in general, CADR * 0.1 is the range of purification, a little bit of arithmetic, you can derive the air purifier applicable area. And then quietly the results of this with the business labeled area for a comparison, if the difference is very large, there is a suspicion of exaggeration. Then we have to be careful!

CCM value

CCM refers to Cumulative Cleaning Capacity, which is the total amount of pollutants that a filter can remove over its entire life cycle. To put it bluntly, it's how durable the filter is.

There are two sets of ratings for CCM in the new national standard, for particulate matter and formaldehyde.

Solid pollutants such as pm2.5 and other particulate matter, denoted by P, are divided into 4 levels, from low to high being P1, P2, P3, and P4, corresponding to the total weight of the purified particulate matter.

Gaseous pollutants such as formaldehyde and other harmful gases, denoted by F, are divided into 4 levels, from low to high are F1, F2, F3 and F4, corresponding to the total weight of formaldehyde purified.

The CCM value is determined by the area and grade of the filter paper of the filter, the higher the value, the more particles the filter element can hold and more durable. The national standard stipulates that when the CADR value decreases to half of the initial value, the filter is considered to have failed and needs to be replaced. If you want your air purifier to be efficient, neither of these two values should be ignored. Only when both values are high, can we prove that this air purifier not only has high purification efficiency, but also has a strong purification capacity.