Ionic Air Purifier

Air purifiers are required in those households where there is somebody who is suffering from allergies or asthma, , the number of which is increasing day by day and therefore the concern for safe indoor air quality has also rapidly increased. People all over the world are trying to find out newer ways to improve the quality of air inside their house. There are many such things in the atmosphere like smoke, mold spores, pollen, bacteria, viruses, pet dander, and other pollutants that have the potential to damage your lungs and immune system. The worst part is that most of these irritants are not visible to the naked eye, however air purifiers filter allergens and pollutants visible or not to the human eye.

Air purifiers usually use filters, electrical attraction, or ozone to clean the air of these allergy-inducing agents. Filters use fine sieves that filter particles from circulating air. As air keeps flowing into the air purifier, the sieves that are present in the purifier trap the smaller particles.

How is an Ionic air Purifier different?
An ionic air purifier uses a method, which is called corona discharge in which charged molecules are created, called ions. Most atoms that are present in the air have a neutral charge and they consist the same number of negatively charged electrons as positively charged protons. The discharge of corona can be small but has a strong electrical field. Molecules that pass through it actually pick up an additional electron every time, as a result of which the molecule gets a negative charge, or it might just have an electron knocked off of it, giving it a positive charge. The larger air particles, such as dust or other contaminants, have more probability to be ionized since they pose to be larger targets for the electrons as and how they pass through the corona discharge.

If a particle were charged once, it would be attracted to anything that has opposite charge. For instance if there are two metal plates within the purifier that are charged, one of them charged positively and the other charged negatively would tend to attract these particles. Moreover particles in the air would also be drawn to each other if they happen to have opposite charges. As the process continues the dust particles clump together, get heavier and gradually settle out of the air.

Criticism of Ionic Air Purifiers

• Critics are not much liking the ionic purifiers as it seems that these purifiers are not really effective in removing contaminants from the air and to top it all the ozone generators that are used have the capacity to harm people.
• Ionic air Purifiers also are only built to provide clean air to one room only.
• Moreover the process that an Ionic Purifier follows actually makes the immediate surrounding of the purifier very dirty since all the dust particles cluster together and are near the device. This reduces the efficiency of the purifier since the emitter is gradually covered with dust.
• Ozone that is produced by the Ionic Purifiers, even though in very small amount, actually acts like a toxic agent and makes Asthma and other lung diseases worse than before.

Hence the conclusion is that Ionic Air Purifiers are actually getting us exactly contrary to what we want, therefore to save ourselves and our dear ones from the contaminants and the ill-effects of purifiers is to avoid doing those things that actually pollute the sir inside our homes. It is better not to smoke inside the house and if your house is near a busy road or a factory, avoid closing the widows, which would let in the contaminated air. In such cases it is better to have glass windows that would let in light but not air. If you take such precautions I am sure you will be able to get rid of a lot of air-borne contamination.