Discouraged pensive African American woman looking into distance thinking about ways to solve financial problems. Frightened black girl sits on sofa in living room having lost mood due to inflation
When you’re looking for something to keep your indoor air clean and breathable, there are many factors in play. First of all, you have a range of choices from many different manufacturers, with their own lines of air purifier models. Each maker competes, with its own proprietary builds and features, and each model offers its own niche for specific uses. Choosing means going through a substantial amount of information, and, to some extent, learning about the science of home safety.
In addition, though, your ultimate choice will have to do with your research, and how you feel about the safety of your home. It will reflect aspects of your personality, your worldview, how you see things, and what you feel is important on a personal level.
So, people have different approaches to this type of purchase
To some people, they’re buying just as a sort of broadly preventative approach – so they may not know the specs of their particular model, or what it does, necessarily, under the hood.
They’re happy just getting a machine to hum away in the corner and do its job.
Others have specific contaminants that they’re worried about – they want to make sure that the machine filters a particular pollutant in an indoor space. They may have a very defined idea about how they want their plan to work, down to the individual room or space, and have quite a definitive view of the science involved.
Working with Specific Contaminants
Suppose that you have a pet, and your child is allergic to the pet that you have. Or you have regular visitors who have pet allergies. You’re going to be laser-focused on making sure you remove as much pet dander and fur from the air as possible.
You’re likely to know about the use of HEPA filters when you’re choosing your air purifier.
On the other hand, suppose that you have read a lot about items like formaldehyde, and you know that they’re in various building materials, consumer products, and furniture.
In that case, you’ll probably be familiar with the use of activated carbon to adsorb these types of materials, and get them out of your indoor air. Yes, that’s the correct spelling: ‘adsorb’. The carbon bed does not “absorb” the contaminants in terms of ingesting them in a substrate material. Instead, the contaminants are trapped topically, through a process called adsorption. So if you are a detail-oriented person looking to get rid of formaldehyde and other VOCs, you’ll probably learn all about this.
Wait – What Are VOCs?
If you’re not familiar, volatile organic compounds or VOCs are chemicals that can have a negative effect on your health. They can come from items like paints, cleaners, fuels, new furniture, fragrances, and cooking. Some VOCs irritate the eyes and lungs. They might also cause headaches. Long-term exposure to these chemicals can be harmful.
Examples include formaldehyde, benzene, and something called trichloroethylene (TCE) as well as toluene, xylene, acetone and others. And yes, activated carbon can work on these pollutants. It works through the process of adsorption. That’s different from absorption, which you get with, say, paper towels, and liquid soaks into a substance. With adsorption, the particles are attracted to the carbon surface, and get stuck in the carbon. So this is good for removing chemicals from the air. However, you may need a special blend of carbon depending on the contaminant. For example, formaldehyde typically needs a special blend for better adsorption.
General Air Purification
On the other hand, if you’re just worried about dirty air in general, you might be relying on other people’s recommendations, or just a brief look at the Internet. A HEPA filter, for example, will trap many different kinds of small particles, down to a range of .3 microns, which is tiny. So they do provide a broader benefit. But it’s still good to know about exactly what your air purifier is trapping.
The Science of Air Purification
But then, in addition to your feelings about home safety, there’s a scientific element in play, too.
We can go back to that difference between HEPA and activated carbon. The two technologies work differently to trap different pollutants, as mentioned above.
The HEPA filter system, possibly with a prefilter, relies on advanced filtration, where the activated carbon has a different chemical process, that process of adsorption.
There are also other new technologies like ultraviolet light or heat system systems that remove biological pollutants.
For example, there are air purifiers that deal with virus particles, or certain kinds of bacteria.
But whether you’re going to research this has to do with your approach to shopping. You also may or may not use an air monitor to see what’s lurking in your indoor air. You’ll get some actionable information from the air monitor, but some decide to invest in one of these and use it, and some don’t. It’s a personal choice.
Confident Shoppers, and Others
There’s also a spectrum of shoppers who feel differently about the process of making decisions.
The most confident will believe they have done their homework, and will have a very precise vision of what they want.
Others might feel overwhelmed or bewildered by the information they find. They might not feel any closer to making an ultimate decision.
That’s where a good seller has to meet people where they’re at. That process of educating and helping is critically important to making sure people get what they want, and feel they get their money’s worth for what they pay.
Just think about what would happen if you bought a $1000 machine, and you wanted it to get rid of pet dander, but it worked on chemical pollutants instead.
Chances are you wouldn’t feel too good about that. The approach has to be targeted to the need.
Each person’s needs and spaces are different, which brings us to another consideration here:
Air Purifiers and Space Ratings
Different machines are rated for different areas, in terms of cubic meters.
There will be different areas of your home that have different dimensions, and will require specifically rated machines.
So that’s something to keep in mind, too. You may enjoy our future blogs for more on these ratings, as well as the science behind air purification technology, the biggest mistakes that people make in home safety, and other excellent context for understanding why people use air purifiers in their homes.
USAirPurifiers is a family and veteran-owned U.S. business offering a wide range of high-quality air purifiers, scrubbers, filters, air monitors and humidifiers. The Lulay Team knows that clean air isn’t one-size-fits-all, so we match the right solution to your needs and budget. Invest in your family’s health and breathe easier. Your health is truly our top priority because everyone deserves to enjoy clean air everywhere!