Ionic air purifiers are a popular choice for air cleaner because they do not require filter replacements.
But when they are not used right in the appropriate square footage, they can create ozone side effects.
What are the side effects of an air purifier with an ionizer?
An Ionizer air purifier in too confined of a space can create more ozone than is safe to breathe.
Ozone is a lung irritant at high levels. Some of the side effects of breathing ozone include Throat irritation, chest discomfort, and coughing.
Ozone can also exasperate the symptoms of asthma and bronchitis.
Lifestyle enhancements introduce people to new forms of diets, daily exercise routines, bottled waters, and how they have an impact on your mind and your body.
Air pollution is another issue that can affect your daily life and one that research is regularly coming up with better ways of combating.
The concerns over poor air quality have increased greatly in the last 20 years as more scientific investigation has revealed the effects of bad indoor air quality on your general health.
Many believe it’s because of modern building practices that have led to more secure and tightly sealed businesses and homes that help keep the indoor climate stationery.
Also activities like television, video games, and personal computers have driven us to stay indoors more than our previous generations.
To combat these issues, air purifiers have become a popular household appliance.
But there are many who believe that air purifiers themselves are not safe.
And actually do the opposite of cleaning air.
Air cleaners come in many different sizes and use a variety of different types of technologies to reduce indoor air pollutants.
One of the technologies that is often brought up when the discussion of air purifier dangers is posed is air ionizers.
Air ionizer usually means one of two different means of using ions as an air purifier.
1 Electrostatic air cleaner
Corona discharge that negative charges a plate and collects positive ions (pollutants) through polarity to the plate. These are known for their continual maintenance of having to keep the plate clean to work properly.
Ionic air purifier that creates negative ions and emit them into the air. Same as the electrostatic but the newly formed particles that are the result of polarity in mid air that become too heavy to float and fall to the surface.
These are also known for black wall syndrome. A phrase coined for how much dust ends up on the surfaces around the air cleaner.
Though ionic air purifiers found huge popularity when they were first introduced to the market,
primarily because they we’re quiet and did not require any filter replacements,
they took a hit when it was realized that the premise of the air purifier to charge ions actually equated to the production of ozone.
And though the manufacturers of ionic air purifiers and ionizers argue and make the claim that their air purifiers do not create enough ozone to be dangerous,
they cannot argue that breathing too much ozone is unsafe and is the opposite of creating better air to breathe.
And they cannot control how their units are used once they’re out of their hands.
For instance, if a person buys an air ionizer that is meant for a room that is 500 square feet but uses it in a room that is 100 square feet.
The result is Ozone Overkill.
This is one of the reasons that the environmental protection agency has flatly come out against ionic air cleaner technology.
And the reason that air purifiers that manufacture ozone have been outlawed in the state of California.
But to be clear, an air purifier has to create over .070 ppm over an 8 hour period to be considered a hazard.
The rate at which ozone dissipates also has a part because
you can run an ozone generator at full capacity and the ozone will dissipate enough to make the air breathable in about 30 minutes and be cleared out within a couple of hours.
Air ionizer benefits:
There are some great benefits to using ionic air purifiers over filter based air cleaners.
- Do not require filter replacements
- Very quiet to run
- Are able to remove bacteria and germs.
- Can be used as a whole house air purifier without placing extra strain on the HVAC.
But the best air purifiers are not “Ionic vs. HEPA”, but air purifiers that combine the two to create the best of both worlds.
Because HEPA filters are manufactured to capture particulates as small as .03 parts per million, they are supremely efficient at capturing air particles.
This has made the HEPA purifier the go-to choice for most consumers.
But HEPA air purifiers have their issues to:
- Filters are a costly item that has to be replaced to maintain the performance of the purifier.
- they do not work well for VOCs or chemical based contaminants
- They are typically very noisy.
- They cannot cover a large square footage.
- Are not considered a good whole house HVAC solution.
Today’s smart air purifiers combine the best air cleaning technologies in a way that they work together to work more efficiently and safely.
As an example:
An air purifier with an air ionizer can cluster air pollutants including bacteria and germs, making them too heavy to float and in turn making them the right size for a HEPA filter to absorb.
Cats getting along with dogs.
Imagine an air purifier outfitted with sensors to tell the air purifier when to ionize the air and when to filter the air and then shut down when the process is over, saving you money on filters, energy, and the life of the air purifier.
That is what a smart air purifier is.
Another example of a smart air purifier that uses technologies in concert is a HEPA cleaner that employees a UV light to kill any live bacteria stuck in its fibers.
Another example:
An electric static HEPA filter that combines the efficiency of a HEPA filter with a negative charge to attract airborne particulates to the filter.
These are just a few examples of how air purification methods can work together.
Induct air purification.
Because most buildings in new houses or outfitted with central heat and air, in duct air purifiers are considered the best way to clean and maintain healthy breathing air in your home or business.
Because your air handler has the capacity of taking air pollution from one side of the building and distributing it to the rest of the building, the HVAC is become one of the main sources of indoor air pollution.
Also without regular cleaning the inside of the duct work can I become a source of dust mites and mold spores that are distributed throughout your house every time your unit fires up.
Because of this, the ionizer or ionic air purifier has found a place where it works much better than a HEPA filter.
Placing the in duct air purifier into your HVAC housing and supply air Vents not only cleans the air inside of the unit, it also cleans the air that is being transported through the unit.
And because of the short time that it takes ozone to dissipate, the trace amount of ozone created by these air purifiers does not pose a problem at all because it is hidden away and breaks down before it ever has a chance to enter the Ambient air in the house.
Though HEPA filters can be used as your regular HVAC replacement filter, it is generally not advised to do so because they are so dense that they do not allow air to flow freely, which is one of the main problems people have with their HVAC when it is not running properly.
Summary
Ionic air purifiers and ionizer fans are popular because they do not require filter replacements, they are quiet, and they are more equipped to handle bacteria.
But because they create ozone as a by-product, they can have some negative side effects.Tightness in the chest and the general exasperation of asthma symptoms
can result from breathing in too much ozone.What when ionic technologies are combined with filtering technologies, they can have a very positive impact on the quality of the air.
And they are a much better choice for induct air purification than filtering alone can be.
