Air Purifiers - The History

Air purifiers come in all shapes and sizes and each one has its own unique way of purifying the air. The start of the air filter began with the fire fighters. In 1823, John and Charles Dean patented a new smoke protecting device for fire fighters to use as they fought fires. This new device was a filter that protected the men from the dangerous acrid smoke and chemicals that were in the air. The same type of filters became widely adapted to underwater divers as well.

At about the same time as John and Charles Dean were inventing and patenting the smoke protecting device, there was also a man by the name of Augustus Siebe who was just beginning to market his very own diving respirator which was a helmet that could pump in fresh air through a tube and another tube that could pump the bad air out. Siebe soon went on to found a company called Siebe, Gorman, and Co. and developed gas masks for the war effort in 1914.

In 1849 Lewis Haslett got a patent for a device called the "inhaler" or "lung protector". This new device was a great improvement on the other devices that had been invented before and helped coal miners all over the world.

In 1854 a man by the name of John Stenhouse made a few improvements to Siebe's and Haslett's invention. He decided to add charcoal to the device. Through this he learned that by adding charcoal to the air filter, it could filter out harmful noxious gases from the air.

John Tyndall, in 1871 invented a respirator to aid in helping fire fighters breath. This was a great improvement to the ones that John and Charles Dean have created in 1823; these were portable.

HEPA Filter Air Purifiers were Born

During World War II the United States government was working with radioactive material and they needed to desperately come up with a way to filter out all of those harmful particles in order to keep the air clean and breathable for their scientists; the HEPA filter was then born. The HEPA (High Efficiency Particulate Air) filter is one of the highest efficiency air purifiers on the market. It is designed to filter out micro sized particles. It is known for filtering out 99.7 percent of all particles that are 0.3 microns in size.

Once a classified item with the government, the HEPA filter has quickly become declassified and now resides in many residential homes as well as commercial businesses, hospitals, and dental offices around the world. In the fifty's and sixties the HEPA filter became very popular with those who were designing and building bomb shelters.

Modern Air Purifiers

In just the last twenty years or so, the focus on filtering the air has turned to ways to purify the air as in home air purifiers. The past filters were great at removing foul odors, toxic chemicals, and noxious gases from the air, but they could not remove mold spores, viruses, or bacteria from the air. Outbreaks of the Ebola plague in Africa showed how important it truly was to be able to remove hazardous bacteria from the air by purifying it. This brought on the new generation of air cleaners and home air filters. These new air purifiers were electronic and they not only cleaned the air of noxious gases, but they purified it; removing bacteria, viruses, dust, pollen, and mold spores.

Today there is a large selection of air purifiers to choose from. It all depends on what your personal needs are whether it is just allergies, bacteria, viruses, or maybe you just want fresh air, there is an air purifier out there for you. There are styles that range from coronal discharge purifiers to plate or needle ionizers.

HEPA filters today are traditionally used in hospitals, isolation rooms, pharmaceutical, computer chip manufacturing, as well as in home air purifiers and business air purifiers. Not only has filtering technology created just HEPA filters, but there have been innovations on activated carbon filters that have been able to fit into smaller units for homes and businesses. The activated carbon filters contain pounds of activated carbon that is designed to trap and hold odors, toxic chemical fumes and noxious gases.

Through the years there has been many different designs and creation of air purifiers, each one better than the last; in an attempt to get clean, fresh indoor air.