The Air Purifiers and Air Purifier Technology Today

The air purifiers have proved to be a very useful tool in homes, hospitals, schools, and offices around the world over the last fifty years. It has helped millions of people who suffer from Asthma, Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS), Environmental Tobacco Smoke (ETS), noxious gases, foul odors, and many other allergens.

For the last twenty years or so, environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) has been proven to cause a great deal of health complications. Today you can find air purifiers that can help to decrease and completely remove ETS from the air. Many of these systems are found in night clubs, bars, and restaurants due to the high volume of smokers. There are now smaller purifying units that fit comfortably into your household that can clear the air of hazardous tobacco smoke.

ETS contains very harmful particles along with hazardous to your health gaseous compounds such as hydrogen cyanide, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, and carbon dioxide. Along with all of those, ETS also contains a grand amount of volatile compounds like ethane, propene, formaldehyde acetaldehyde, acetone, benzene, and acrolein. These are what cause the smell and irritation from tobacco smoke.

The systems that are designed for ETS have the effectiveness to take in particles of .01 microns in diameter. They also have a large capacity for holding such tiny particles and they also have an expansive spectrum gas filter. These types of air purifiers also have a very high air delivery due to the fact that rooms that contain ETS must be cleaned every few hours to ensure that the air is not harmful.

The development of air purifiers that could rid the air of chemicals came about during war times. Chemical warfare was a great fear and what better way to combat it than to design an air filter that could filter out all of the harmful chemicals in the air that the military breathed in.

MCS is the result of those who are very sensitive to chemicals such as carpets, additives to foods, household cleaners, fuel, fabrics, building materials, pesticides, and perfumes. MCS can result because the person has had an allergic reaction to a specific chemical or to a wide range of chemicals. Many of the symptoms are difficulty breathing, burning irritated eyes, migraines, nausea, aching joints, fatigue, or trouble sleeping. MCS is commonly found in middle aged women. Due to the chemicals that are in these types of products there are air purifiers that can reduce these effects and clear the air of the harmful particles, making it much easier for MCS sufferers to cope.

When it comes down to finding air purifiers on the market to help combat MCS, you will most likely find them very few and far between. It's not that there are none out there, it's just that the ones that are out there, can't effectively filter out gases and chemicals because the gas filter is just too small to work efficiently. More and more air purifiers are being designed with granular activated carbon filters that help to increase the air purification process of harmful chemical gases and odors. Some air purifiers may have carbon filters, but they will not remove all of the chemical gases. You should look for a unit that has an activated carbon filter to filter out the volatile organic compounds as well as the chemicals that contaminate the air causing some people to have a reaction.

Allergies and asthma are another major reason to look for an air purifier. From the start it seems as if this was one of the main reasons to create such a contraption as the air purifiers. Those who suffer from asthma tend to be affected by particles in the air. The same is true for anyone suffering from allergies. Allergens such as pet dander, dust mites, and pollen travel through the air to the sufferers lungs as they breath in. Indoor allergens tend to affect people more than outdoor ones because we tend to spend about ninety percent of our time indoors and the remaining ten percent outdoors.

Air purifiers can now combat 99.7 percent of all indoor allergens using a HEPA filter and a pre filter. The pre filter traps the larger particles and the HEPA filter takes in the remaining particles making the air much cleaner and easier to breath.

All in all, today's air purifiers have come a long way from what they were fifty years ago.