Giving you cleaner, healthier air Blueair White Paper May 2012 The Growing Threat Of Air Pollution The air we breathe indoors can be up to 100 times more polluted than the air outside on the street, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Content Chapter Executive summary 1 Our need to breathe clean air 2 Causes of indoor air pollution 3 Challenges 4 Performance challenge 5 Noise issue Energy consumption challenge Quality and prices Technologies Technologies 6 Mechanical filtration Electrostatic percipitators Solution 7 How do you estimete the CADR of air cleaners? What CADR do you need? A combined technology 8 HEPASilent™ technology 9 Pollution focus Benefits 10 Zero emissions Design Why Blueair? 11 Recommended further
1. Executive summary The air we breathe in our homes or offices can be up to 100 times worse than the air outside, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).1 With people in industrialized countries spending around 90% of their time indoors, at home, work and leisure, indoor air pollutants pose a very real threat to human health and wellbeing. 1 http://www.epa.gov/air/basic.
2. Our need to breathe clean air We humans generally spend about 90% of our time indoors at home or work breathing air that is up to 100 times more polluted than the air outside in the street. Clean air, both outdoors and inside a home or office, is essential to good health and wellbeing. However, studies reveal that most people are in the dark about the negative effects bad indoor air quality can have on their health.
3. Causes of indoor air pollution An estimated 300 million people worldwide suffer from asthma. In France alone, 1 in 4 people suffers from respiratory allergy, immune response related to inhaled allergens such as pollen, dust mites and animal dander.
4. Challenges It is ironical that modern cars are fitted as a matter of standard with air filters to protect drivers and passengers, but little is done on a similar scale to improve healthy air conditions inside our homes and offices where we spend most of our time at work or leisure. A simple, straightforward solution for anyone concerned about the air they breathe indoors is, besides source control, to ensure that the rooms they are using are well ventilated with clean air or contain an air purifier.
5. The performance challenge It is important that the air purifier’s performance meets the consumer’s need for health, comfort and economy. Primarily through the reduction of particles. At Blueair, we believe all air cleaners should be independently tested by an ethical and well respected third party to assess how good they are at removing harmful indoor pollutants to a high level relative to the size of the room.
6. Technologies Mechanical filtration Mechanical filtration such as high efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filters captures particles from the air by size exclusion using a fan to move the air through the filter. Mechanical filtration uses four different forces to capture particles: straining, inertia, interception and diffusion,8 where the three last mentioned is illustrated in fig. 1.
Electrostatic precipitators Electrostatic precipitators charge particles electrically with either a positive or negative charge. The particles are then attracted and retained by oppositely charged collection plates9 (fig. 2). Air cleaners using electrostatic precipitators are good in cleaning the air with low noise while consuming little energy. However, electrostatic forces are not very efficient in collecting large and heavy particles.
7. Solution When choosing an air cleaner, performance should be considered first. A unit’s pollutant removal performance is best shown with its Clean Air Delivery Rate (CADR), a standardized measurement system developed in the USA by the independent Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers (AHAM) that helps to determine an air cleaner’s efficiency in removing pollutants from the air. CADR measures the reduction of the three most common indoor air pollutants at home: smoke, dust and pollen.
8. A combined technology Mechanical filters can have a filtration efficiency as high as 100%. This is for large particles. Efficiency for smaller particles such as cigarette smoke is usually lower as they can penetrate the filter media and follow the airflow through the filter and be re-introduced into the air. % electrostatic forces 100 By combining mechanical with electrostatic technology, the filtration efficiency for smaller particles will increase.
9. The HEPASilent™ technology Blueair is one of the few air purification brands to offer a unique and patented filtration process. Air purifiers from Blueair use a combination of mechanical and electrostatic filtration called the HEPASilent™ technology and do not emit ozone as a by-product. Blueair’s HEPASilent™ technology uses an ionizer that charges particles negatively. The charged particles will then be trapped by a gradient structured synthetic mechanical filter (fig 6).
10. Benefits The HEPASilent™ high filtration system delivers more clean air at a faster rate (high CADR) with low noise levels and using less energy, compared to just a mechanical filter. Blueair air cleaners provide the right balance of airflow, ionizer & filter density. The HEPASilent™ system uses special design filters with less densely packed fibers that do not reduce airflow. In combination with an ionizer, the filtration efficiency increases, ensuring Blueair units achieve high CADR.
11. Why Blueair? Blueair has been producing clean indoor air since 1996 and the company’s air cleaners can be found in over 50 countries around the world. Innovated with love in Sweden, a Blueair air cleaner is perfectly engineered and designed so that consumers can rely on it to make their indoor environment cleaner and healthier as well as life more enjoyable, at home, work or leisure.
12. Recommended further information The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency http://www.epa.gov/iaq/pubs/careforyourair.html http://cfpub.epa.gov/airnow/index.cfm?action=particle_health.page1#intro Residential Air Cleaners (Second Edition): A Summary of Available information. Revised August 2009. The World Health Organization http://www.who.int/indoorair/en/ http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs292/en/index.html http://www.who.int/gard/publications/GARD_Manual/en/index.
Giving you cleaner, healthier air For questions and information regarding this paper, please contact: Johan Wennerström, R&D Manager, Blueair Sweden E: johan.wennerstrom@blueair.
