White Paper

5. The performance challenge
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. Every air cleaner should be able to change
the air inside a room at least five times per hour in order to meet
consumer requirements for health, wellbeing and low operation cost.
Performance challenge
There can be a big difference in the efficiency of different air clean-
ers when it comes to removing particles and other stuff from the air.
High filtration
Efficiency does not necessarily mean that the system is effective
in reducing the particle concentration in the room. High filtration
efficiency means that the filter has very high ability to remove the
pollutants that pass through the filters. But if the airflow through the
filter is low, possibly because of dense filter media, less amount of
air and pollution would actually pass the filter to be cleaned. This in
turn would leave a high proportion of air in the room still unfiltered
and polluted.
Noise issue
Dense filters have low airflow because of the densely packed fibers
in the media restricting the air. To increase the airflow, a strong fan
is required. However, strong fans cause a lot of noise. This is not
desirable as air purifiers will be operating in bedrooms, living-rooms,
offices and other environments where the sound can be disruptive.
Energy consumption challenge
For optimum performance, an air purifier should be running 24 hours
a day and seven days a week. Runing less than that is not effective
owing to the remaining sources and ever changing environment.
Therefore, low energy consumption is essential not only for the
domestic bill, but also for the environment.
Quality and price
Air purifiers come in different guises and price levels. It is important
to choose an air purifier that meets the consumer’s requirements in
terms of quality of clean air and sustainability of the unit. The chosen
purifier must clean your air without compromising performance,
economy or design.
Technologies
To understand how the four requirements described above can be
achieved it is important to know what different processes and tech-
nologies are used in air cleaners. The two most common technolo-
gies used in air cleaners are mechanical filtration and electrostatic
precipitators.
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.