The air cleaner | Air ionizers have been marketed with claims |
vs. the air | about purifying the air and promising medical |
ionizer | benefits. It should be noted that supporting |
| tests, if available, are controversial and |
| incomplete. |
| Air ionizers can generate a bit of ozone, and |
| can generate some ions (bits of material |
| carrying some electricity). This is what your |
| electronic air cleaner's ionizer does, but with |
| greater intensity; however, air ionizers do not |
| have good collectors, if any. With air ionizers, |
| the contamination is emitted all over walls and |
| floors, requiring frequent cleaning of the entire |
| building to remove the effects of collected |
| contamination. By comparison, an electronic air |
| cleaner deposits contamination on the cell(s) |
| and prefilter for easy cleaning. |
| Another benefit of an electronic air cleaner is |
| that it reduces excessive positive or negative |
| ions in the air, while an air ionizer generates |
| some ions. |
Ozone and the | Electronic air cleaners generate a very small |
electronic | amount of ozone, about 0.005 to 0.010 parts |
air cleaner | per million (ppm). The amount is highest when |
| the air cleaner is new. |
| The average person can detect the odor of |
| ozone in concentrations as low as 0.003 to |
| 0.010 ppm. The U.S. Food and Drug |
| Administration, and Health and Welfare Canada |
| recommend that indoor ozone concentration |
| should not exceed 0.050 ppm. As a comparison, |
| the outdoor ozone level in major cities is |
| sometimes as high as 0.100 ppm. |
18 |
