Solutions

Research and common sense dictate we address the incredible number of pollutants in our immediate environments. Other than eliminating everything in the universe, the best way to tackle the challenge is through the use of air cleaners. But what type of air cleaner is best for YOUR situation?

The variety of air cleaners on the market is only limited by the imagination of inventors, manufacturers, and marketers. But basically, they fall into the following categories:

Conventional Air Cleaners

Conventional air cleaners are designed to force or pull the air through some sort of filtering medium. Generally, this medium is the type of filters found in the typical forced air heating and air conditioning unit. Often, the filter will consist of one of the new types of  “micronic” materials. But regardless of the materials, they can’t hold a candle to the incredible cleansing abilities of the modern day ionic air cleaners! For more information on ionic air cleaning, click HERE

Electrostatic Air Cleaners

Electrostatic collector plate air cleaners generally rely on a negatively charged device to attract positively charged, dirty air molecules. As these positively charged dirty molecules (ions) move over the collector plate, their contaminants drop to the plate while the now neutralized, and cleansed molecule of air exits the device. The rush of air attracted to the negatively charged plate, and hence the air velocity, will be in proportion to the density of contaminants in the air and the size of the electrostatic plate. Although more effective than conventional air cleaners, they leave much to be desired in comparison to ionic air cleaners. For more information on ionic air cleaning, click HERE

Ionic Air Cleaners

Ionic air cleaners, or ionizers, take a more aggressive approach to air cleaning: they not only attract positively charged, dirty air molecules (ions) to an electrostatic collector plate, but they also apply a negative charge to the exiting molecules. As trillions of these negatively charged particles are propelled into the immediate atmosphere by the ionically generated air currents, they have a life span of less than 30 seconds. During this brief period of time, there is a high probability at least some of them will collide and combine with positively charged, “nasty” molecules. As these ions fuse together, their combined weight causes them to fall harmlessly to the ground, just waiting for your friendly vacuum cleaner!

The “trick” here is to accelerate the air current as much as possible in order to increase the chances of negative-positive collisions. Several methods can be used to accomplish this task:

• increase the number of ionizing pins within the machine – the more pins, the greater the negative ion creation and hence, the greater the chance negative ions will be attracted to  the surrounding positive ions outside of the machine
• use an electrostatic device to attract, collect, and neutralize incoming positive ions, thereby creating an air current flow as the positively charged air enters and the negatively charged ionic air exits the machine (referred to as collector plate devices)
• accelerate the air flow with an internal fan
• various combinations of the above

Affiliated researchers have put together a BRIEF primer to help understand the concept of using negative ions to cleanse your air. To begin this BRIEF two part report, click HERE

To review those ionic air cleaner/purifiers we believe to be the “Best of the Best,” click HERE

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