Best Air Purifier 2017

Which air cleaner is better to buy? In the shops from the abundance of air cleaners, eyes run wide. Read reviews on the Internet and do not understand - where the truth, and where the order of marketers. So we decided to put everything in its place: take a few household air cleaners and compare the purity of the air at the output of them.

Hardly anyone will argue with the fact that dirty air is harmful to health. At home, air can be even dirtier than on the street. Accumulated over the years of pollen plants, wool, dust, evaporation of household chemicals, in addition, the scales of the skin of our pets and even the allocation of furniture, various bacteria, fungi - all this is added to the incoming street air.

The air cleaner must clean the air. Should, but does it lead? Let's see how the models of different brands deal with this and try to determine the best air purifier.

What air purifiers we compared

We chose the most popular, technological and expensive air purifiers, wanting to know which air purifier best cleans the air. In total, 8 top air cleaners of well-known brands participated in the research: Daikin, BORK, IQAir, Ballu, Tefal, Xiaomi, Philips and Panasonic.

How did we find out the efficiency of the air purifiers

It is possible to evaluate the efficiency of air purification by measuring the number of particles in the air that enters the device and checking what the result is "at the output". All measurements were made in the same room by means of a laser professional fine particle counter that is able to fix the number of suspended particles having a size of 0.3 μm.

The room is not small, so you can not be afraid that the difference between the initial measurements and the operation of the tested devices will affect the result.

No sooner said than done: the initial indicator of the level of air pollution in our office is about 2 million fine particles, the size of which is 0.3 μm, per 1 cubic meter. Foot, or more than 70 million in one cubic meter (1 m3 = 35,314666721489 cubic feet). The value was fixed by a laser analyzer of suspended particles in the air - the game is honest.

It is important that the measurement of the purity of the air flow from the air purifiers was carried out with each model running at maximum speed - the probability of a so-called leakage through contamination filters is greater. The analyzer was brought to the distribution grid of purified air.

What is the result

Then it was only necessary to compare the values of the finely divided particles at the outlet from different air cleaners, which was fixed by the particle counter. And here's what happened:

• DaikinUruru MCK75JVM K - 55 000 fine particles in one cube. Feet (almost 2 million per cubic meter).
• BORK A803 AirEngine - about 44,700 particles having a size of 0.3 μm, in 1 cubic meter. Feet of air (about 1.5 million cubic meters).
• IQAir HealthPro 250 - 0 particles with a size of 0.3 μm per cubic foot.
• Ballu AP-155 - 24 000 particles in one cubic foot (this means - about 805 000 in cubic meter).
• TefalIntensePureAirPU4025 - about 18,000 per cubic foot (if you talk about a cubic meter - about 630,000 ).
• XiaomiMiAirPurifier 2 - about 15 000 particles of a size from 0.3 microns in one cube. Feet of air - and this is in the cubic meter of 518,000 particles.
• Philips AC3256 / 10 - approximately 12,000 particles in one cube. Feet, which means about 420,000 particles in 1 cubic meter.
• Panasonic F-VXH70 - 8700 particles per one cube. Foot (or 304,500 in cubic meters).

All air cleaners have made the air cleaner - coped, but IQAir - the only thing able to completely remove from the air health-hazardous fine dust completely

Why do air purifiers have coped in different ways

It's all about the filters. On the one hand, their set in all air cleaners, except for Daikin, looks the same: preliminary, high-efficiency HEPA and coal.

And what about Daikin? He has many different filters. Corrugated, which works in conjunction with a plasma ionizer (in this case, a positive charge is added to the contaminants, and the filter attracts them), a catechin filter with a titanium-containing mineral, which helps to destroy odors, viruses and bacteria, as well as photocatalytic.

There is also a source of streamer charge, which generates so-called fast electrons - they must neutralize formaldehyde molecules, as well as other harmful chemicals.

But, as you can see, this "not frail" set, although it ensured a reduction in air pollution, did not allow Daikin to break out into the leaders. The most important disadvantage of Daikin is the lack of a HEPA filter, which provides highly efficient mechanical air purification. In our opinion, this is one of the main reasons for the insufficient air cleaning effect shown by the device.

Mechanical air purification by HEPA filters is a prerequisite for the best result

In other air purifiers (BORK, Ballu, Tefal, Xiaomi, Philips and Panasonic), there is mechanical cleaning of air from contaminants, including using HEPA filters. But they could not achieve an ideal result, although Panasonic, for example, made the air really cleaner - a good result. And yet - 0 the particle counter has not shown. Why?

First, the design of the devices is often such that a small part of the air, getting inside, passes by the filters. Simply not cleaned and at the outlet it mixes with purified air - the counter shows pollution.

Secondly, most household air cleaners have thin and small filters, have a small working area, and this has a negative effect on both efficiency and life: to clean them qualitatively, they often have to be changed.

About ionization and humidification

Many manufacturers supply air purifiers with various additional functions and options. For example, an ionizer, a humidifier is built in (these regimes have some comparison participants, for example, Daikin, Panasonic). But is this so useful for the main function - air purification?

Ionization. During the operation of the ionizer, air is saturated with charged particles (ions), they "catch" dust, which then quickly settles on the floor, walls and other surfaces.

But the fact of the matter is that she does not go anywhere from the room, but settles, except for furniture and walls, also, for example, in the lungs. And by the way, it's worth just passing alongside the dusty surface (not to mention hurting) - and the fine dust is back in the air, we breathe it again.

The benefits of air ionization are not obvious: the dust from the room does not disappear anywhere and can further damage your health

Humidification of air. Actually, this is a good thing. In our climate in rooms, air is often over-dried. But for effective hydration it is better to buy a separate device - a humidifier.

And not only because "additional" humidifiers often have a small capacity and box for water of small volume. This is so bad.

The main thing is that due to the constant humidity inside the device, the cleaning properties of the main air cleaner filters can decrease. The same HEPA filters, for example, water can absorb.

Combine in one device a cleaner and air humidifier - it is undesirable. The moisture poorly affects the efficiency of some air filters

The winner is

Is the best air purifier? Our comparison showed that among the popular air purifiers of well-known brands sold in Russia, only IQAir (a little-known brand in Russia but a recognized world leader in air purification), in particular the HealthPro 250 model, completely eliminates air from the most dangerous for human fine dust and other Contamination of 0.3 μm in size (purification efficiency is more than 99.97%).

PS By the way, we measured the efficiency of cleaning from particles, the size of which is from 0.3 microns. According to the manufacturer, IQAir air purifiers detain particles 100 times smaller - from 0.003 microns, with an efficiency of more than 99.5%.

The material uses information from reviews and tests conducted by the Hi-Tech Mail.Ru project.

Https://hi-tech.mail.ru/review/iqair-healthpro-250-air_cleaner/

Https://hi-tech.mail.ru/review/air-cleaners-test2/