Air Purification System – Does a Slight Difference (between 0.01% and 0.001%) in Efficiency Matter?
21 Jun 2022
High-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filters appear to be the most effective technology when removing particulate matter (PM) is the priority. In a HEPA Air Purification system, air is pulled through the HEPA filter and fine particles are physically seized. The filter works on four key mechanisms to trap the pollutants—diffusion, interception, inertial impaction and sieving. At first, the diffusion process removes the tiny particles, whereas other three mechanisms like interception, inertial impaction and sieving remove the largest particles. But not all HEPA filters work the same there is a slight difference in filtration efficiency to explain how effective the filter of which standard is.
Let’s explore how minor differences in efficiency do matter. First, we need to know about Minimum Efficiency Reporting Values (MERV) that represent the efficiency of filters.
What is a MERV rating?
Minimum Efficiency Reporting Values, or MERVs, is an efficiency rating to represent a filter & ability to trap particles between 0.3 and 10 microns (µm). (examples of the sizes to be provided) It helps us to compare the filtration capability of different filters.
The efficiency ratings are fetched from a testing technique developed by the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE). The higher the MERV rating the better the filter is at capturing fine particles. Since the differences in efficiency ratings are very diminutive, yet they play very crucial role inclusively.
What is the Standard MERV for Air Treatment?
As per WHO, an air purifier in medical establishments should meet the filtration efficiency standard of 99.97% to 99.99%. And as per ASHRAE standards, in aircraft, air filtration efficiency should be 99.97%. Generally, an ordinary air purifier in the market works on a single “storey” principle, delivering poorly filtered air with 99.90% to 99.990% efficiency, compromising on the nourishing ambience of your indoor space.
Why is There Need of So Much Efficiency?
You must be wondering, what is the need of so much efficiency, when there is only a difference of micro points in comparison with the efficiency of other air purifiers. Currently, it is well researched and found that indoor air is 4-5 times more polluted than the air outdoor. Infants & Babies, small children, old age persons, patients, pregnant women and such other human beings spend about 90% of their time indoors, apart from school/college/office going persons who might spend a little less time indoors in comparison to the earlier group.
Studies conducted by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have shown that indoor air pollution is a problem for all types of homes, whether in a dense urban city or a rural town. Indoor air pollution is the cocktail of viruses and microbes caused by dust, dirt, mold spores, dander, volatile organic compound, and kitchen fumes in the air. This gets compounded if any one or more person in the household is infected with a virus. Most viruses in the contaminated indoor air such as influenza, rhinovirus, measles etc are as small as 0.03 to 0.22 micron, while the size of the deadly corona virus varies from 0.06 to 0.14 micron.
There is every possibility that the air purifier with lower filtration efficiency may not capture the ultrafine and ultralow penetrative particles, thus defeating the whole purpose of using an air purifier. It’s, therefore, better not to buy any air purifier rather than buying and using an ordinary one. Our primary goal is that we should not compromise on the quality of air, because every breath is important.
Poor indoor air quality is one of the main source of lung diseases, if not the only one, like asthma, COPD, lung cancer, cardiovascular diseases, Alzheimer, infertility, fatigue and sleep disorder. Apart from the above, a whole range of pre-natal and post-natal infections, infections due to low immunity (induced due to chemotherapy in cancer patients or otherwise) and infections in liver and kidney transplant patients can be solely attributed to poor indoor air quality.
How Our Air Solution Performs Better Than the Air Purifiers:
PetriMed CA Air Purification System efficiently outperforms all the filtration standards by filtering 99.999% of pollutants. Unlike an ordinary air purifier, it is a fully loaded system fitted with a 3-storey filtration mechanism to create a fresh and nourished ambience. If we explain the term “storey” from the point of view of technology, the first storey is for air filtration of 99.999% to arrest particulate matter, second storey is for disinfection to kill microbes, and the third storey is for Ionisation to nourish ambient air.
Along with HEPA H14, a nano-silver layer and pre-activated carbon-zeolite filter, there is an inbuilt ioniser, a negative ion generator that creates a static charge around the airborne contaminants to drop them to the ground and balancing the ambient air, and a UV-C disinfector to kill the remaining bacteria and viruses.