What to look for while choosing an air purifier
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Over the past few days, several regions in northern India, including Delhi NCR, have been in the news for all the wrong reasons: rapidly worsening air quality that has the area on the brink of a public health crisis. The toxic air has prompted authorities to introduce restrictions on vehicle movement and construction activities, and order schools to conduct classes online.
Every day, we take in about 2kg food and 4kg water—but we inhale about 13.9 kg of air. Just as we take good care about food and water hygiene, we must acknowledge and address the latter as well. Staying indoors is not a perfect solution either.
In fact, in cold weather, when there’s a significant rise in air pollution outside, we tend to seal our houses more—this leads to household pollutants and allergens not finding a way to escape. Potentially harmful particles and gases can be found throughout any household, including pollen and allergens, bacteria and mould spores, as well as household fumes from cooking (frying and roasting in particular) and cleaning (a lot of cleaning products emit volatile organic compounds, or VOCs). The air we breathe has pollutants called Particulate Matter (PM), measured in microns.
A human hair measures around 100 microns. Allergens like pollen are under 10 microns in diameter and hence known as PM10 pollutants. Cooking gases and other pollutants are PM2.5 or less.
PM0.1 particles, known as ultra-fine particles, tend to penetrate the air sacs in our lungs and cause short- or long-term adverse health effects. Air purifiers remove harmful particles and pollutants and circulate cleaner air. A good air purifier can capture particles as small as 0.1 microns to ensure optimal air quality.
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