How do ozone air purifiers work and what they do?

Ozone Air Purifiers

Some manufacturers of ozone air purifiers promote their products as an effective solution for people who are sensitive to indoor air pollutants.

Ozone purifiers are also used by professional cleaning services and disaster restoration companies to destroy mold, mildew, fungi or smoke from fire damage.

What is ozone?

Ozone is generated naturally in the upper atmosphere by solar ultraviolet radiation. This is what protects us from damaging ultraviolet radiation from the sun.

Other ways it is naturally produced is by lightening through oxygen and the interaction of sunlight with certain chemicals, such as a chemical emissions from manufacturing plants or automobile exhaust in our atmosphere.

This is found to be harmful to our respiratory system.

Ozone is a powerful oxidizer with the ability to destroy odor, mold, mildew and algae, however to effectively remove some contaminents, the ozone concentrations would exceed public standards.

THe Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) has set a limit of .04 ppm for occupied areas.

Ozone levels of .02 - .05 occur in the outdoor air after a lightening storm. The use of ozone air purifiers is not looked upon favorably because of the inability of most systems to limit the recommended standards.

Even though some units have an adjustment knob to control ozone concentrations, this type of control has not yet been proven to be reliable.

The EPA and the American Lung Association DO NOT recommend the use of ozone air purifiers.

Some ozone purifiers that are designed to offer relief from respiratory problems can actually irritate a person's lungs.

Even though ozone air purifiers can nuetralize odors and some microorganizms with ozone concentrations below the .04 ppm standard they do not remove particles from the air that some people are allergic to.

Based on the above information, the best air purifiers chosen by air purifier reviews are those that use technologies that keep the ozone standards well below the recommended ozone limit, while still purifying the air.

Our recommendation is not ozone air purifiers, but a technology known as advanced oxidation Photohydroionization systems that will give you a safe, effective and reliable solution to good indoor air quality.

Expert Air Purifier Reviews Home Page