Air purifier: how it works, what it is, and why it is important to have it

Is the indoor air safer than the outdoor one?

We have always been used to associating our homes as personal spaces of well-being and relaxation, where we can express ourselves freely and feel safe in a comfortable environment.

This is obviously true! The importance that each of us gives to our home is vital because it allows each of us to have a satisfying and joyful life thanks to a place that transmits serenity and joy.

We take care of the furniture, the food we cook in it, the water with which to wash and hydrate ourselves: these are all fundamental aspects for living well. Unfortunately, however, we often forget about one of the most important factors and that is the action we perform most often during the day: breathing!

It is estimated that every day the human being on average takes 20,000 breaths, and that at least 80% of these take place inside closed spaces, especially in our homes. If we also consider the particular period in which we are living, we immediately understand how much time we breathe inside our house, since due to reasons of force majeure we are forced to spend more time inside it.

Are we sure that the air we breathe inside our homes is healthy and beneficial?

Unfortunately, the truth is: NO! Very often the air we breathe in our indoor spaces is more polluted than the outdoor one. And it can be up to 5 times more polluted than the outside one.

Is it dangerous to have polluted indoor air?

The causes of the pollution of our homes are many and very often concern both our daily actions and our wrong behaviors that we adopt during the day, very often without even realizing it.

From cooking to cleaning with chemical detergents, from smoking to not airing our homes, there are different behaviors that strongly impact on the quality of our indoor air.

These behaviors lead to the onset of various pollutants such as viruses, bacteria, molds, cooking fumes, dust, fine dust and much more.

Since this is an invisible and often not perceptible problem, each person can often ignore the quality of their indoor air with consequences that can last in the long term and generate various problems for our health. In fact, it is scientifically proven that there is a rather strong correlation between the state of our indoor air and our health. If the healthiness of the air in the house is low, we can run into a number of problems such as:

• Stuffed nose
• Sore throat
• Dry and red skin
• Lethargy
• Short and labored breathing
• Rash

If we think about it, these are problems that all of us have had and very often we have not been able to understand the root cause, and more than we think indoor air pollution greatly affects the occurrence of these unpleasant situations. In severe cases, what is called "Sick Building Syndrome" can also occur, do you know it?

A person may mistakenly think that opening the window is enough to ventilate the house. This is partly true: but the reality is that it is not enough!

Opening the window once a day, for example, can certainly help to increase the air quality of your home, but it is not enough to eliminate most of the pollutants that are present in our interior spaces.

Even if we live in a very busy city, opening the window could even worsen the situation, leading us to breathe air in a chronic way, without even realizing it.

How does an air purifier work?

Having analyzed the problem of indoor air pollution, a person rightly asks: ok, but how do air purifiers work? Among the many types on the market, which air purifier should I choose?

There are different solutions on the market and each has its own characteristics. They differ in price, filter, size, purifying capacity and their effectiveness on certain categories of pollutants.

The most famous and effective alternatives are HEPA purifiers and PCO purifiers.

These two technologies are often mistakenly compared even if they involve extremely different air purification techniques. In fact, HEPA filters limit themselves to blocking pollutants through filters made up of very tight meshes; while the PCO technology acts in a totally different way.