{"id":7490,"date":"2024-05-23T18:02:52","date_gmt":"2024-05-23T10:02:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/smartairfilters.com\/?p=7490"},"modified":"2024-05-23T18:02:54","modified_gmt":"2024-05-23T10:02:54","slug":"do-air-purifiers-remove-pm2-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/smartairfilters.com\/en\/blog\/do-air-purifiers-remove-pm2-5\/","title":{"rendered":"Do HEPA Air Purifiers Remove PM2.5?"},"content":{"rendered":"

When I was coughing through Beijing’s airpocalypse and thinking about buying an air purifier, I wanted to know something first–do air purifiers really remove PM2.5?<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Beijing<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

I wondered because I saw lots of air purifier tests on pollen, but pollen is generally 10 microns or larger, whereas I was really concerned about the stuff below 2.5 microns.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The meaning of PM2.5 in Air Purifier<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

PM2.5 refers to fine inhalable particles with dimensions of 2.5 micrometers or smaller. PM2.5<\/sub> is more dangerous because it can get into the deep parts of your lungs \u2014 or even into your blood.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"particle<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Do Air Purifiers Remove PM2.5?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I went out and bought a laser particle counter. This one tests down to particles 0.5 microns and above.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"laser<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Then I set up a simple DIY purifier in my bedroom in Beijing like this:<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"DIY<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

And here\u2019s what happened to the 0.5-micron particles in my room after I turned it on:<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"the<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

I\u2019ve found similar results with three other major purifiers I\u2019ve tested. On average, they removed over 80\u201390% of 0.5-micron particles from my room air in overnight tests<\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"purifiers<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

What About Even Smaller Particles?<\/b><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

For the longest time, I thought the effect stopped there. When I read about HEPA filters (the filters in these machines), they always said they capture particles 0.3 microns and above. So I figured they just don\u2019t get smaller particles.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"HEPA<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Well, it turns out I was flat wrong. It\u2019s actually <\/span>easier <\/b>for HEPA filters to capture particles smaller than 0.3 microns (thanks to <\/span>Brownian Motion<\/a><\/span>). As just one example, <\/span>here\u2019s a test from a dedicated nerd<\/a><\/span> (like me) who has a particle counter that measures down to 0.01 microns. He tested seven major purifiers for 10 minutes.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"testing<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

The different purifiers he tested removed about as much of these ultra-fine particles (light blue) as larger particles (dark blue).<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"different<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n

Bottom Line<\/div>
Bottom Line <\/div>
<\/p>\n

HEPA purifiers remove PM2.5\u2014even the smallest particles of PM2.5. <\/div>

Smart Air<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

So breathe easy!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

P.S. <\/b>Big purifier companies often use this misconception about HEPA filters to sell you their own \u201cproprietary\u201d filters, like in the popular Molekule purifier<\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Molekule<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Now that you\u2019ve seen the data, you won\u2019t fall for this trick!<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"HEPA<\/figure><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I was coughing through Beijing’s airpocalypse and thinking about buying an air purifier, I wanted to know something first–do air purifiers really remove PM2.5? I wondered because I saw lots of air purifier tests on pollen, but pollen is generally 10 microns or larger, whereas I was really concerned … <\/p>\n

Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1035,"featured_media":30967,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"22029,6631,20657,13492,25621,11976","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[190,259,257],"tags":[283,81,256,225,444,100,339,73,74,220],"class_list":["post-7490","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-air-purifiers","category-filters","category-pm2-5","tag-air-purifier","tag-big-brand-air-filters","tag-diy","tag-health","tag-hepa-filter","tag-particle-counter","tag-particles","tag-pm-0-5","tag-pm2-5","tag-test","resize-featured-image"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/smartairfilters.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7490","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/smartairfilters.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/smartairfilters.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smartairfilters.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1035"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smartairfilters.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7490"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/smartairfilters.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7490\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31224,"href":"https:\/\/smartairfilters.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7490\/revisions\/31224"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smartairfilters.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30967"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/smartairfilters.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smartairfilters.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smartairfilters.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}