posted February 17, 2012 04:34 AM
Very interesting article.. on AIR OZONE GENERATORS....Why Ionizers Don't Work
One consumer guide states that:
"Ionics do little to clean the air.
They do a poor job of removing smoke, dust,
and pollen particles from the air
If you own one, try returning it for a refund!"
What's the difference between an ionizer
and an ozone generator?
What's wrong with ion generators?
Are your ozone generators ion producers as well?
What is the difference between air cleaning and air purifying?
Why do ionizers produce that fresh clean smell,
and isn't that enough?
Will an ionizer help with mold problems and odors?
Why are ionizers so popular?
What is the ionizer Black Wall Effect?
Isn't ozone smog?
Can UV light kill mold?
What's the difference between an ionizer
and an ozone generator?
Ozone Generators and Ion Generators are similar devices. They both put out ozone and ions.
Ion generators have become popular for cleaning air and attempting to remove odors.
For purifying air and removing odors as well as killing viruses, and mold ozone generators are many more times as effective.
Ion Generators simply negatively charge the air's ions so that floating dust particles will cling to a surface in the room, much in the way static electricity does.
Larger particles of dust floating in the room will stick to the wall, floor, and furnishings of any room they are in. Ion Generators also put out a very small amount of ozone as a by product of ion generation, but it is not enough to be helpful.
Ion Generators can partially clean the air, but not purify it.
Ozone Generators are just that, they generate the gas ozone which is extremely useful for purifying the air and removing odors. Ozone is sometimes called "activated oxygen".
It contains three atoms of oxygen, O3, rather than the two atoms we normally breath.
The life cycle of ozone is: generation, oxidation, return to oxygen. Ozone is labeled as an "unstable" gas, which means soon after it is generated the third atom of oxygen wants to break away form the other two as soon as possible. It does this by oxidation. It finds a microscopic odor causing particle, and destroys it. What left is pure oxygen O2, and the remnants of the oxidation process by the third atom which is harmless hydrogen, and CO2.
Ionizers claim they are "Ozone Free" and are "safer" than ozone generators.
What that really means is that they can't kill any mold or bacteria.
Some ionizers claim to have special devices that eliminate ozone, what they mistakenly call SMOG, and turn it into oxygen.
Ozone is NOT smog, and eliminating the ozone actually PREVENTS the SMOG which are actually toxic hydrocarbons from automobiles, from being cleaned from the air.
Click Here for more information about OZONE and SMOG.
What's wrong with ionizers?
There are many problems associated with ionizers. To perform air cleaning, meaning removing larger particles of dust, you need a very large amount of ions. More than has been recognized as a safe level. According to air science, indoor air has 100 to 200 ions per cubic cm, outdoor fresh air has 200 to 500 ions per cubic cm, and a fresh clean forest will have 1,500 to 5,000 ions per cubic cm.
Ion generators typically produce more than 1,000,000 to 10,000,000 per cubic cm. This is simply too much. This large amount of ions are needed to push the particles to the walls and floor. In fact for ionization to be truly effective, ionizers must generate so many ions that they can cause headaches and sore throats.
More ionization is not better.
The fact is even with this overabundance of ionization there is only limited,
temporary air cleaning being done and zero air purifying being accomplished.
Nothing is being killed by the ions. Nothing is being purified.
In other words ionizers are simply pushing around
the floating dirt to the surfaces in your room!
The problem with this is that the same dust can be kicked right back into the air. The dirt that does not begin to float again will stick to whatever surface is close. After a few months walls, floors, appliances, and furniture begin to build up a layer of dirt on them. If you put an ionizer on a table near a wall, the wall will develop a black halo of dirt in just a couple of days.
Some ionizers claim to have plates that collect the dirt.
In truth they can only collect less than 5% of the dirt. The other 95% of the dust, bacteria, and mold spores end up on your walls, floors, and belongings.
How is an ion that is shot across a room, attaching itself to a dust particle, supposed to travel all the way back to a dust collection plate on an ionizer from 10-20 feet away?
The answer is it cannot be done. In fact if the ion does travel across the room, the particle it attaches itself to will adhere to the closest possible positively charged surface, that being your walls, floor, ceiling or anything else it is close to. This is not rocket science, it is simple physics.
Even ionizers that draw air through them and collect dust as it is passing by are not efficient for capturing dust. They are still emitting ions far into the air in front of the machine.
These ions then attach themselves to dust particles. If the ion flow or the airflow of the ionizer is strong the dust will never be able to find it's way back to the ionizers collection plate.
The dust will then, of course, attach itself to ANY positively charged surface in your home.
If the ionizer is weak it will do hardly any good at all at capturing dust particles. If it has a strong ionic or airflow then the ions will break away from the machine and cause the dust to be collected on the surfaces of your home.
Either way an ionizer will not eliminate dust.
Many ionizer ad's claim that the ions will eliminate dust. What does that mean?
Where does the dust go? It HAS to go somewhere!
This nonsense that ions will simply "drop the dust out of the air" to be vacuumed up at a later date is simply not true. Simple physics state that the dust MUST adhere to the closest positively charged surface, most likely your walls and furniture.
ALL ionizers will cause the dreaded "black wall effect" where they will turn your walls black with dust. Air-Zone Ozone Generators will not cause your walls to turn black like common ionizers will because our machines only produce very small amounts of ionization.
Six months after you start using an ionizer you will have MORE bacteria collected in your home than before you started!
The use of ionization only makes a dust problem WORSE!
Realize that all so called "air cleaning" ionizers do is limited to pushing around lightweight particles of dust. They cannot effectively kill odors, nor can they remove large particles such as pet dander.
For removing larger particles of dust and dander a HEPA filter is much more effective than an ionizer.
HEPA filters collect the dust and dander rather than just pushing around the room as an ionizer does, so that it does not start floating around again.
The idea is to remove the dust from your home, not simply move it from here to there.
Air-Zone sells quality, hospital grade Austin Air HEPA filters that are more cost effective than store bought brands. Please CLICK HERE to view them.
If dust and odors are present, a combination of an ozone generator and a HEPA filter is the best method of dealing with the problem.
A room that has had a previous High Ozone Shock Treatment will smell much fresher than a room with an ionizer currently running.
For removing odors only OZONE works the best by killing the offending organisms. Our ozone generators also produce negative ions of about 10,000 to 30,000 per cubic cm which is more than enough to gain the positive benefits of negative ionization.
Are your ozone generators ion producers as well?
Yes, all of our ozone generators produce negative ions, but not as much as compared to a
standard ionizer. Most ionizer products output more than 1,000,000 to 10,000,000 per cubic
cm. This is way too much. More is not always better.
Too much ionization can cause headaches and sore throats.
Too much ionization electronically glues bacteria, mold spores, and particulate matter to your walls, floor and ceiling.
According to science, outdoor fresh air has 200 to 500 ions per cubic cm, indoor air has
100 to 200 per cubic cm and the forest will have 1,500 to 5,000 ions per cubic cm.
Our ozone generators produce negative ions of about 10,000 to 30,000 per cubic cm. Therefore, the amount of negative ions output from our series of products is good enough for giving indoor air that fresh clean smell, and yet not too much as to be irritating.
What is the difference between air cleaning and air purifying?
Air cleaning means that particles of dust and other dirt are being filtered out of the air, and are hopefully being collected into a specific filter.
Air Purifying means that dangerous mold spores, bacteria, and viruses are actually being killed.
Even a high grade HEPA filter can store, and pass micro bacteria through it.
Air Purifying is the only way to ensure a safe environment. Air Purifying can only be done by the use of ozone. Ion generators simply move particles to other places. That's NOT air cleaning because the dust remains in the same room.
Why do ionizers produce that fresh clean smell,
and isn't that enough?
No, a fresh smell is no substitute for air purifying.
Ionizers also produce a very small amount of ozone which can contribute to a fresh spring like smell. The electrically charged air produced from an ionizer can smell very fresh.
The problem is that it is only a temporary fix. As soon as the ionizer is turned off the effect is essentially over. With an ozone generator odors can literally be killed so that when it is turned off the odors are vanished not simply being "covered up".
Ozone Generators can also be used to give high ozone "shock treatments" to unoccupied areas. These high ozone treatments are very effective in killing odor producing organisms.
Once the organisms are killed by a high ozone shock treatment, or a series of shock treatments, the odor will be removed, not just covered up by the temporary effects of ionization.
A room that has had a high ozone shock treatment for a few hours the night before
will smell much fresher than a room with an ionizer constantly running!
Even with a very high ion level of 10,000,000 per cubic cm, odors can only be covered up. Therefore a high concentration ion treatment will have little or no effect in permanently removing odors. Those high ion levels can also cause headaches and sore throats. So way before ionization can have any real effect it becomes obnoxious.
Only OZONE can truly purify the air, remove odors, and kill many types of bacteria.
Will an ionizer help with mold problems and odors?
Absolutely not! Ionizers don't kill any organisms, therefore they will have no effect on mold or mold odors. If you smell mold in your home, you have mold. Mold Medical studies have found that mold & mildeware the #1 causes of allergic symptoms.
The Black Mold Stachybotrys found in homes, offices, and schools has been linked to fatal pulmonary disorders.
Why are ionizers so popular?
The answer is two fold;
At first, when a person first smells the odor coming out of an ionizer, they are very impressed by the fresh spring like smell of the air coming out of it. That fresh smell is what sells the product.
Unfortunately that fresh smell is only temporary, since it lasts only until the ionizer is turned off.
Ions have no ability to kill any organisms, and therefore no odors.
On the other hand, ozone kills the bacteria and mold, so it removes the odor, it doesn't just cover it up.
Secondly, ionizers are very popular because they are very cheap to build, and sell for high dollar amounts.
The leading manufacturer of ionizers sell their product on TV (you know the ones we mean).
They sell them for $350.00 or more, yet this product costs them about $35.00 to produce.
We know the cost to build these products because we are equipment manufacturers ourselves.
Manufacturers make huge profits on ionizers, sometimes over 1000%, so they have no interest in ceasing to sell them. They are an easy "sell" because of the fresh smell to the unknowing consumer.
If we wanted to sell ionizers for outrageous profits we could. They are not expensive to build.
We choose not to sell ionizers because we know not only do they not work, they make bacterial problems worse. They do so by electronically gluing bacteria, mold spores, and dust to your walls, floor, and ceiling.
Ozone actually kills bacteria, mold spores, and viruses, by destroying them, and leaving only harmless oxygen remaining.
By testing mold spore counts before and after ozonation, by the use of a mold testing kit, we can prove ozone can kill mold and bacteria.
Ionization subjected to the same tests, no matter how powerful, has any effect on the mold whatsoever.
What is the Ionizer Black Wall Effect?
All ionizers cause the dreaded "black wall effect" where they will turn your walls black with dust.
Some ionizer manufacturers claim that their ionizers will not cause the ionizer black wall effect.
This is simply not true. If a machine is a true ionizer then the dust particles the ions come in contact to must, by the laws of physics, adhere to the nearest positively charged surface.
That is usually your walls floor and ceiling.
Some say the dust merely drops to the floor to be vacuumed up later. Once again that is what they would like you to believe, but is simply not true. Besides the dust would still be in your home and not "removed" as most ionizer manufacturers claim.
Air-Zone Ozone Generators will not cause your walls to turn black like common ionizers will because our machines only produce very small amounts of ionization.
Isn't Ozone SMOG?
Ozone is sometimes misunderstood. Ozone is O3, three atoms of oxygen linked together, rather than the two atoms of oxygen, O2, we normally breath. True O3 Ozone is made up entirely of oxygen. Ozone is NOT smog. Ozone is a compound that naturally occurs in nature.
Ozone is Not Smog!
While ozone is sometimes mistakenly referred to as smog, SMOG is actually a combination of hydrocarbons, among them being CO² CO, and SO².
These hydrocarbons are most commonly created by the exhaust that comes from automobiles.
Ozone pushes these hydrocarbons back to the surface of the earth in order to use it's natural purification abilities to break them apart on a molecular level.
What is commonly called "ozone" in referring to the ground level air quality are really a mixture of these various toxic hydrocarbons, NOT O3 ozone.
We know that Ozone is a colorless gas, when we look at SMOG we can see that it is certainly not colorless.
In fact without Ozone we the Earth could not clean itself of the true SMOG which is the hydrocarbons.
Ozone has the beneficial role in smog reduction which is its ability to break down and oxidize hydrocarbons and particulates in the air.
When it is said the ozone level is high and there is more SMOG it really means that while it is higher than normal at surface levels the real danger is not the O3 ozone, it is the hydrocarbons the heavier than air ozone is trying to clean.
When excessive amounts of man-made hydrocarbons are produced, there will be higher concentrations of ozone as a natural reaction to an unnatural situation.
While very high levels of ozone are not good to breathe, the levels we find in the outside air fall within acceptable breathing limits.
Many attack ozone because it is a threat to the many ineffective but high profit air purification products being sold today such as ionizers.
Ionizers produce high profits for the sellers, sometimes well over 1000%, but they do not produce clean environments. Ionization can't kill mold or bacteria, and it can't break apart hydrocarbons.
Some ionizers claim to turn pollution into oxygen. REAL pollution such as hyrdocarbons can't be turned into oxygen. Dust or pollen can't be turned into oxygen. Ozone can be turned into oxygen, but ozone is NOT pollution.
Some ionizers now say they have a device on them that converts SMOG into oxygen.
They are under mistaken assumption that ozone is the SMOG.
What it REALLY does is convert natural ozone into oxygen, thereby PREVENTING the natural ozone to clean the real SMOG which are the toxic hydrocarbons.
In the future ozone will replace many ineffective forms of air purification, including ionization, once the public becomes educated to the real benefits of ozone.
Read more about ozone and smog at Ed McCabe's website:
Mr.Oxygen http://www.oxygenhealth.com/notsmog.html
Can UV light kill mold?
This is a quote from General Electric concerning their germicidal UV lamps.
"No. Once mold has already formed, ultraviolet energy will not eliminate it."
It is a proven fact that ozone KILLS mold.
Click Here for scientific proof.
Only a true high powered ozone generator can kill mold
with high ozone shock treatments.
Whole House In Duct Ozone Air Purifier
If you are looking for a WHOLE HOUSE air purifier realize that there is
NO tabletop unit, of ANY BRAND that can accomplish this task.
Table top air purifiers rated for 3000 square feet make no sense
since they cannot purify air through walls.
ONLY a unit that fires ozone into the air ducts,
like the Air-Zone® Air-Duct 2000 can evenly distribute ozone throughout the ENTIRE home.
Ozone or ions cannot pass through walls.
http://www.air-zone.com/ionsvsozone.html
Lindaland
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posted February 17, 2012 04:11 AM
