In this post, I will answer a common question about air ionizers: do they really work? The answer is yes; air ionizers work well, but only if they have a high negative ion emission, measured in cm3/second. Air ionizers are a type of air purifier, but not all air purifiers are ionizers. To fully understand the effectiveness of air ionizers, it’s important to understand how they work and the different types available.
This post will focus solely on answering the question about their effectiveness and will not cover other aspects of air ionizers, such as their negatives and positives or the differences between ionizers and purifiers.
How do air ionizers work?
Although I won’t delve too deeply into this topic, it’s important to have a basic understanding of how air ionizers function. In order to determine whether they are effective or not, you must first comprehend the fundamental principle behind their operation. The following image outlines the four basic stages of the process.
The process by which air ionizers work is illustrated in the picture. Negative ions are released into the air by the air ionizer, and they need to attach themselves to positive particles as they are not stable alone. Pollutants in the air are positively charged, so negative ions attach themselves to these pollutants. As the combined mass becomes heavy, gravity pulls it down to the ground, where it cannot rise back up into the air. This is beneficial for our health, as we cannot inhale these particles into our lungs.
Negative ions and air pollutants
Pollutants of various sizes are present in the air, as you are aware. I’ve included the most common ones and their sizes in the table below. These pollutants are measured in microns. To give you a sense of scale, human hair has a diameter of about 75 microns.
As the graph shows, these particles can get quite small! The wonderful thing about negative ions is that they are unconcerned about particle size. This means that they can attach themselves to particles as small as 0.001 microns. In comparison, the vast majority of HEPA filters can only handle particles with diameters of 0.3 microns or larger.
This means that the smallest particles (such as bacteria and viruses) are not effectively captured by these filters. I chose HEPA filters for this comparison because they are the industry standard and, by far, the most popular type of air purifier that people buy.
In theory, air ionizers are more effective at cleaning than HEPA filters because they remove even smaller pollutants. But if air ionizers truly work, why are there so many negative reactions to them? Why are so many negative ion generators rated poorly? That is an excellent question. Let’s take a look at the next missing puzzle piece.
Different types of air ionizers
This is an important step toward answering the main question, “Do air ionizers really work?” There are two types of air ionizers: standalone air ionizers and air purifiers with a negative ion generator.
Both of these are negative ion generators, but there is one significant difference. Regular air ionizers are devices that only use negative ions to clean the air. On the other hand, there are air purifiers with a negative generator that only use negative ions as a secondary cleaning option. The latter are typically devices that use HEPA filters as their primary cleaning method and a negative ion generator as an added filtering system. While both are technically air ionizers, one is a stand-alone unit and the other is an add-on.
Air ionizer type and effectiveness
On paper, there should be no significant difference. This, however, is incorrect. The emission of negative ions is by far the most important factor in air ionizer effectiveness. This is simply a fancy way of saying how many negative ions the air ionizer can generate. This is measured in seconds per cm3. What’s the big deal about this? Well, there are a lot of harmful particles in the air. Every harmful particle or pollutant requires at least one negative ion to attach to it. You will only purify a small amount of air if the negative ion generator produces a small number of negative ions. As a result, you will not see any significant results.
This returns us to the previous paragraph. Only a standard, stand-alone ionizer can generate enough negative ions to be effective. On the other hand, the vast majority of ionic air purifiers do not emit enough negative ions to produce effective results. In my experience, the bare minimum negative ion emission rate per cm3 should be at least 7-8 million negative ions per second.
Do air ionizers really work? – Putting it all together
We are finally ready to compile all of the information listed above. To summarize, negative ion generators emit a large amount of negative ions into the air. These negative ions then attach to and remove even the smallest air pollutants from the air. Despite their ability to remove even the smallest air pollutants, air ionizers must generate a sufficient amount of negative ions to be effective. As a result, the larger the room, the more negative ions an air ionizer must emit. I recommend at least 6–8 million negative ions per second per cm3 for a smaller room.
There are also an increasing number of published scientific studies that support air ionizers’ superior cleaning capabilities. Many popular older articles made the opposite claim, claiming that air ionizers don’t do much to clean the air. However, as technology advanced, so did the capabilities of negative ion generators. Negative ions now emit far more negative ions than their predecessors did 10 or even 5 years ago.
Because there are so many “bad” air ionizers on the market these days, I’ve put together a list of my top five best air ionizers to buy in 2020. If you’re looking for a new air ionizer, take a look at this one.
We hope you found our post interesting and learned something new today!
