I got an ozone producing air purifier to fight cigarette smoke. After a bit more research (see below), I’m taking it back. I’m going to go with plants instead. They work and produce real oxygen. I picked up my first Dracaena tonight.Is breathing ozone air from air purifiers good or bad for your health? Well, that depends on who you’re listening to. If you listen to the ozone air purifier salesman, he’ll claim that breathing ozone air from air purifiers is “good” and safe. However, if you listen to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Consumer Reports, the answer is definitely “bad!” As far as the experts are concerned, breathing ozone air from air purifiers is harmful to human health. Ozone is an irritant and breathing it in can worsen asthma and cause coughing, wheezing and chest pains. It also deadens your sense of smell, raises your sensitivity to pollen and mold and may even be responsible for permanent lung damage. In fact, Consumer Reports, the EPA, Canada and some U.S. states have issued warnings against ozone from air purifiers.

For example, California warns, “People should avoid using indoor air cleaning devices that produce ozone.” Ozone is a highly effective killer that oxidizes whatever it comes into contact with. air purifier tesco directSure, ozone kills bacteria and mold, but it’s also the same molecule responsible for the free radicals that can cause heart disease, cancer and premature aging.quiet air purifier singapore Now, I’m not saying that breathing ozone air from air purifiers will kill you, but ozone is definitely not something you want to voluntarily breathe into your lungs. honeywell® hepa tower air purifierThere’s just too much evidence against it. However, ozone generator marketers say their machines are approved by the government.

That’s simply not true. Air purifiers fall into a bureaucratic crack where there are no regulations. According to the EPA, a registration number on the packaging “does NOT imply EPA endorsement or suggest in any way that the EPA has found the product to be either safe or effective.” Another sales pitch is that you can keep an ozone air purifier on low and only turn it up until you smell a “fresh laundry odor.” But as you breathe it in, you quickly become desensitized to the ozone smell. And keeping the setting on low, doesn’t eliminate the problem, it only makes the air from an ozone air purifier a little less dangerous. How do these marketers get away with making such outrageous claims? Since ozone generators have no regulation, salespeople can say anything and everything they want, in order to sell their product. There’s no one to stop them. As you can see, you should be concerned about breathing ozone air from air purifiers. There are other safer more effective choices available.

When you consider all the options, a HEPA (high efficiency particulate air) purifier with an additional activated charcoal filter is your best option. The HEPA system combined with a charcoal filter works like a sponge soaking up offensive cooking, tobacco and pet odors, as well as being 99.9% effective at eliminating airborne allergens down to 0.3 microns in size. There are over 600 microns in the period at the end of this sentence. A HEPA system with a charcoal filter provides the best benefits, with no risk of breathing ozone air from air purifiers. First, a review of scientific research shows that, for many of the chemicals commonly found in indoor environments, the reaction process with ozone may take months or years (Boeniger, 1995). For all practical purposes, ozone does not react at all with such chemicals. And contrary to specific claims by some vendors, ozone generators are not effective in removing carbon monoxide (Salls, 1927; Shaughnessy et al., 1994) or formaldehyde (Esswein and Boeniger, 1994).

Second, for many of the chemicals with which ozone does readily react, the reaction can form a variety of harmful or irritating by-products (Weschler et al., 1992a, 1992b, 1996; Zhang and Lioy, 1994). For example, in a laboratory experiment that mixed ozone with chemicals from new carpet, ozone reduced many of these chemicals, including those which can produce new carpet odor. However, in the process, the reaction produced a variety of aldehydes, and the total concentration of organic chemicals in the air increased rather than decreased after the introduction of ozone (Weschler, et. al., 1992b). In addition to aldehydes, ozone may also increase indoor concentrations of formic acid (Zhang and Lioy, 1994), both of which can irritate the lungs if produced in sufficient amounts. Some of the potential by-products produced by ozone’s reactions with other chemicals are themselves very reactive and capable of producing irritating and corrosive by-products (Weschler and Shields, 1996, 1997a, 1997b).

Due to untruthful marketing and a cheap price tag, the ionic air cleaner became enormously popular during the 1990s and the early part of the new millennium. Thanks to a couple of high-profile lawsuits that exposed the truth about ionic air cleaners, people stopped buying them. As it turns out, the ionic air cleaner actually pollutes the air. In 2002, Consumer Reports tested the Sharper Image Ionic Breeze Quadra air cleaner alongside several other air purifiers. Sharper Image was unhappy with the published results, so they suedConsumer Reports. Consumer Reports won the case because their test methods were deemed scientifically valid. In 2004, Consumer Reports told the world that the Ionic Breeze could be dangerous to consumers' health because it emits ozone, a lung irritant that can damage the respiratory system. Sales of the ionic air cleaner plummeted. Sharper Image changed the design of the ionic air cleaner to include an "OzoneGuard" grill attachment, but it was too late.

Most consumers were already aware of the great air cleaner scam, and Consumer Reports found that the OzoneGuard didn't work very well, either. The add-on component captured only about 75% of ozone emitted by the unit. In 2007, Sharper Image settled a huge lawsuit by paying out $60 million in consumer merchandise credits. The class-action lawsuit alleged that the specialty retailer misled customers about the effectiveness of its ionic air cleaner. Other ionic air cleaners that emit ozone include Ecoquest and Oreck air cleaners. As a rule of thumb, if a manufacturer describes their product as an "ionic" air cleaner, the air cleaner most likely emits ozone. People with asthma should avoid ozone as it can trigger an asthma attack and respiratory damage. Unfortunately, many people with asthma have fallen for the ionic air cleaner claims since they are especially concerned about indoor air quality. Most doctors and allergists recommend HEPA air purifiers for allergy and asthma sufferers.