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Austin Air submits their air cleaners to only the most stringent government and independent third party testing; tests designed to protect the consumer by ensuring that products work as claimed. Austin Air does not submit its products for private testing to guarantee a desired result.
Extensive tests on flow rate, flow design, removal of vapors, gases and sub-micron particles have been performed by:
- Battelle Laboratories; one of the world’s most respected testing laboratories
- the Army Corp of Engineers at the U.S. Army Aberdeen Test Center for testing
As result of these tests, Austin Air was chosen by the U.S. Government to fulfill the largest deployment of air cleaners in American history and chosen by FEMA and The Red Cross to address the serious air quality concerns in post 9/11 New York.
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The engineers at Austin Air concentrated on developing the most critical component of the air cleaner first; the filter.
Austin Air’s 360-degree intake system draws air into all sides of the air cleaner, maximizing efficiency and delivering more clean air faster.
Every minute, 250 cubic feet of air is processed by a 4-stage filter that progressively removes contaminants out of the air.
This process enables Austin Air cleaners to:
- Achieve the highest levels of performance.
- Attain superior air flow rates.
- Sustain a longer filter life (5-years under normal residential use).
- Increase the life expectantly of the Medical Grade HEPA, the most critical media in the filtration process.
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For an air cleaner to be effective it must remove sub-micron particles, noxious gases and chemicals, without creating any by-products such as ozone. In every Austin Air cleaner, you will find True Medical Grade HEPA and Activated Carbon, the only trusted filter technology used in hospitals and operating rooms.
True HEPA
Developed by the Atomic Energy Commission to specifically protect the Human Respiratory System, True HEPA is the most effective particulate filtering media on the market. True Medical Grade HEPA removes 99.97% of all particulates as small as 0.3 microns and 95% of particulates 0.1 microns and smaller.
Activated Carbon
Austin Air uses specially manufactured Activated Carbon, which is highly porous, giving the carbon a larger surface area to chemically bind and adsorb more impurities such as Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC’s) and other noxious gases. |
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Unlike electrostatic-precipitators or ionic generators, Austin Air cleaners do not emit any by-products, such as toxic ozone.
Many customers rely on their Austin Air cleaner to control very serious respiratory conditions, such as asthma. Even the smallest amount of an irritant (ozone being one of the most toxic) can have severe effects. Had those customers purchased an electrostatic precipitator or ionic generator, they would still be suffering unnecessarily.
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Austin Air produces all of its products with solid steel construction and non-toxic powder coated paint for strength, reliability and longevity.
Austin Air incorporates the only trusted air filtering technology used in hospitals and operating rooms. For a filter to be effective, gases and sub-micron particles must be removed from the air. That’s why you’ll find True Medical Grade HEPA and Activated Carbon in every Austin Air filter.
The True HEPA filter was developed by the Atomic Energy Commission specifically to protect the Human Respiratory System (nose, mouth, throat, lungs) from radioactive dust particles. Austin Air takes it a step further, incorporating True Medical Grade HEPA with 99.97% efficiency down to 0.3 microns and 95% efficiency down to 0.1 microns. True Medical Grade HEPA is the most efficient particulate filtering media on the market.
Activated Carbon is used to remove Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC’s); noxious gases and chemicals.
The result is nothing but clean air.
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The IQAir HealthPro is Now Tested and Certified for the World’s Smallest Particles!
For Immediate Release
July 1, 2003
IQAir just doesn’t meet the HEPA standard – they exceed it. The IQAir HealthPro is the world’s first air cleaner to pass the world’s most stringent HEPA filter test: EN 1822. This test certifies a filter’s absolute minimum efficiency for all particles. The efficiency of HEPA filters has been traditionally measured at 0.3 microns. However, over 90% of all airborne particles found in homes and offices are smaller.
Most air cleaner manufacturers make no performance claims for these important tiny particles. That’s because the current 0.3 micron DOP test for particulate filters was developed in the 1950s. While it gives some performance guidelines for the efficiency of particulate filters, it does not tell us anything about which particles the filter is least efficient at filtering. While a HEPA filter may filter out 99.97% of particles at 0.3 microns, it may filter significantly less at smaller particle sizes.
The EN (European Norm) 1822 is a two part test, which identifies the particle size that penetrates the HEPA filter most easily, hence the name MPPS (Most Penetrating Particle Size). EN 1822, which was released in the year 2000 is world's most advanced and stringent air filter standard for particulate filters. Many high-tech manufacturers such as Intel already require their filter suppliers to supply them with EN 1822 certification.
July 1, 2003
The first part of the test determines which particles penetrate most easily through the HEPA media. Since the efficiency is strongly correlated to the speed with which the air passes through the media, this is done exactly at present speed - under actual conditions of use. When the most penetrating particle size has been determined (e.g. 0.16 microns for the IQAir HyperHEPA filter), this information is used in the second part of the test.
Part 2 of the EN 1822 test uses a test rig in which the HEPA filter is challenged only particles of the most penetrating particle size (e.g. 0.16 microns). This creates an absolutely worst case scenario for the filter.
IQAir's HyperHEPA filters are currently the world’s first filters in an air cleaner to have been type-tested inside the IQAir housing by an independent filter testing laboratory (Filtech Laboratories Switzerland). IQAir's HyperHEPA filter was rated at a worst case efficiency of > 99.95% for airflow rates up to 190 m3/h (112 cfm) and > 99.5% for up to 475 m3/h (280 cfm).
While the efficiency at 0.3 micron gives some indication of filter efficiency for particles it doesn't give you a worst case performance scenario. IQAir is at the current edge in determining this for its air cleaners. Independent testing has determined that the absolute worst case efficiency at any particles size is better than 99.5% for speeds 4, 5 and 6 and 99.95% for speeds 1, 2 and 3. As a result, the HealthPro captures up to 100 times more particles that conventional HEPA air cleaners.
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HEPA Air Purifiers
High Efficiency Particulate Arresting (HEPA) filters have been around for quite some time. In the 1950s the US Atomic Energy Commission needed something to remove small particulates that are radioactive. Since then HEPA air purifiers have been using this technology to clean the indoors in cleanrooms to beauty parlors. HEPA products are also one of the many techniques and products used by Allergy and Asthma doctors to help alleviate the symptoms of those conditions. First we will discuss what HEPA really is.
Imagine a filter that only allows very tiny particles to pass through. If we placed a single sheet of this HEPA paper in front of a fan constrained as it would be in air purifiers, very little air would be able to pass because of the small size of the holes. In addition, air purifiers made like this would need to have the filter changed often because the holes would plug rapidly. Now if we double the size of the sheet we would get twice the airflow and filter life. You can not keep growing the sheet larger because it would be impractical. Instead let us try folding the paper back and forth so that we can present a very large surface area to the airflow and thus the HEPA made this way would be efficient. This is how real-world HEPA filters are made in real HEPA systems. Some have as much as 40 square feet of the filter material folded into the HEPA section. As a side note the material from which HEPA is constructed is either fiber or paper-like on one hand or a polymer on the other.
HEPA material does not look like a screen or a colander. Instead it looks like a very thin bail of fibers. Thus the air has to find a route through this maze of fibers. There are three ways the HEPA filter stops particulates. First and the easiest to understand is that a particle runs into a fiber and sticks. Secondly, the particle gets within one diameter of a fiber of the HEPA filter and while it tries to "skid by" the fiber it is gets stuck on the fiber. Third, as a very small, about 0.1 micron, particle moves in the gas flow it dithers about due to collisions with molecules (Brownian motion) and again happen to slide close to a fiber and get caught.
Therefore, HEPA air purifiers stop mold spores as well as many bacteria and viruses and of course larger items such as dust. Most air purifiers claim to be 99.97% efficient at removing particles 0.3 microns from the air that passes through the HEPA filter. The operative phrase is "pass through"! If the airflow does not have an opportunity to pass through the HEPA filter it will not be cleaned. Therefore the claim of 99.97% of all .3 and larger particles being removed is not accurate in poorly designed HEPA air purifiers where some of the airflow may pass around the HEPA filter and return to the room not cleaned. The IQAir HealthPro series is the only line that specifies that over 95% of the airflow that enters the air purifier goes through the HEPA filter.
As good as that sounds pure HEPA air purifiers do not remove odors, chemicals or gasses. Since these are molecular level substances the 0.3 micron holes are large compared to the gas molecules. Therefore typical HEPA air purifiers have some level of activated carbon based material to absorb odors and chemicals. The activated carbon that is included with all of these units comes in a number of varieties. This varies from a thin mat in an Air-O-Swiss unit, to pounds of activated carbon in an Austin Air Purifier. In any form the carbon absorbs gasses that will not be caught by the HEPA element. These chemicals are either harmful gasses or those that cause odors.
As a side note the Blueair product line uses a special approach to HEPA. In addition to the providing a large surface air in their products the Blueair products have larger openings in their polymer based filter media. This allows a much higher airflow and thus requires a small, less noisy fan. The trick in these air purifiers is the addition of electrostatic brushes in the airflow prior to the HEPA element. This charges the pollution particles and gets them to "stick" electronically to the filter media.
HEPA air purifiers are straight forward, a fan forces airflow through a filter. The more times the airflow goes through the filter in an hour the cleaner the room. So, the bigger the room, the bigger the product, or our preference, the more small air purifiers. Why? Think about a long narrow room. If you put the product at one end how often is the air from the other end going to get through the HEPA filter? Not often. If you put smaller air purifiers at either end of the room the air will only have to move half as far to get through the HEPA and get clean.
Ted Zajac, Jr.
MSE Johns Hopkins University
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