Air purifiers for dust suck indoor air through a filter or filters that trap harmful pollutants, including dead skin cells, stray particulates, and bacteria. They may also remove odors and gases like smoke.
Some also have a sleep mode. People with allergies and sensitivities to chemicals may find these units helpful for improving indoor air quality.
Allergens
As anyone who suffers from allergies or asthma knows, clean air has a positive impact on your quality of life. Especially in areas with wildfire smoke, high allergy seasons or illness-related air pollution, an air purifier for dust can help ease symptoms by removing the triggers in your home.
While it might look like uniform grey dust settling on your tabletops and knick knacks, dust is actually a hodge-podge of many different types of tiny particles. Those include allergens such as pet dander, mold spores, volatile organic compounds and odors; indoor pollutants such as smoke and chemicals; and contaminants like pollen and air pollution from outside.
Air purifiers can remove a large percentage of these particles, assuming the filters are working properly. However, they won’t capture all of them and won’t get to the allergens that have burrowed into your carpets, walls or furniture.
The best air purifiers for dust are those with HEPA filters that can capture particles as small as 2.5 micrometers. That’s incredibly fine, which is why it’s important to check that your filter is functioning properly and isn’t clogged with larger particles such as hairs or other debris. Air purifiers can also reduce allergens that are floating around in the air, such as pollen from trees, flowers and grasses (which causes hay fever during spring and summer) and mold spores.
Dust mites
Dust mites are microscopic creatures that live in a variety of fabrics around the air purifiers for dust home. They thrive in warm, humid conditions and feed on skin flakes that shed by humans and animals. They can cause allergy symptoms, including sneezing, runny nose and watery eyes.
While a dehumidifier can help limit the number of dust mites, an air purifier with a true HEPA filter is essential for reducing their impact on the quality of your life. These filters capture a range of pollutants, including the waste and decaying matter produced by the pests. This can help prevent the enzymes and other particles from eliciting an allergic reaction in sensitive people.
These allergens are so small that they can easily be inhaled by those sensitive to them, causing a wide range of symptoms, from itchy eyes and rashes to sneezing. They can also alter the functioning of skin, nasal and ocular mucus membranes, as well as lung epithelium.
To combat their presence, wash bedding and blankets once a week in hot water (130 to 140 degrees Fahrenheit). Replace wall-to-wall carpeting with bare floors and use a vacuum cleaner with a double-layered microfilter bag or a HEPA filter. Avoid rugs, fabric curtains and traditional stuffed animals that can serve as nests for the creatures. Make sure that the air purifier’s recommended coverage area matches or exceeds the size of the room to ensure the best results.
Bacteria
What looks like a uniform gray layer of film covering your knick knacks and tabletops is actually a hodgepodge of tiny particles from a variety of sources, including dead skin cells and pet dander. It’s these tiny particles that can trigger allergy reactions in some people, though most of the time they’re not dust mites that are to blame.
An air purifier can filter out most of these allergens, but it won’t take away the ones that have settled on surfaces. For those, you’ll need a vacuum cleaner.
An air purifier pumps air, which carries microorganisms along with PM and moisture, through the HEPA filter. The high volume of filtered air enriches the particulate matter membrane, which allows bacteria to survive and reproduce. As a result, the bacteria that have accumulated on the surface of the HEPA filter can be quite different from those in the surrounding room soil. In this study, the bacterial communities in floor dust and on the HEPA filters were compared using NMDS analysis and phylogenetic diversity measures (Chao1, Shannon, air purifiers for dust manufacturer and PD). The community structures in floor dust and on the HEPA filter samples were highly similar, reflecting the main bacterial source types of the rooms: human oral, indoor air, and outdoor haze36,37,58.
Insects
While it might look like uniform grey dirt when it settles on knick-knacks and tabletops, dust is actually a hodgepodge of many different kinds of tiny particles that come from a surprising number of sources. When these fine particles float in the air they can irritate your eyes, nose, and throat and cause breathing problems for people with asthma or allergies.
Besides the body fragments and droppings of dust mites, it’s also possible that some dust contains volatile organic compounds from household cleaners and chemicals that can be bad for our respiratory systems. Some of these VOCs are released into the air when we use cleaning products, or they can be trapped inside our homes by furniture and woodwork.
Most modern air purifiers for dust feature mechanical filtration to catch pollutants on filters. They may also have antimicrobial or activated carbon filters to remove chemicals and odors. Air purifiers with medical-grade HEPA filters will be best for trapping microscopic bacteria and mold spores.
While an air purifier will reduce the amount of dust in your home, you’ll still need to vacuum and sweep regularly to keep it at bay. In addition, an air purifier will not get rid of insects that might be lingering in your home. However, some of them have special features to help kill mosquitoes and other pests that can aggravate allergies. For example, some have UV-C light that can kill insects and filter out mosquitoes from the air. Other devices emit negative ions that attract insects and help them stick to the surface of the filter.