Does An Air Purifier Remove Dust?

Dust!  One of the unfortunate facts of life is that you will never be 100% free of dust, no matter where you live or work…. Unless of course you work in a cleanroom laboratory or an operating theatre that is filtering all of the air within a room every 5 minutes or more…

Although it just looks like a uniform grey – Dust is more than just dirt.  Household and office dust is actually a mix of human skin cells, hair, clothing fibres, bacteria, dust mites, dead bugs, pet dander and fluff.  Outside dust particles that find their way indoors may include pollens, mould spores and other organic airborne particles such as ash from smoke or fires.   Cigarette smoke and particulate matter from vehicle emissions will contribute to dust levels as well.  

The amount of dust in the air can seriously worsen symptoms of sufferers of asthma or other respiratory conditions or allergies such as hayfever.  But breathing in high levels of dust over time can lead to serious disease even in healthy persons.  A recent study by the European Society for Medical Oncology demonstrated that air pollution from particulate matter in burning fossil fuels and vehicle emissions can cause lung cancer in persons that have never smoked.   The fact is that dust is harmful as well as annoying, but there are solutions that mean we don’t have to put up with it.

So let’s answer the question we get asked a lot – Do Air Purifiers Remove Dust or Not?

The good news is yes they do.  An air purifier operates using a very powerful fan (or fans) to pull air through a filter and back out the other side leaving all dust and contamination trapped in the filter.  The best filters for dust are High Efficiency Particulate Air (HEPA) 13 and 14 filters which can remove 99.99% of dust particles that are 0.3 microns in diameter.  The 0.3 Micron size was chosen as the test standard for HEPA filters, because it is not only the hardest size to trap, but also the size that is easily breathed into the lungs.  These universally acclaimed pleated filters work to capture the harmful dust particles as the air passes through them and are widely recognized globally as the most effective way to deal with airborne dust.  Whether that be in an industrial setting or in your own home.

The above diagram shows how much airborne particles like dust can vary hugely in size – for example pollen can vary from nearly 1000 microns right down to a much smaller 10 microns.  Other dust particles such as powders and smoke or paint pigments can be as small as 0.1 microns so it is important to ensure you have the correct grade of HEPA filter in your air purifier.  We recommend at least a HEPA 13, preferably HEPA 14 as your ideal filter media.  Find out more what a HEPA filter is here!

So how does an Air Purifier help reduce dust levels?

Dust particles will move around indoors floating through the air on the air flow until they finally settle on a surface.  When you put an air purifier into a room, you essentially force the air in that space to be drawn or pulled in by a fan through a filter (or filters) that traps the particles before they have time to settle.  This not only makes the air much nicer and safer to breathe, but also can significantly reduce the build-up of dust on surfaces.  A clear win win!  You can watch a video demonstration below that shows you how the particles in the air are drawn through multiple layers of filtration to emit a constant stream of pure air.

It is important that you get the correct size air purifier for a space though.  If you put a small air purifier with a low speed fan in a big room, you will not really see any noticeable improvement.  You must choose an air purifier that is cleaning the air in a room ideally every 12-15 minutes as a minimum.  You can read more about that here.

Want to get advice on the best air purifier for your requirements?  Why not browse our Learning Centre or have a chat with an advisor on 0330 700 60 60