Hepa Air Purifiers
The acronym HEPA stands for "high efficiency particulate arresting." Although many people have HEPA air purifiers in their homes, they may not know these filters were developed by the military to prevent worker exposure to radioactive plutonium and other hazardous materials routinely used in nuclear weapons labs. It is made of ultra-fine glass fibers pressed into a paper-like material, which is folded in pleats to maximize surface area, thereby improving air flow and increasing the apparent thickness of the filter medium relative to the particle's angle of attack.
HEPA filters mainly stop particles simply through impact. As a particle tries to penetrate the filter it runs into a fiber and remains there because of the attraction between positively-charged and negatively-charged materials. The prospects for a microscopic particle getting through a HEPA filter have been likened to those of a grain of sand thrown at a haystack. Other filter media are in common use, ranging from extremely low-efficiency coarse fiber filters often seen in use with forced-air furnaces, to unpleated fabric-like filters with performance approaching HEPA. Some of these latter types can be found, for example, in the Americair XR-100.
HEPA Air Purifiers; the Classic Model of Air Purification
HEPA filters remove dust, pollen, mold, and pet dander from your living environment with great ease and efficiency. Moreover, even harmful and annoying odors like tobacco smoke can be sanitized by the HEPA filter without the use of cover-up scents for a fresh-smelling, clean environment. HEPA filters are used in a variety of locations, from home to office to industrial settings.
Hospital operating rooms, for instance, use HEPA filters to keep out germs and create a sterilized environment. Medical supply rooms are likewise treated with HEPA filters to purify and clean the air inside. Even pharmaceutical companies use HEPA filters to ensure the purest and cleanest air and products. Sometimes HEPA air purifiers have detractors: many say they are noisier than ozone generators, for example, and that they cannot trap particles smaller than 3 microns. However, HEPA purifiers have a long dependable history, and are used in both commercial and residential buildings to make air pollutant free.
