from a range of Video - An Inside Look Press Releases - Page Title Media Room - View Previous Story < View previous story Media Room - View Next Story View next story > RA on Your Body Easy Soup for UC Ozone Generators Create Home Smog Air Purifiers That Produce Ozone May Be Hurting Your Health May 11, 2006 -- You can create dangerous smog levels in your own home with an ozone-generating air purifier. The finding comes from a study of ozone-emitting air purifiers by Sergey A. Nizkorodov, PhD, and colleagues at the University of California, Irvine. researchers studied 13 air purifiers known to give off small and large amounts of ozone, a major ingredient in air pollution. Included in the study were several ionic air purifiers made by The Sharper Image, including the popular Ionic Breeze Quadra. detectable levels of ozone. But they did not emit dangerous levels of ozone, except when a Quadra model intended for a large room was tested in a tiny

Ozone generators, however, were a different story. As they are designed to do, they put a lot of ozone into indoor spaces. The devices quickly caused ozone buildups to levels that would trigger severe smog alerts for outdoor "If I put one in my office, I can generate a stage 2 ozone level if I want to," Nizkorodov tells WebMD. "This is the problem -- right now itAir purifiers that make ozone above a certain rate should beThe public should not be allowed to buy them." Ozone is great in the upper atmosphere, where it protects the Earth fromGround-level ozone, however, isn't our friend. the American Lung Association, ozone exposure may lead to premature death, shortness of breath, chest pain when inhaling deeply, and wheezing andHigh ozone levels irritate the lung and make asthma worse. The Nizkorodov study, funded by the National Science Foundation, appears in the May issue of the Journal of the Air & Waste Management Ozone Generators vs. Ionic Air Purifiers

It's easy for consumers to be confused. Three basic kinds of devices callConsumer Reports has found that "even the best air cleaners could be a frivolous investment." There's no ozone emission from air purifiers that use only high-efficiency particulate air filters (HEPA filters) to cleanse the air. purifiers, because of their electric charge, do create ozone. Consumer Reports has warned that they may give off potentially harmful ozone levels. "There are plenty of ionic air purifiers; only a small fraction make Mark Connelly, senior director of appliances and home improvement for Consumer Reports, oversees the magazine's air-cleaner tests. "You don't want to say that anything that generates ozone is bad,""A printer produces ozone, but just because printers sit on people's desks doesn't mean they should be taken off the market. people who buy air purifiers are most susceptible to the problems they create. You buy it to make things better, and it ends up making things worse for

Whatever ozone comes from ionic air purifiers pales in comparison to the amount produced by ozone-generating air purifiers. These machines make ozone for one reason: That's what they are designed to do. "Ozone is a very effective way of disinfecting water -- and some believe it is also possible to do this in the air," Nizkorodov says. "Unfortunately, at the concentrations you need to destroy germs and pollutants, the ozone levels are so high you cannot safely use it."diy air purifier review In a small bathroom, the UCI researchers found that one ozone generator, theair purifier and freshener EZ-COM Air Purifier, took only a half hour to build up ozone to a smog levelford air cleaner cover that would force school closings if detected in a city's air.

1,250-square-foot office, the device took about a half hour to build ozone to smog levels that would trigger unsafe air alerts. By contrast, the Sharper Image Ionic Breeze Quadra model -- an ionic air purifier, not an ozone generator -- built ozone to a maximum level of 40 parts per billion (ppb) in a large office. The FDA considers medical devices safe if they emit less than 50 ppb of ozone. The World Health Organization considers eight-hour ozone levels of 60 ppb to be acceptable. The Quadra did make the air unsafe when used in a small bathroom -- not the products' intended use, says Sharper Image spokeswoman Suzie Stephens. "Sharper Image products were included in the study and, in fact, met all safety standards for ultra-low trace ozone emissions when the appropriate-sized models were used in the manufacturer-recommended room sizes," Stephens"Why they chose to place the unit in a room size for which it is clearly not intended nor used is inexplicable."

Stephens worries that the UCI study sows confusion by testing ionic air purifiers alongside ozone generators. Indeed, she points to news reports on the study that confused Sharper Image products with ozone generators. "The study found that ozone generators, not ionic air purifiers when used appropriately, can generate potentially unsafe levels of ozone"None of the Sharper Image air purifiers are Government Action on the Way? While Consumer Reports has been critical of ionic air purifiers -- including explicit criticism of the Sharper Image Ionic Breeze Professional with OzoneGuard -- it is far less worried about these devices than about ozone "We slammed ozone generators back in 1992 -- but they are still being marketed to unsuspecting people," he says. susceptible to harm are cranking ozone into their lungs. should be regulated first and foremost." There's already a bill before the California legislature to regulate these