The Sharp KC-860U Plasmacluster Air Purifier with Humidifying Function purifies a room up to up to 347 square feet. It offers a unique combination of air treatment technologies to make you and your family more comfortable, whatever the season. Bacteria, germs, mold spores, pollen, pet dander, smoke, dust and odors can make breathing harder, especially for asthma and allergy sufferers. Sharp's KC-860U Plasmacluster air purifier helps remove these irritants with an ultra quiet fan that draws air through a 3-stage filter system. This filter system plus the revolutionary Plasmacluster Ion Technology for air purifiers makes the air healthier and cleaner smelling. For an even more comfortable environment, sensors constantly monitor the air quality in your room, adjusting the fan for air purity while providing the optimum humidity level. This combination of features is a smart way to choose cleaner, healthier, more breathable air. Humidification system: natural vaporization Purifies rooms up to 347 sq. ft.

True HEPA filter traps 99.97% of particles 3 fan speeds: max., med., low and auto with sensor CADR for dust 230 / smoke 224 / pollen 245tank capacity 8.5 pints Library Quiet noise levels with humidifier (dBA): 50 max./40 med./29 low Manual operation: clean air and humidity Voltage/Frequency: 120V / 60HzI need to replace the widest filter(non washable-white).Could someone help me with that?Thank you in advanbest method of cleaning brass 0 On the humidifying control function, does this system contain a tank for the water collected?ac coil cleaning cost Gives your helmet a nice clean feelingair conditioner compressor coil cleaner Has to sit on the generator for an extended period of time

New car smell isn’t friendly Sharp's Helmet Ion Generator does a good job of cleaning your motorbike, skiing or horse-riding helmet. It has a fresh, clean result, although the 'new car' smell isn't always pleasant. Would you buy this? Any motorcycle rider knows that there can be a funky stink that hovers around you on rides. This isn’t caused by riding in the tailwind of garbage trucks, but from sitting in traffic on hot summer days and sweating into your helmet.Unless you’re fastidious about cleanliness and take the helmet lining out and regularly wash it, chances are you just put up with the smell. Or get used to it.Sharp has come up with another solution — its Ion Generator with Plasmacluster.The technical specs for the generator are as complex as you’d expect. The product has been designed to clear out bacteria and mold from inside motorbike and scooter helmets, without wetting the lining. It can be used on full-faced, open-faced and half-type helmets, depending on the level of skin grafting you’d like with your helmet in case of an accident.

Sharp says the ion feature of the product works by harnessing positive and negative ions with air purification technology, to decompose and remove bacteria.Despite the complicated science behind the product, it is easy to use — you plug the connector into the unit and then into a power point. You place the helmet on the top of the generator just above the filter and then switch it on and leave it running. Sharp recommends you leave the helmet on the unit for at least eight hours. The company also wisely recommends you don’t ride the generator.We left it on the unit for 6 and a half hours. Our helmet was relatively new and not heavily used over the summer months, so a smell test for whether the generator worked was hard to judge. We wore our helmet about 20 minutes after taking it off the generator and could feel a difference — it felt clean and crisp.However, there was faint new car smell inside the helmet after using the ion generator. We started to get a headache from the new car smell after about 15 minutes of riding.

To avoid this, we’d recommend you leave the helmet to rest overnight after using the ion generator.The product has an easy-to-clean filter which can be easily popped out from the bottom of the unit. We inspected the filter after we ran the generator and there didn’t seem to be any dust trapped in it, but Sharp recommends the filter be cleaned every six months. There is also a cleaning brush provided which can be accessed at the back of the unit.The idea of an ion generator is a good one. It takes the hassle out of cleaning your helmet, it’s an easy product to use, and it seemed to do the job well. However, the helmet needs to sit on the generator for a long time and it has a headache-inducing smell afterwards. We’re also not sure how big the market would be for this kind of product. Join the PC World newsletter!This health technology policy assessment will answer the following questions: When should in-room air cleaners be used?How effective are in-room air cleaners?Are in-room air cleaners that use combined HEPA and UVGI air cleaning technology more effective than those that use HEPA filtration alone?

What is the Plasmacluster ion air purifier in the pandemic influenza preparation plan?The experience of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) locally, nationally, and internationally underscored the importance of administrative, environmental, and personal protective infection control measures in health care facilities. In the aftermath of the SARS crisis, there was a need for a clearer understanding of Ontario's capacity to manage suspected or confirmed cases of airborne infectious diseases. In so doing, the Walker Commission thought that more attention should be paid to the potential use of new technologies such as in-room air cleaning units. It recommended that the Medical Advisory Secretariat of the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care evaluate the appropriate use and effectiveness of such new technologies. Accordingly, the Ontario Health Technology Advisory Committee asked the Medical Advisory Secretariat to review the literature on the effectiveness and utility of in-room air cleaners that use high-efficiency particle air (HEPA) filters and ultraviolet germicidal irradiation (UVGI) air cleaning technology.

Additionally, the Ontario Health Technology Advisory Committee prioritized a request from the ministry's Emergency Management Unit to investigate the possible role of the Plasmacluster ion air purifier manufactured by Sharp Electronics Corporation, in the pandemic influenza preparation plan.Airborne transmission of infectious diseases depends in part on the concentration of breathable infectious pathogens (germs) in room air. Infection control is achieved by a combination of administrative, engineering, and personal protection methods. Engineering methods that are usually carried out by the building's heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) system function to prevent the spread of airborne infectious pathogens by diluting (dilution ventilation) and removing (exhaust ventilation) contaminated air from a room, controlling the direction of airflow and the air flow patterns in a building. However, general wear and tear over time may compromise the HVAC system's effectiveness to maintain adequate indoor air quality.

Likewise, economic issues may curtail the completion of necessary renovations to increase its effectiveness. Therefore, when exposure to airborne infectious pathogens is a risk, the use of an in-room air cleaner to reduce the concentration of airborne pathogens and prevent the spread of airborne infectious diseases has been proposed as an alternative to renovating a HVAC system. Airborne transmission is the spread of infectious pathogens over large distances through the air. Infectious pathogens, which may include fungi, bacteria, and viruses, vary in size and can be dispersed into the air in drops of moisture after coughing or sneezing. Small drops of moisture carrying infectious pathogens are called droplet nuclei. Droplet nuclei are about 1 to 5μm in diameter. This small size in part allows them to remain suspended in the air for several hours and be carried by air currents over considerable distances. Large drops of moisture carrying infectious pathogens are called droplets. Droplets being larger than droplet nuclei, travel shorter distances (about 1 metre) before rapidly falling out of the air to the ground.

Because droplet nuclei remain airborne for longer periods than do droplets, they are more amenable to engineering infection control methods than are droplets. Droplet nuclei are responsible for the airborne transmission of infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, chicken pox (varicella), measles (rubeola), and dessiminated herpes zoster, whereas close contact is required for the direct transmission of infectious diseases transmitted by droplets, such as influenza (the flu) and SARS.In-room air cleaners are supplied as portable or fixed devices. Fixed devices can be attached to either a wall or ceiling and are preferred over portable units because they have a greater degree of reliability (if installed properly) for achieving adequate room air mixing and airflow patterns, which are important for optimal effectiveness. Through a method of air recirculation, an in-room air cleaner can be used to increase room ventilation rates and if used to exhaust air out of the room it can create a negative-pressure room for airborne infection isolation (AII) when the building's HVAC system cannot do so.

A negative-pressure room is one where clean air flows into the room but contaminated air does not flow out of it. Contaminated room air is pulled into the in-room air cleaner and cleaned by passing through a series of filters, which remove the airborne infectious pathogens. The cleaned air is either recirculated into the room or exhausted outside the building. By filtering contaminated room air and then recirculating the cleaned air into the room, an in-room air cleaner can improve the room's ventilation. By exhausting the filtered air to the outside the unit can create a negative-pressure room. There are many types of in-room air cleaners. They vary widely in the airflow rates through the unit, the type of air cleaning technology used, and the technical design. Crucial to maximizing the efficiency of any in-room air cleaner is its strategic placement and set-up within a room, which should be done in consultation with ventilation engineers, infection control experts, and/or industrial hygienists.

A poorly positioned air cleaner may disrupt airflow patterns within the room and through the air cleaner, thereby compromising its air cleaning efficiency. The effectiveness of an in-room air cleaner to remove airborne pathogens from room air depends on several factors, including the airflow rate through the unit's filter and the airflow patterns in the room. Tested under a variety of conditions, in-room air cleaners, including portable or ceiling mounted units with either a HEPA or a non-HEPA filter, portable units with UVGI lights only, or ceiling mounted units with combined HEPA filtration and UVGI lights, have been estimated to be between 30% and 90%, 99% and 12% and 80% effective, respectively. However, and although their effectiveness is variable, the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has acknowledged in-room air cleaners as alternative technology for increasing room ventilation when this cannot be achieved by the building's HVAC system with preference given to fixed recirculating systems over portable ones.

Importantly, the use of an in-room air cleaner does not preclude either the need for health care workers and visitors to use personal protective equipment (N95 mask or equivalent) when entering AII rooms or health care facilities from meeting current regulatory requirements for airflow rates (ventilation rates) in buildings and airflow differentials for effective negative-pressure rooms. The Plasmacluster ion technology, developed in 2000, is an air purification technology. Its manufacturer, Sharp Electronics Corporation, says that it can disable airborne microorganisms through the generation of both positive and negative ions. (1) The functional unit is the hydroxyl, which is a molecule comprised of one oxygen molecule and one hydrogen atom. Plasmacluster ion air purifier uses a multilayer filter system composed of a prefilter, a carbon filter, an antibacterial filter, and a HEPA filter, combined with an ion generator to purify the air. The ion generator uses an alternating plasma discharge to split water molecules into positively and negatively charged ions.

When these ions are emitted into the air, they are surrounded by water molecules and form cluster ions which are attracted to airborne particles. The cluster ion surrounds the airborne particle, and the positive and negative ions react to form hydroxyls. These hydroxyls steal the airborne particle's hydrogen atom, which creates a hole in the particle's outer protein membrane, thereby rendering it inactive. Because influenza is primarily acquired by large droplets and direct and indirect contact with an infectious person, any in-room air cleaner will have little benefit in controlling and preventing its spread. Therefore, there is no role for the Plasmacluster ion air purifier or any other in-room air cleaner in the control of the spread of influenza. Accordingly, for purposes of this review, the Medical Advisory Secretariat presents no further analysis of the Plasmacluster.The objective of the systematic review was to determine the effectiveness of in-room air cleaners with built in UVGI lights and HEPA filtration compared with those using HEPA filtration only.