Feb
Laminar air purifiers are new consumer products that provide a soft, gentle stream of clean air directly to a person’s face, offering a high level of personal protection. This helps to reduce the user’s exposure to viruses, pollen, allergens, haze, and other harmful pollutants in the air when they are outside their home.
With laminar flow technology, the user can breathe 90% to 100% cleaner air compared to their surroundings.
In this article, we will find out how effective a laminar air purifier is as compared to a face mask and respirator.
How do Laminar Air Purifiers work?
Unlike room air purifiers that push air through a filter causing turbulent flow with particles moving in an irregular and chaotic fashion, laminar air purifiers pull air through a filter to create a smooth, gentle stream of air flow. Particles in a laminar flow move in a straight line, which is important as it drastically reduces air mixing with dirty, unfiltered air surrounding it.
Laminar flow is important for portable air purifiers that are designed to protect the user, as it ensures that the air that they are breathing is as clean as possible.
What is a face mask?
During the COVID-19 public health emergency, many countries issued mask mandates that required citizens to use face masks as a form of source control to reduce the amount of large droplets entering the environment.
As face masks are not tight-fitting, they cannot be firmly sealed to the wearer’s face. Thus, it offers insufficient protection against airborne viruses like SARS-Cov2 (COVID-19), which primarily spread through tiny aerosols in the air.
What is an N95 respirator?
An N95 respirator is a piece of personal protective equipment (PPE) that protects the wearer from harmful contaminants in the air, such as viruses, haze, pollen, and allergens. Unlike a face mask, respirators are designed to be firmly sealed to the wearer’s face, ensuring that all of the air outside of it is filtered before reaching the wearer’s face.
In Singapore, N95 respirators are typically used during haze season to reduce one’s exposure to harmful smoke particles. It is also highly effective at protecting the wearer from diseases that spread through tiny aerosols in the air, such as COVID-19.
How does their protection compare?
Fit testing advocate and respirator reviewer Gerard Hughes conducted a test to determine the protection level of the AirFanta 4Lite, a personal laminar air purifier.
When fit testing is performed with an ambient particle counting device, it samples ambient air as well as the air that is inside a respirator to compare how clean the air is inside the respirator.
In this case, Hughes sampled the air 30 cm, 40 cm, and 50 cm away from the AirFanta 4Lite, while setting its speed at low, medium, and high respectively.
According to his results, the AirFanta 4Lite had a protection factor of 7.1 (30 cm), 5.2 (40 cm), and 3 (50 cm), equivalent to 85.92%, 80.77%, and 66.67% protection respectively.
A face mask would usually have a protection factor between 1 and 2 as it isn’t as tight-fitting as a respirator. Assuming the average protection factor is 1.5, that is equivalent to 33.4% protection.
An N95 respirator that passes fit testing according to OSHA’s workplace safety standards would need to have at least a protection factor of 100 (99% protection), and for those using N95 respirators as personal protection, some clean air advocates recommend at least a protection factor of 20 (95% protection).
The results show that a face mask offered the worst protection, the AirFanta 4Lite offered protection at least 2.5 times more than a face mask, and a fit-tested N95 respirator offered the best protection.
Conclusion
While laminar air purifiers perform far better than face masks, N95 respirators offer the best protection. This means that ideally laminar air purifiers should be used together with N95 respirators, unless it’s not possible when the wearer has to eat, drink, or receive a medical examination of any part of their face.
Lead a healthier life with AirFanta’s laminar air purifiers today
AirFanta offers a variety of laminar air purifiers that could help you lead a healthier life by reducing your exposure to viruses, pollen, and allergens in the air.
Some of these offerings include the AirFanta 4Lite, which is suitable for desk use, and the AirFanta mini, a pocket laminar air purifier that could be held in one hand.
Check out AirFanta’s laminar air purifiers below:
Laminar Air Purifier
Laminar Air Purifier
