Is your air purifier blowing away your money?

Whether it’s a dusty home or keeping viruses, bacteria and mould at bay, an air purifier is almost always the go-to solution.

With minimal effort required, simply turn it on and forget about it while it quietly cleans the air in your room.

After 30 minutes, you can literally smell the difference in the air.

But not all air Purifiers are the same.

And not all are optimised to work effectively given your unique circumstances.

Pick the wrong one and it’s as effective as strapping an N-95 mask on your desk fan to clean the air in your home.

Let’s look at how to pick an air purifier that works for you.

Before putting together a wish-list of what you want in an air purifier, you’d need to examine the following:

1. Lifestyle habits.
2. Your health condition.
3. Location and size of the house/ room/ area. 

Lifestyle habits

Depending on whether you’d like to decorate your living space with items that collect dust or prefer living in an uncluttered Zen, all this affects how dust collects and how easy it is to clean the home on a regular basis. How often you clean your home and declutter also affects how much dirt, dust, bacteria and viruses you co-exist with.

So, when shopping for an air purifier that suits your lifestyle, purchasing one that has good air-rate flow is important. Because some air purifiers are not able to quickly purify the air of aerosols fast enough to prevent virus transmission effectively.

Air purifiers are also typically designed to remove only dust and allergens, and do not prevent virus transmission.

This is an important consideration if you have several people living in the same space, and if one of them falls ill with an airborne virus.

Location and size of area 

The volume of a room or size of the area also determines how hard the air purifier has to work. 

You should select your air purifier based on the coverage you need for your room. The bigger the area, the higher the coverage.

The harder an air purifier has to work, the higher the energy consumption and increased wear and tear, leading to the need for more maintenance.

There’s also the issue of having to change out filters more frequently that adds to the “hidden on-going cost”.

Getting the right air purifier with enough capacity to match the size of the area is key to preventing headaches down the road.

Your health condition

If you’re sensitive to dust and mould or have allergies and are predisposed to respiratory irritation, then you’ve got to be picky with your air purifiers.

Especially if you keep pets that shed a lot, man’s best friend might be your worst enemy when it comes to keeping the air clean.

The gold standard has always been HEPA.

But with more virulent viruses that have evolved, having a good disinfection rate and a HEPA filtration system is not enough, because HEPA filters do not have anti-microbial features to actively disinfect the air. 

So, is having an air purifier a placebo? Do they really work?

As technology advances leaps and bounds, so does the efficacy of air purifiers.

Now, a new generation of air purifiers have hit the market.

Imagine an air purifier that doesn’t just clean the air, it “hunts” for viruses and bacteria and acts almost like a first line of defence for your immune system, creating a “Safe Air Dome” of clean air.

This new generation of air purifiers is led by Trident, and it does exactly that – hunt for viruses and bacteria.

How is this different from the standard HEPA Air Purifier? 

Instead of just sucking the air into the filter like most air purifiers, the Trident actively disinfects virus/bacteria in the surroundings like a mobile immune system, helping to prevent virus transmission very effectively.

Trident’s “Safe Air Dome” technology combines the triple killing action of Cold Plasma, Advanced Graphene Electrostatic Plate, and built-in ultraviolet-C to quickly and effectively eliminate viruses by up to 99.99% (including the family of coronaviruses), bacteria, volatile organic compounds, allergens, odour, aerosol, and dust.

Proven by scientists, designed by engineers

Trident’s series of air purifiers are developed in Singapore by A*STAR spinoff Plasma Science Pte Ltd., in collaboration with the Agency for Science, Technology and Research’s (A*STAR) Institute of Materials Research and Engineering and other partners.

Images from Trident.

Users have claimed that children’s sinus conditions have gotten better, households with a member with flu experienced no other transmissions, and no musky oil smell from hawker food.

So, what makes Trident so effective?

The Trident series currently comes in two different models – MINI and PLUS. 

1. A High Clean Air Delivery Rate resulting in fast air changes per hour. For a living room size of 34sqm in a typical 5-room HDB, Trident MINI achieves 7.67 ACH, while Trident PLUS achieves 6.47 ACH in a larger office space of 60sqm. What this means is more air being cleaned in a shorter time.
2. 24/7 surface sanitisation. When kept operating, the Trident’s cold plasma ions continuously sanitise all surfaces in the room and reduce the growth of bacteria and fungi on carpets and in humid areas, which is especially useful in Singapore’s tropical climate.
3. Built-in dual air quality sensors for automatic airflow adjustments