Is An Ozone Air Purifier Effective For Cleaning Smoke Odor?

The question about whether ozone air purifiers are effective against contaminants in the air has been challenged by bodies such as the EPA. The claims that are often seen around the traps is that if you have a smoke damaged home following a fire one of the ways to remove the smoke odor is to use an ozone air purifier and the smoke odor would soon be cleared away.

According to the EPA the scientific evidence that is available at the moment shows that ozone has little potential to remove indoor air contaminants. In fact, the scientific evidence has indicated that for many of the chemicals that are commonly found indoors it will take months or years for an ozone reaction to clear the air.

A further warning about using ozone air purifiers is that when the ozone comes in contact with certain chemicals there is the possibility of a chemical reaction that can be harmful to the health, possibly triggering allergies. Ozone air purifiers that contain an ionizer in the same unit are often said to be most effective for the clearing of smoke particles. Experiments have shown that ionizers were found to be less effective in removing particles of dust, tobacco smoke, pollen or fungal spores than either high efficiency particle filters or electrostatic precipitators.

Given that the main reason you would want to use an ozone air purifier as part of a fire damage restoration process is to remove odors from the house it is a little concerning to read that ozone is not effective at removing many odors.

There is data available that demonstrates that low levels of ozone may reduce levels of airborne concentrations and inhibit the growth of some biological organisms. The downside to this finding is that the level of ozone would have to be 5-10 times higher than public health standards allow before the ozone could decontaminate the air.

So if ozone air purifiers aren’t the answer for removing smoke odor from a smoke damaged home one wonders what methods of air pollution control are we left with?

There are three common ways that you can approach reducing air pollution and odor from an affected room:

1. Source Control: Remove the source of the pollution.
2. Ventilation: get as much air into the room from the outside as possible, and
3. Air Cleaning: remove the pollutants from the room using proven air cleaning methods.

This leaves the way open to wonder what the proven air cleaning methods are. Three types of air cleaner is currently on the market: mechanical filters, electronic air cleaners and ion generators.

Mechanical filters can be installed in the ducting of homes with central heating or air-conditioning or, if they are not available, as stand alone devices containing a fan to force the air through the filter. Electronic air cleaners use an electrical field to trap charged particles and ion generators use static charges to remove particles from indoor air.

All of these devices are effective for removing airborne particles from the air but they can only work as quickly as they can push air through the system. Unless the devices are particularly strong they will only move around 10 cubic feet per minute which means that it will take a long time to process the air in a room of around 1000 cubic feet.