In recent years home designs have focused on Eco principles like improved heat insulation and better seals against external pollution. Ironically, in some instances this has resulted in decreased air circulation, trapping ‘indoor pollution’.
Indoor air quality is a concern which is currently being met by the large number of consumer air purifiers currently on the market. However, the rate of technological advancement in the field means that the standard tests used to assess their effectiveness may soon be out of date.
Moreover, this is arguably already the case in China.
Few would cite Asia’s economic powerhouse as a leading voice in the fight against poor air quality. But this is quickly becoming a thing of the past.
In recent years President Xi’s government has declared war on pollution — and it’s a war they’re winning. Last year, China’s Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP), reported that the recorded amount of fine particulate pollution in the capital was at its lowest level in five years. In many ways, when it comes to air quality they’re already breathing fresh life into the cleaning effort.
This week in Beijing, China’s Household Electrical Appliance Research Institute (CHEARI) announced that, from January 2018, they will be pioneering the first standardized test for “intelligent air purifying fans — featuring test methods first developed on Dyson’s UK Technology Campus”.
In the process, CHEARI have created an entirely new category of purifiers called “Air Projection Purifying Devices”. According to the institute in order for machines to qualify for this higher standard they must combine effective air filtration with air projection technology and “intelligent sensors” which can automatically detect and react to pollution.
Lu Jianguo, Chief Test Engineer at CHEARI said: “We are always looking at ways to accurately guide consumers toward technologies integrating high performance, smartness and uniformity of purification and recognize the growing need for intelligent air purifying fans.
“Dyson leads the way in this category of purification so we’ve worked closely with their engineers to bring a test method to China that pushes the purification agenda forward.”
As Tom Bennett, Head of Research, Design, Development and Operations for Dyson China explains: “Globally, modern homes trap pollution and limit circulation, but for many people it goes unrealised.”
He continues, “through rigorous testing we also discovered that to purify across a room, powerful projection is key. With our Air Amplifier™ technology we are able to deliver at least 200 litres of cleaner air every second to clean every corner, as our strong results under the new standard reveal. By sensing pollution, capturing it and then circulating cleaner air these machines are engineered to purify uniformly across a room.”
Experts at CHEARI worked with Dyson to recreate the testing chamber that the company constructed in their UK technology campus. The current 12m² standard test chambers for purifiers have been more than doubled in order to “better reflect real average living room sizes of Chinese homes.”
The metrics that the new method will measure includes: “The ability of machines to remove harmful particles and gases, the uniformity of the cleaning performance delivered around the whole room, and airflow projection. All machines are tested using their automatic pollution detection function.”
Dyson claim that, “by enlarging the size of the test chamber compared to the existing purifier standard and increasing the number of test sensors to nine, the chamber is able to detect the accuracy of a machine’s automatic function and ensure that the machine truly cleans across a room.”
Considering CHEARI’s new testing chamber is based on Dyson’s own methods, it’s not surprising that they achieved an “Excellent” standard across the board. However, they did add that they “welcome other manufacturers to enter into this new category” and meet this new standard.
