Air purification systems

Donald Farren <dfarren [at] concentric__net> writes

>Does anyone have experience with relatively small, free-standing air
>cleaners (of the sort that Sears sells)? They are advertised as
>"99.97% effective in removing most airborne particles, including
>pollen, smoke, mold spores, and pet dander". Question: How effective
>are they in trapping fine dust particles, like "book dust"?

Many types of indoor pollution problems are found in a building. The
most effective approach is usually to remove or reduce the sources
of indoor pollution.

There is a special case for books dust that needs more attention.
When you open a dusty book an air current is created which pushes up
the dust accumulated on and inside the book directly to your nose.
There are no other normal cases that you blow dust in your nose by
yourself.  There is may be only smoking that you blow hazardous
materials including dust into your respiratory organs. When you
study a dusty book, for every page that you turn this phenomena is
repeated. For the whole time that you read the book you are exposed
to dust. A recent research proposes that the health risk in this
case is comparable to active smoking. The study suggests that the
librarians who work with dusty books are in real health danger. The
range of risks varies from lung cancer and heart attack to chronic
asthma, allergy problems, depression, nervous problems, esthetic
problems of skin etc.  <URL:http://www.library-dust.com/>

So if you want this air cleaner for your library the problem should
be see in its global view and may be needed  some measurements and a
professional consulting. If you need this for a limited area of your
office you need to check out if your room air fits the air flow rate
and efficiency of air cleaner. Also check if it has a through HEPA
filter. For further assistance please contact me at
hass [at] library-dust__com

Hassan Bolourchi
Chemical Engineer, Ph. D.
Library Dust Consulting, LLC


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                  Conservation DistList Instance 18:2
                   Distributed: Friday, June 18, 2004
                        Message Id: cdl-18-2-006
                                  ***