Until recent times, there wasn’t a need for air purifiers. Or so it seemed because cheap and good air purifiers were not available just five years ago. But pollution has been around since a long time and like inflation, has only gone up.
Indian cities (most of them) are losing forest cover due to exploding population and the same is the reason for increasing pollution levels. Four out of top ten most polluted cities are in India, looking at newer reports that take into account PM2.5 levels (more harmful than PM10). And others are not far behind, Delhi being at number 11.
Traffic clogged roads are the best places to get a healthy dose of pollution. But since air as a medium can move, overtime the air inside your house may not be any better than that on the road. Even if it is, your quota for breathing foul air is already exhausted by the time you make it back home.
So, apart from planting trees, here is a list of top air purifiers than can help reduce you particulate matter and gaseous pollutants in your home. Have a look.
Phillips AC 1215/20
Philips 1000 Series AC1215/20 is one of the cheapest air purifier you can buy right now that comes with HEPA and Carbon filter. If you are looking to handle PM 2.5 particles, a High-Efficiency Particulate Absorber (HEPA) filter filter is must.
Phillips AC 1215/20 is good for a small room, around 200sq feet of area. It has a pre-filter guarding the other two filters that cleans out dust and other larger particles. There’s a real-time air quality index monitoring, displayed using 4-color air quality indicator, which means it automatically senses the threshold and gets to work. Priced at around Rs 9,000, it also comes in a bigger variant that caters to a bigger area.
Atlanta Healthcare Beta 350
Atlanta Healthcare Beta 350 is a slightly more expensive option selling for Rs 11,960 on Amazon. But apart from HEPA and Carbon filtering, it packs a host of other filters that will help you improve the air quality and not just remove pollutants.
Its cleaning process is based on a 7-STAGE air filtration technology that includes anti-bacterial filter, photo catalyst oxidization, ultraviolet light exposure and ionizer, apart from other three available on Phillips.
Atlanta Healthcare Beta 350 is meant for a typical bed room area of around 200sqft, like the Phillips AC 1215/20. Though its claimed clean airdelivery rate (CADR) at 170 cubic meters per hour is less than that of Phillips, which has a mentioned number of 270, another sacrifice of having more filtration processes.
Sharp Air Purifier FP-F40E-W
Apart from HEPA filter, Sharp FP-F40E-W also has activated carbon to take care of bad odour, bacteria and allergens present in the air, which it calls the Plasmacluster technology. Priced at around, Rs 20,000, it has a CADR of 240 cubic meters per hour and serves an area close to 230sqft.
There’s also a ‘Haze’ mode on the purifier to rapidly remove dust which comes in handy when a gush of dust fills your room from the window.
Honeywell Air Touch HAC35M1101W
All of the air purifiers listed above have a unidirectional flow of air. That is air taken from front or back is released from the front or back. The Honeywell Air Touch HAC35M1101W has 360 degree coverage in which air is sucked in from all sides and bottom and clean air is pushed out from the top.
The air purifier has a CADR of 300 cubic meters per hour, which makes it ideal for use in larger spaces like living rooms or ones with taller ceiling. It has a said coverage area of 450sqft. It sells on Amazon at Rs 19,599.
Atlanta Healthcare PureZone 651
If you have a bigger area to clean, you need an air purifier with higher CADR and bigger fans to blow the air away.
The PureZone 651 from Atlanta has all the bells and whistles when it comes to air filteration. It has activated carbon, aluminum static plasma, photo catalyst, UV light and ULPA filter to clean out particles as small as 0.1 micron. But it does that on a bigger scale than air purifiers listed above.
The Atlanta Healthcare PureZone 651 is made for bigger office spaces or restaurants, bars, saloons and gyms, covering an area of about 650sqft. It has a CADR of 320 cubic meters per hour.