17. HEPA FILTER AND NEGATIVE IONIZERS

A lot of “important” diseases have their own origin in the environment in which we spend our time. It’s been calculated that one third of the diseases has an environment origin. The domestic pollution has been defined as one of the first dangerous factors for the public health. The polluted substances more dangerous are those which acts at cell level: mainly those carcinogen, allergen (which causes allergies) and air pathogen (which contains virus and bacterial).
The sources of domestic pollution are manifolds, starting from smokes and unburnt cooking gaseous residuals, from chemical solvents contained in the cleaning products and in a synthetic paints, from the resin contained in the chipboard panels of furniture and shells (formaldehyde) and in various building materials. The products used to clean are solvents, which contain some formeds often too much noxious as whitener, against limestone, trichloroethylene, and so on.
I’d like to tell you about a little “household appliance” which improves the domestic air, in particular where you sleep at night. In fact today it’s possible to live in an environment with no toxic substances or at least purified as much as possible, through an air purifier.
What I’d like to show you now it’s made of two different parts: from a negative ion generator and from an air purifier made by two filters, the first one is made with an active carbons, the second one with an HEPA filter.

17.1 Negative ion generator

What are the negative ions? They are atoms which has gained one or more electrons, giving them a negative electrical charge.
The domestic pollution and in particular the heavy metals tend to oxidize the human body creating the free radical, portion of molecules. They are often oxygen single atoms which have a positive charge, that is they have already given electrons away. This single atoms tie with other molecules of the body oxidizing them. Therefore the negative ion generator saturates the environment of electrons which go to fill these gaps.
The sea and even more the mountain are environment which are rich of negative ions and for this reason some says that the mountain air “purifies the lungs”. The ion generator is noiseless, there are no working engines. In my home it’s always switched on, even when I’m not at home.

17.2 Air purifier

It sucks out the environment air through two filters and it improves the air quality . The first one is a filter with active carbons: it’s able to keep smell, smoke and dust. The second one is an Hepa filter: it’s able to filter 99,97% of domestic pollution until molecules with a diameter equal to 0,3 micron (millionth of meter).
First Wikipedia link
Second Wikipedia link.

There are several products which integrate these three functionalities in a unique product.
I use this one, little, quite cheap (about 70E) and nice.

Respira Pulito Beghelli

• HEPA filter with high (99,97%) filtering capability until diameter 0,3 Micron.
• Filter with active carbons in order to filter smells and smoke.
• Ionizer with and independent button switch.
• Effective for pollen and dust.
• Three speed functionalities.
• Light indicators.
• Easy maintenance and filter replacement.

I always leave the negative ion generator switched on (it’s noiseless) and I use the air purifier only during the night when I go to sleep at the lowest speed. The first night I used it, it got under my skin a little bit, but later I didn’t realize it anymore.

Now you can see the difference between my old filters (Hepa and active carbons), I used them for 6 months, and new one… This is the difference…

(click on this image to enlarge it)

17.3 Aloe Vera plant

Moreover in my room there is also an Aloe Vera plant. It has an excellent purifying effect through the photosynthesis. If the light is present, this reaction transforms carbon dioxide in water and oxygen. It’s a fat plant, so it’s not necessary too much attention.