• February 10, 2021

What’s the Best Air Purifier for Battling Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs)?

There’s no doubt that you want your home to be as clean as possible, but no matter how often you clean your floors, bathrooms, countertops, shelves, and other surfaces in your house, there’s another element that you may be overlooking: the air. Yes, keeping the air that you breathe as clean as possible is just as important – if not more so – than cleaning any other part of your home. The air you breathe has a huge impact on your overall health and well-being, and given the fact that the average person spends about 90 percent of their time inside – and the fact that that the levels of pollutants that indoor air contains can be up to 5 times higher than the pollutants the outdoor air contains – making an effort to maintain the air quality in your home should be a top-priority.

There are several well-known compounds that contaminate indoor air, such as mold spores, pet dander, and dust mites; however, there’s another element that’s just as common and that can pose just as much of a health risk as those contaminants that you may not be aware of: VOCs.

What are VOCs? What health risks do they pose? What type of air purifiers can combat the airborne pollutants? Read on to learn the answers to these questions and to learn how you can keep the air in your home as clean and healthy as possible.

What are VOCs?

Short for volatile organic compounds, VOCs are “compounds that have a high vapor pressure and lower water solubility”, as defined by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The EPA also states that a great deal of the VOCs are manmade chemicals that are produced and added to various manufactured products, such as pharmaceutical, paints, and refrigerants. There are several types of compounds that are classified as VOCs, examples of which include:

• Trichloroethylene
• Methyl tert-butyl ether (MTBE)
• Fuel oxygenates
• Chloroform

Typically, VOCs are the components of petroleum fuels, paint thinners, hydraulic fluids, and even agents that are used in dry cleaning. Emitted as gases, a variety of chemicals comprise volatile organic compounds. The following household products are considered common sources of VOCs:

• Wood preservatives
• Paints, paint strippers, varnish, stain, and other types of solvents
• Cleaners and disinfectants
• Aerosol sprays
• Moth repellents
• Air fresheners
• Automotive fluids, such as oil, gas, and antifreeze
• Arts and crafts supplies, such as glues, permanent markers, and solutions used in photography
• Pesticides
• Building materials, such as insulation, drywall, carpeting, and carpet padding
• Home furnishings, including couches, chairs, and tables
• Office equipment, like printers, photo copiers, and copy paper
• Cosmetics
• Degreasers

The volatile organic compounds that these products contain are emitted vita off-gassing. The VOCs that they contain can be emitted both while they are being used, as well as while they are stored.

 

What are the health effects of VOCs

All types of VOCs can cause adverse health effects, with the effects varying in severity. For instance, some of the effects can be short-term, and others can be long-term; it depends on the type of VOC, the level in the air, and the amount of exposure time. With that said, however, examples of the health effects that VOCs can cause can include:

• Irritated eyes, nose, and throat
• Headaches
• Nausea
• Loss of coordination
• Liver, kidney, and central nervous system damage
• The development of cancer

There are several signs and symptoms that a person can experience when they are exposed to VOCs. Examples of some of the different symptoms of exposure to these gaseous pollutants include the following:

• Irritated eyes
• Discomfort in the nose and throat
• Headaches
• Skin irritation
• Nausea
• Vomiting
• Shortness of breath (dyspnea)
• Nosebleeds (epistaxis)
• Fatigue
• Listlessness
• Dizziness
• Irritability
• General malaise

How to eradicate VOCs?

According to some studies, it has been determined that the levels of VOCs are between 2 and 5 times higher indoors than they are outdoors, as these noxious, gaseous pollutants are largely caused by household products and indoor air doesn’t circulate as well as outdoor air. Even more troubling, depending on the activities that are occurring in your home – painting, crafting, or photocopying, for example – the levels of VOCs can be up to 1,000 times higher indoors than they are outdoors, and those extremely high levels can last for hours during and for several hours after such activities are occurring.

Given the potentially serious health risks that exposure to VOCs pose, and the high levels of these gaseous pollutants that indoor air may contain, it stands to reason that you want to take action and to combat these airborne contaminants. So, how do you eliminate volatile organic compounds and improve your home’s indoor air quality? Here are some tips to consider.

Determine and eliminate the source of VOCs

First and foremost, if you suspect that VOCs are contaminating the air in your home, conduct and investigation to determine the source of the pollutants; newly installed carpeting, newly purchased furniture, paints, cleaning products, etc. If you can identify the source of the pollutants, try to remove the item(s), but if you can’t (the item is too large or it’s a permanent feature in your home and it physically cannot be removed), leave the space until off-gassing subsides.

Increase ventilation

If you are unable to locate or eliminate the source of the problem, make efforts to increase the ventilation in the space. Increasing ventilation can include opening windows (however, if pollutants in the outdoor air are high, this would be counterintuitive), or installing ventilation that will remove indoor air and the pollutants it contains out of your home and that will cycle fresh outdoor air back in.

Try an air purifier

If the levels of VOCs in your home are especially high or if you or a loved one are very sensitive to the gaseous pollutants, simply increasing the ventilation in the space may not be enough to eradicate the danger. Your house may contain several items and materials that you and your family rely on that can off-gas VOCs for a prolonged period of time. In these instances, inhaling VOCs can cause several adverse health effects; increased allergic reactions, heightened asthma symptoms, and the development of new symptoms that are associated with VOC exposure. For these types of instances, investing in an air purifier that is specially designed to withdraw VOCs from the air would be a worthwhile investment.

What type of air purifier is best for VOCs?

There are several types of air purifiers on the market, which include the use of different kinds of air filtration technologies that filter out the air. With that said, however, not all air purifiers are capable of eliminating VOCs, and in fact, they can potentially exacerbate the problem. With that said, let’s take a look at some of the types of air purifying technologies and examine whether or not they can or cannot eliminate VOCs.

• Electrostatic air purifiers. This type of air purification technology has become increasingly popular in recent years. They feature an electrically charged panel or screen, which emits a charge to airborne particles, and captures them. While they may be effective for larger particulate matter, like mold spores, dust mites, and pet dander, electrostatic air purification technology is unable to eliminate gaseous molecules, such as VOCs.
• Ozone generators. These air purifiers generate ozone, which is basically a type of oxygen that has an additional oxygen atom attached to it. When ozone interacts with other airborne molecules, such as mold and smoke, the additional oxygen atom attaches itself to those molecules, thereby changing them into different molecules, and in some cases, those molecules may be more dangerous than the ones that they were aiming to eliminate. Ozone itself is a harmful substance; in fact, it’s considered a pollutant that can cause adverse health effects. As such, using this type of air purifier is not recommended for removing VOCs.
• HEPA filers. HEPA filters are one of the most common types of air purifiers used today. They’re designed to capture harmful airborne particulate matter in the fibers that the filter contains. As air passes through the filter, particles that measure as small as 0.3 microns in size get trapped in the filter. HEPA filters can eliminate up to 99.97 percent of airborne pollutants; however, they are not effective for gaseous materials, as cases are approximately 1,000 times smaller than what HEPA filters are capable of capturing, and the gaseous matter does not stick to these filters, therefore, HEPA filters are not effective for combating VOCs.
• Photochemical oxidation filters. Commonly referred to simply as “PCO”, these filters utilize UV-C light to remove pollutants from the air. In some cases, PCO filters may be able to effectively break down some types of noxious volatile organic compounds; but, in order to do that, the pollutants need to be exposed to intense levels of UV-C light in order to do so over a period of time. As such, PCO filters are not capable of eliminating VOCs. Plus, UV-C light generates ozone, which, as discussed, is an air pollutant on its own.
• Carbon filters. Air purifiers that feature this type of filtration uses activated carbon, which is specially designed to eliminate gaseous materials from the air, so they may be able to effectively remove VOCs; however, activated carbon filters may only be able to remove VOCs over a short term period of time, but there is a chance that some of the gaseous matter can be released back out into the air. That’s because these filters use a process that is referred to as adsorption (different from absorption), which causes pollutants to stick to the exterior of the small particles in the absorption bed of the filter. Adsorption should not be confused with absorption, as the former holds pollutants within the structure of the filter itself, similar to a sponge. The process of adsorption enables activated carbon air filters to filter airborne chemicals, including gases. This process is possible due to the fact that the activated carbon, such as charcoal, features small holes, creating an expansive surface area that the pollutants can stick to. While activated carbon air purifiers can successfully eliminate VOCs, there are two issues with this type of filtration:
  • The surface area can become saturated, and when that happens, the filter will not be able to trap additional pollutants. Of course, when this happens, the filter will stop eliminating VOCs from the air, and in fact, they may actually release the gaseous pollutants that it has trapped back out into your home’s air. Due to this potential risk, changing an activated carbon filter is essential.
  • Another issue with activated carbon filters is their capability of absorbing and storing pollutants largely depends on both the humidity and the ambient temperature of the space. Water molecules (humidity) compete for space in the adsorption bed of an activated carbon air purifier, and as such, they may actually end up pushing out the volatile organic compounds that are already trapped in the filter. Additionally, high temperatures may actually cause the VOCs that have been trapped in the filter to revert back into gas, which could cause the filter to release the VOCs that were trapped back out into the air.
  • PECO air filters. Formally known as Photo Electrochemical Oxidation (PECO) is a new type of air technology. It is specifically designed to eliminate VOCs, as the filtration actually destroys the gaseous matter that pass through the filter as opposed to just collection them. As such, with PECO filtration, the risk of VOCs being released back out into the air – an issue that can occur with other types of air purification filters – is eliminated.

 

The process that PECO filtration uses occurs when light shines onto a catalyst-coated filter, which encourages a catalytic reaction that then destroys the volatile organic compounds at the molecular level. The effectiveness of PECO technology on eliminating VOCs was confirmed by an independent lab test that was performed at the University of Minnesota Particle Calibration Laboratory. The results of this study showed that PECO technology minimized VOC levels in the air to a level that was undetectable; additionally, it was found that ozone was not created during the process, and in fact, artificially generated ozone levels were actually minimized by this type of air purification.

What’s the best type of air purifier for removing volatile organic compounds?

Given the above-mentioned information, the most effective type of air purifier for removing VOCs from the air is one that contains PECO technology. While activated carbon filters do trap volatile organic compounds, given the potential issues that may arise with this type of technology, PECO filtration would be your best bet.