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Re: Atmosair P2000 and T400 Air Purifiers

A Reader writes:

Hello Ed,

I just discovered your site (and your whitelist). You seem to have done a great job researching air cleaning products. Very through.

I appreciate the unbiased approach (other than your own personal bias of course) :)

Anyway, I came across a company called Atmosair (http://www.atmosair.com/) and would like to know if you have any information on the products and/or reputation of the company.

If not, do you know where I might look to find out?

Thanks for your time.

Sincerely, A Reader.

Ed's Reply

Hey Reader;

Atmosair sells in-duct and room air cleaners. They appear to be a marketing arm of the Bentax company: http://bentax.com

I assume you are interested in the stand alone residential room air cleaners, Atmosair T400 and Atmosair P2000.

Atmosair sells plasma-ion air cleaners without HEPA filters.

While their technology is similar to the popular Plasmacluster and Plasmawave ionizers, it lacks adequate ancillary filtering.

Atmosair is not very forthcoming, glossing over the limitations of this setup in their marketing.

P2000 and T400 appear to have a cleanable particle prefilters, but no specs are offered.

Plasma ions can oxidize very fine particles, but will leave particles larger than maybe .1 micron, and a percentage of chemicals, partially oxidized.

These partial oxidation byproducts are the bane of all oxidative air cleaners. Ozone emissions appear not to be an issue with the Atmosair designs.

This system cleans air by flocculation as well as oxidation. Flocculated particles fall to the floor, they are free to fly again after a brief period.

Best performance is achieved in odor and microbe control, particle performance will be poor by comparison.

Tests which measure air particle counts without specific efficiency statistics are worse than meaningless, they are often used to obscure poor performance. Recall that air cleaning efficiency is expressed as a series of percentages of very specific particle sizes, best known by the HEPA specification (99.97 % @ .3 micron one pass).

Atmosairs equipment does not conform to such specifications.

Likewise, publication of a "Clean Air Delivery Rate" for these systems is spurious.

Health benefits claimed for ions of equal dual charge are interesting, but I am skeptical. Recall that studies on ions and health emphasized the negative to positive ion ratio. Also the ion densities achieved are very low relative to the levels used in negative ionizers for health purposes.

Some of the Bentax systems appear to have controllable ion ratios and ozone output. This is intriguing, it would allow the same system to run as an oxidizer and subsequently as a negative ion balancer.

I would not install any of the Atmosairs without significant HEPA and Carbon to accompany it. This, and the obscure pricing of the annual ionizer tube replacements, makes the pricey Atmosairs uncompetitive economically.

This is reflected in the low consumer interest as measured by Google and Keyword Discovery keyword tools.

So it comes down to your finances and willingness to experiment with the intriguing ions. This is not a system I would promote for the general consumer.

Best wishes,

Ed

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