Sharp Air Purifier

Sharp's products include Liquid Crystal Displays (LCD), HDTV, 3g mobile phones, thin-film photovoltaic power systems, and a wide range of consumer and industrial electronics.

Sharp was founded in 1912, listed on the Osaka Stock Exchange in 1949 and on the Tokyo Stock Exchange in 1956.

Traded worldwide, the shares have over 50% institutional ownership.

Introduced in 2003, Plasmacluster Air Purifiers quickly became the top seller in Japan.

Sales in South Korea, China, Canada, Australia and UK are substantial.

It is important to realize that the air cleaner market is fragmented globally, with completely different manufacturers in other parts of the world.

Sharp models sold outside the US are different, a wide variety of market specific models lead a world scale penetration.

Sharp air purifiers tend to turn over relatively quickly, with new models every couple years.

Plasmacluster Ion Technology

Sharp's air purifiers employ active purification, a relatively safe breakthrough has nearly replaced hazardous ozone emissions, formerly prevalent in residential room air cleaners.

Plasmacluster Ion technology creates combined positive and negative ions, which cluster around airborne contaminants, releasing hydroxyl radicals which oxidize the air pollutant.

Fine particles, microorganisms, and volatile organic chemicals are eliminated, without necessarily having passed through the air purifier.

The company's tests indicate that airborne substances such as fungi, viruses, microbes, bacteria, plant and mold spores, are substantially reduced.

Automation Leader

The ionizer (Plasmacluster) function is manually controllable for those uncomfortable with the idea of close exposure to oxidants.

This allows noise, energy use, filter life, and purifier life expectancy to be optimized.

Sharp air purifier pioneered very low noise-to-power ratios, though other Asian builders have now matched the Sharp achievement.

Sharp was the first to experiment with washable carbon filters, (no longer available on Sharps), and many air cleaner builders have copied the Sharp air cleaner's innovations.

The Plasmacluster feature had popped up on numerous imitators, notable successes are the Korean-built Winix Plasmawaves.

While products feature quality construction, the gaskets and seals are not as tight fitting as I think they could be.

Ordinarily I would be pretty critical here, but the company has used this to advantage, reducing weight, prolonging useful life, and lowering noise to a whisper.

Others just use loose fit to run cheaper internals which unsophisticated buyers don't notice.

The result is an air purifier with long filter life, low maintenance requirements, and fairly low operating costs. on the market.

I own a 2005 Sharp FP-N60CX Air cleaner which still runs perfectly, and a 2010 KC-C150U.

Around 2010, Sharp shifted the entire Plasmacluster line to combined humidifier/air purifiers. One-by-one the "dry" plasma ionizers were discontinued.

I view the dropping of the "dry" Plasmaclusters as a serious strategic error by Sharp.

The humidifier based Sharps are more expensive and require frequent maintenance that most users just don't care to perform.

In 2012, the dry Plasmacluster air purifiers are back, and should regain some market share for Sharp

Plasmacluster Air Purifier Reviews