Re: Testing Airborne VOC Chemicals and Particles in Our Homes

A Physicist writes:

Ed,

Thank you for the information. (previous email post - smoke seepage and Sharp FP-P35CX)

Moving to another unit in our apartment complex is a an option.

In fact, it's increasingly more likely the more I read.

However, I'm wondering if you could help me analyze the situation quantitatively?

First, let's eliminate any budget constraints.

I said $200 because I'm frugal by nature (cheapskate).

My wife and I are healthy and in our 20s.

This is no time to penny pinch if the product can help.

The FPP40CX seems like an average choice for my situation.

With a source I can't eliminate like cigarette smoke, isn't there a danger of creating even worse byproducts by saturating my purifier?

Wouldn't this make an oxidizing air purifier like the Sharp you recommended a very BAD idea for my situation?

Back to quantifying this. I'm a physicist by trade, but I don't have enough information to understand how these particles/VOCs act in my home.

Can you give me an idea of just how the FPP40CX would react to this situation?

I currently have no objective way to let you know how much smoke actually gets to me.

Some days I smell it in certain places, other days I don't.

It's always extremely subtle.

The apartment is 750 sq ft with 160 sq ft bedroom and living room where I want to use the air purifier.

Can you recommend an economical way for me to test my air quality before I invest in an Asian invasion, or better air purifier?

Also, once I move, exactly how much will my (non-leather) couch, bed, table... etc. have significant residual VOC presence?

I've read how difficult it is to clean up after a situation like this even AFTER the source has stopped.

Thanks for helping with our health.

Ed's Reply - Testing the Air

Hey Scientifically-inclined Reader;

I recommend you seek an apartment without any smoker nearby. Also seek a location and orientation away from vehicular traffic.

And invest in an air cleaner with serious activated carbon - several pounds.

If you don't want the risk of an oxidizer, I'd look at the Austin Air Healthmate and Allerair 5000. Selling for around $500, these won't be automated or quiet, but they have activated carbon - in pounds rather than ounces - will help with the smoke seepage.

Another option is the Mitsubishi-made RabbitAir, under $400, which have no oxidizers and are pretty quiet. Rabbit's carbon is pretty light, so it will need changing more often than the heavy Austins/Allerairs.

But that is just the beginning. Since you have a scientific background, I suggest a big picture perspective on your life and future.

Rather than perceiving the smoke seepage problem as a minor annoyance, a matter for frugality, I'd think of it as a message about lifestyle in general.

A learning opportunity.

In my humble opinion, the human race, and with it many life-forms on the planet, is headed for a mass extinction event. Not in 500 years, in the first half of this century.

Human technology, and the 6.8 billion lives that have blossomed with it, have evolved to an unsustainable level.

Thousands of toxic products permeate our lives. To truly quantify this vast multi-variable experiment, when so little information is made public, will be impossible.

But we can attempt testing, and seek control, of our personal space.

Measuring Airborne Particulates

Easiest to quantify are particulates. These can be tested accurately, but there are pitfalls. The air cleaner industry was built on the naivety of consumers who mistakenly believe 20 micron visible dust, as seen in a shaft of sunlight, is the main target.

Ultrafine particulate in the .1 - .3 micron range stays airborne indefinitely, can penetrate human tissues and cause serious health issues, and is most difficult to accurately quantify.

All combustion, including natural gas appliances, produces these ultrafines.

Our automotive engine emissions have been refined just enough to give the appearance of safety. The entire environment is filled with these invisible tiny toxins.

Measuring particulate requires expensive equipment.

In the IQAir Review linked below, scroll down to the heading "Tests of IQAir Efficiency," where the discussion of laser particle counters begins. Note that the particle scanner I used for that article - a $2K loaner from IQAir - measured .3 micron and up sizes only, and found as many as 400,000 particles per cubic foot in my home.

See IQAir Review: Particle Counter Tests.

To properly quantify airborne ultrafines, you'd need engineers equipped with very expensive testing equipment. The product would be a particle-size distribution which would cast light on sources and remediation.

There are firms who do this, but "frugal" they ain't.

I once worked in a cleanroom where technicians with special suction machines collected air samples to be examined under powerful microscopes, every half hour. They actually did quantify particulate by size, but were mostly concerned about biological contaminants.

These engineering firms are primarily oriented to the commercial market and "Sick Building Syndrome." A few do residential work, primarily in the upscale real estate market, where sophisticated buyers want environmental certifications before purchase.

Some bricks-and-mortar retail allergy shops, an endangered economic species, will perform a home inspection using particle counters, but this will still cost as much as a decent air purifier.

For the residential environment, we will be relying on air purifier sensors for feedback on particulate levels. This has some serious limitations, and many manufacturers are cutting sensors to hold price. The Sharp FP-P40cx we have considered has no dust sensor.

There is discussion of air purifier dust sensors in this post: Dust Sensor Sensitivity Found Lacking.

Measuring Chemical Contaminants in the Home

As you note, our perception of odors near the olfactory threshold is a subjective matter. Individuals vary in their ability to detect odors, and sensitivity to odors once detected.

But many VOCs are odorless, or dangerous below the scent threshold.

Realize that apartments have special chemical issues;

insecticide residues,
common or unclean HVAC ducts,
toxic cleaning products and sprayed "air fresheners,"
previous ozone treatments,
VOC-emitting carpet and paint frequently renewed to cover leavings of past tenants and pets,
toxic mold from unseen water intrusion,
and moth ball vapors and dry cleaning fumes soaked into closets.

Your furniture, clothing, and bedding are likely toxic to start with. Bromide-based flame retardants have been mandated in many products, especially mattresses.

As a scientist, you are no doubt familiar with the halogens and their relative ionic radii - ubiquitous fluorine, chlorine, and bromine can easily substitute for health critical iodine (halogen displacement). Ask yourself: Why is the government subsidizing or mandating the addition of these immune inhibitors in our water, food, and artifacts?

We need a doctor's prescription to buy a simple non-toxic cotton mattress in the USA.

Artificial fabrics, and the dyes, permanent press and dry cleaning chemicals needed to maintain them, are near universally toxic. Furniture is commonly framed of formaldehyde and terpine emitting wood products, and covered with the above mentioned man-created fabrics.

And of course, your belongings have absorbed the third-hand-smoke from your current apartment.

See: Dangers and Effects of Third Hand Smoke.

Engineers use newly developed portable instruments, "electronic nose technology," with ultra-fast gas chromatography, to quantify the concentration of specific VOCs. These have part per billion or better sensitivity, able to detect chemicals far below the human ability to smell.

But the primary applications of this high-dollar tech are military and law enforcement: explosive and other sniffing.

Latest models start at $41K. Shipping not included.

Residential VOC testing is offered by various firms, but the price is more than a good air purifier.

Chemical measurements of VOCs in the residence can be done with do-it-yourself VOC test kits, which can identify many chemicals. These run from around $80 for a single chemical, generally formaldehyde, to $300 for as many as 50 VOC analyses.

I'd recommend this for anyone looking at purchasing a new home.

An adsorbent badge is exposed to the air for a prescribed period and mailed to the sponsoring lab. A report shows vapors detected, generally in parts-per-million concentrations.

For example: Environmental Diagnostics Laboratory Indoor Air Tests.

Kits are available to test VOCs, mold, ozone, radon, and fiberglass, with formaldehyde the best seller.

Air Purifiers as a Source

No need to worry about creating byproducts by saturating the filters in a standard HEPA and activated carbon air purifier. Quality air purifiers with well sealed True-HEPA filters do not allow particulate to escape, clogged filters will impede airflow until replacement is necessary.

The issue with HEPAs is biological - microorganisms may proliferate in the filter and be blown into the room. Solutions to this problem, which involve adding chemicals such as apatite or nano-silver to filters, have safety issues of their own.

Activated carbon is a textbook tome all by itself.

Different molecules are held - adsorbed - with varying degrees of attraction. Highly polar molecules, notably the very common aldehydes, will escape more readily than other VOCs.

So, unlike a HEPA, whose efficiency can be measured effectively, a carbon filter has varying efficiencies for different loads, and this varies over time.

When the carbon is saturated with a particular chemical, it will bypass that VOC and also outgas. Generally, when the user smells the filter, it gets unscientifically replaced. Since carbon filter life depends on contamination levels, manufacturers can only give general recommendations on adsorbent filter life.

This is a common source of misunderstanding and anguish among air purifier buyers who have not effectively removed chemical sources before installing an air cleaner.

It is the oxidizer air purifiers, including plasma-ion machines like the Sharp Plasmacluster, the many forms of ozonators, and the photocatalytic air cleaners, where the problem of partial oxidation byproducts occurs.

Scientists have found that incomplete decomposition of VOC's, at single pass efficiencies ranging from 18 to 80%, produced increased levels of formaldehyde, acetaldehyde, formic acid and acetic acid.

The study linked below notes the difficulty encountered in quantifying chemical oxidation byproducts in the laboratory, where initial sources are controlled static concentrations, rather than continuing emissions of myriad chemicals.

Photocatalytic partial oxidation byproducts: Aldehydes.

Partial oxidation can also create ultrafine particles by reducing the size of existing particle contaminates.

We are seeing a significant proliferation of cheap, low powered, ultraviolet and PCO oxidizer air cleaners, especially popular in China, which are sure to create these issues.

I like the Sharp Plasmaclusters, which rose to prominence as very popular ozone making air cleaners were exposed as dangerous, because the oxidizers can be effectively user-controlled.

My position is that when the Sharp odor sensors persistently activate the plasma-ions;

1. there is a pollutant which needs removing,
2. users are better off letting the oxidizer work, while they leave the room, than staying to breathe the pollutant,
3. the sensor is trying to tell us something.

My Plasmacluster's dual sensors, constantly testing the air I breathe, are my best friends.

I am chemically sensitive and have few VOCs in my country home. In the Houston apartment, when the open window lets in some nasty air, the air purifier's air quality indicator and purple light tells me to turn up the IQAir. So I rarely let the plasma-ion generators work for long, and avoid direct exposure to the oxidants.

But there are numerous incidents of Plasmaclusters creating by products when under-installed (too large a room) or in very polluted environments (fresh solvent based paint remover and new oil based paint applied to bedroom furniture, while in the bedroom).

See this post with extensive discussion of ozone and plasma-ion partial oxidation: Sharp Air Purifier Washable Carbon Filter Sweet Odor .

I think that as an intelligent human being studying our situation as a species, you will begin to see a pattern emerging.

Once that occurs, you'll feel progreessively less frugal about protecting yourself from chemical (and increasingly, biological) threats in the uncertain future.

"Your servant here, he has been told
to say it clear, to say it cold:
It's over, it ain't going any further.....
I have seen the future, Brother,
it is murder."

Lenoard Cohen, The Future

Sincerely,

Ed