subject: Best Room Air Purifier For Babies - A Brief History [print this page] These days, air purifiers are all the crazeThese days, air purifiers are all the craze. Every allergy sufferer, asthmatic and health nut in the world has one, but believe it or not, there was a time when we didn't have air purifiers. We simply breathed the air that was in our homes and in some way managed to survive. So when did this craze actually begin? How did it begin?
Types of air purification have really been available for over 200 years in some form or another, though most individuals do not realize it. The truth is, since the early 1800s, scientists have been trying to discover ways to make our air cleaner, long before the industrial revolution ever hit and California started to look like an outdoor barbecue on a high flame.
To kick this technology off, in the early 1800's, John and Charles Dean created a mask for fire fighters. This mask enabled them to go into burning buildings without having to get worried about being overcome by smoke fumes from the fire. Close to that same time, masks had been also created for divers and coal miners who had been constantly exposed to dangerous air; however it was not until the 1850s that the first gas mask was developed by John Stenhouse. The mask proved helpful on a charcoal based filter design, very similar to some of the air purifiers today. These original masks functioned on the principal of filtering out what they called "enemies" by utilizing a system known as High Efficiency Particulate Air or HEPA. Yes, the same HEPA filter systems we can buy today. Once they added charcoal to this system, it created a dramatic development because the charcoal was able to filter out multiple toxins.
However it was not until World War II when we got a few of the best breakthroughs in air filter systems. This came with the Manhattan Project. This was a venture that got scientists together from all around to work on a breathing device that would safeguard soldiers from the atomic bomb. While that was really laughable in itself, it did wind up in developments that helped fight chlorine gas, mustard gas and flame throwers.
Despite of all this, it was not until the 1980's that the clean air craze really took off. The concept of a dust free environment was all of the rage, practical or not. According to studies, HEPA filters, which had been the biggest rage of the era, filtered out 99.7% of all the allergens in the air and all micron culprits of size 0.3 and bigger. But advancements did not end there. Newer gadgets, for example Nebulizers, were able to filter out offenders of size 0.1 and bigger and still maintain the 99.7% filter level.
