Do Ionic Air Purifiers Remove Odors – Negative Ions And Ozone


Ionic air cleaners are great at removing tiny particles from our air, but their effectiveness against bad odors is more complex.

Standard ionic air ionizers are not effective in removing odors and gases. These air cleaners use negative ions to make solid contaminants heavy and fall from the air onto surfaces. However, air purifiers that combine an activated carbon filter and ionizer component can effectively remove odors.

In this article, we’ll explain why some air ionizers can effectively remove odors while others cannot, and how effective they are against different kinds of smells, including smoke, pets and mold.

Air Ionizers And Bad Smells

Ionic air purifiers, also known as ionizers, cannot directly control odors, however, they can mask a few odors.

Air ionizers work by making and sending out negative ions into the air. These negative ions surround the particles floating in the air and stick to them, making them too heavy to stay in the air.

These contaminants then fall on the ground or other nearby surfaces like walls, furniture, or tabletops.

Some air ionizers come with oppositely charged plates inside the unit to collect back these charged particles. The pollutants are no longer in the air, and your air is cleaner. But, they don’t actually remove the contaminants from the room.

In this way, air ionizers can remove 95% of the small particles from the air, some of which might cause bad smells.

However, most nasty odors are caused by gaseous pollutants not particles.

Gases, including odors, are not affected by the negative ions produced by air ionizers, at least certainly not in the same way particulate pollutants are affected.

This is why standard ionic air purifiers and ionizers cannot remove or reduce the bad smells

Ozone Generators

There are some air ionizers that do control odors, but they do this by using a method that can harm human health. They use a high voltage to create large amounts of negative ions, producing ozone as a by-product. Ozone produced by these ionizers (known as ozone generators) can control odors by:

  • Chemically altering the volatile organic compounds
  • Masking the odors with its own smell

Ozone is a highly reactive gas that can quickly combine with odor-causing gases changing them chemically and helping ‘remove’ odors, including the pickle-like smell of formaldehyde.

But ozone itself has a chemical-like odor that is similar to chlorine and is a toxic gas. We do not recommend ozone generators.

Activated Carbon And Ionizers

While ionizers can’t remove odors, ionic air purifiers that have an activated carbon filter can.

In fact, standard air purifiers that have a HEPA and activated carbon filter are perfect for removing most contaminants and smells.

However, if you like having an ionizer there are air purifiers that combine other types of air purification with an ionizer component.

These purifiers can combine any of these methods, but it’s the activated carbon filter that will remove odors:

  • A pre-filter (for large particles)
  • HEPA filter (for small particles)
  • UV light (for germs)
  • Activated carbon filters (for gases and odors)
  • Ionizer (reducing particles in the air)

For example:

The Clarifion Air Ionizer combines an ionizer, HEPA filter and activated carbon filter to remove both particle contaminants and odors.

Some air purifiers are even available as 5-in-1 units where they combine 5 methods of purification to completely clean the air in our home, such as:

The TotalClean PetPlus Air Purifier from Homedics. It has an activated carbon odor filter, pre-filter, ionizer, HEPA filter and UV-C light to efficiently clean the air.

Ultimately, any air purifier or ionizer that has an activated carbon filter can remove odors, but an ionic air purifier by itself cannot. Although, it can change some smells in unexpected ways.

Air Ionizers And Common Household Odors

Air ionizers can influence some smells even if they don’t have an activated carbon filter:

The smells that surround us are caused by volatilized chemical compounds that are present in the air.

Most of these compounds are organic and are known as VOC’s, and even when present in tiny amounts they can be detected by our noses. Although, our sense of smell varies from person to person – You might find some odors annoying or nauseating, while they might not bother your friends or family.

Of the most common smells in our homes, air ionizers can affect these the most:

Tobacco Smoke Smell

Tobacco smoke gives off multiple gaseous toxins and ash particles into the air. An ionizer can make the ash particles heavy and fall to the floor, but cannot do the same for the toxic gas.

However, the ozone from air ionizers can react with the nitric oxide in tobacco smoke, forming nitrogen dioxide, which isn’t as noxious smelling, but is still hazardous to human health.

Pet Odors

Pet odors come from pet fur, dander, or natural skin oils. An air ionizer can help with pet odors either by removing pet-related particulate matter (causing them to settle out of the air), but they then need to be vacuumed or cleaned up to remove the odor.

For more information on which air purifiers can remove pet hair, dander and odor read this.

Musty Odors

Musty odors are caused by mold and mildew, the fungus that releases spores and volatile organic compounds in the air. Air ionizers can eliminate fungal spores, but they do not affect the microbial volatile organic compounds that generate musty smells in the air.

Plentiful Air has more information on air purifiers that remove mold available here.

Cooking Smells

Most cooking smells are a mix of volatile organic compounds. An ionizer’s ozone by-product can help with some of the VOCs from cooking but it’s far from a perfect solution. In fact…

Ozone can be used in reducing odors and pollutants in unoccupied spaces (such as removing smoke odors from homes involved in fires) the levels needed to achieve this are above those generally thought to be safe for humans.

UNITED STATES ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY (EPA)

The best solution to the problem of the large amounts of ozone generated (and needed) to remove odors, is an air purifier that combines standard activated carbon filters with an ionizer component.

Air purifiers with ionizers should not be confused with ozone air purifiers (‘ozone generators’) that produce ozone to clean the air.

Ionic air purifiers have the benefit of negative ions, but do not produce vast amounts of ozone. Instead they rely on safe, filtration methods to remove more than 99.97% of air pollutants as small as 0.3 microns and far more odor-causing gases, than an ozone generator could ever remove.

So, What’s the difference between Air Ionizers and Ozone Air Purifiers?

Air ionizers rely on negative ions to purify the air and produce small amounts of ozone as a by-product. In contrast, ozone air purifiers draw in oxygen and make large amounts of ozone (more than 5,000 mg of Ozone per hour), which they directly use to purify the air.

Ozone is a toxic gas, and is not safe to use in the presence of people or pets. It also has a strong, chlorine-like smell, while ionized air does not smell.

Theresa Orr

Theresa Orr holds a PhD in Earth Science and specializes in determining past climates from rocks using geochemistry. Her passion for clean water, soil and air drives her to provide easy to understand information for everyone to read.

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