China sets new standards for air purifiers

Standards are expected to curb deliberate misleading by producers about the effectiveness of purifiers

 
By DTE Staff
Published: Friday 21 November 2014

Smog in Beijing

China released new draft national standards today to bring uniformity in the performance of air purifiers in the country. According to an official release, the draft standards will set more specific parameters to measure their performance.

Of these is “clean air delivery rate”, the number of cubic units of air per minute delivered with all particles of a given size removed. They also include indices for the evaluation of the service life of purifiers. The standards propose that all purifiers must be clearly marked with their service life and volume of space for which they provide effective filtering.

There is high demand for air purifiers in China due to worsening air pollution in the country. Total purifier sales have crossed 2.4 million units, the release said, quoting Nanfang Daily.

In a report on October 29, the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Industry and Commerce said that producers and sellers were misleading consumers by projecting that the purifiers worked more efficiently than their actual performance.

In a spot check by the Shanghai Bureau of Quality and Technical Supervision in December, 17 of 20 air purifiers did not function as effectively as advertised.

 

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