Forget air purifiers – the world’s first ‘air steriliser’ is here, claiming to instantly inactivate Covid, cold and flu particles
- EcoAir AVS inactivates virus particles using heat
- Traditional air purifiers trap harmful microbes instead of inactivating them
- EcoAir’s claims have been independently verified by a scientific research firm
We’re all familiar with air purifiers, but air care equipment brand EcoAir has apparently gone one step further and launched what it claims is the world’s first air sterilizer. The EcoAir Anti-Covid AVS can apparently remove viruses and bacteria – including colds, flu and (you guessed it) Covid – from the air.
Today’s best air purifiers can only capture virus particles and not inactivate them. Is this new approach your new best defense against seasonal insects? I contacted Noel Fok, co-founder and CEO of EcoAir, to learn exactly how it works.
“A virus is not a living organism, so it cannot be killed. However, it can be inactivated or destroyed by exposure to heat,” Fok explains. “The EcoAir AVS air sterilizer eliminates 99.9% of viruses by removing them from the air and passing them through Thermo-Clean technology, which reaches a core temperature of over 200C (392F), inactivating harmful microbes .”
He adds: “AVS will kill bacteria because it is a living organism, through the same exposure to Thermo-Clean technology. In both cases, the harmful microbes are disintegrated by the heat and are not released back into the air.”
These claims have been independently tested and verified by MRIGlobal – a research organization focused on innovations in the field of health and safety.
It is also striking how quickly this ‘air sterilizer’ works. It can eliminate airborne viruses and bacteria in one go, and does so almost instantly, in just 0.01 seconds. Laboratory tests by MRIGlobal showed that the EcoAir AVS was able to inactivate 99.9% of viruses in a 30 m³ room in 90 minutes.
The future of air purifiers?
I also asked Fok to explain more about the advantages of the EcoAir AVS compared to a regular air purifier. “Traditional air purifiers capture and store microbes through the use of HEPA filters, which need to be replaced, adding costs,” he told me. “Inactivating the virus destroys it, meaning it cannot infect a living organism and become active, causing disease.”
The EcoAir AVS does that have a filter, but it is reusable and does not need to be replaced regularly. The nano silver filter should be washed every two weeks and EcoAir recommends replacing it every year.
There are other existing methods of destroying viruses and bacteria, although these are significantly slower than EcoAir AVS’s 0.01 second process. For example, ION systems require approximately 30 seconds and UV-C nine seconds.
Although the practical results of this device are comparable to those of a good air purifier, Fok’s claims that the AVS represents “a huge breakthrough, not only for EcoAir but for the industry as a whole” may be correct. The new process certainly seems more thorough and efficient, and it’s also not significantly more expensive than a good air purifier – the EcoAir Anti-Covid AVS is currently available for purchase via the EcoAir websitepriced at £349.98 (not currently available in the US or Australia, but that works out to around $430 / AU$700). Could this be the new technology that changes the way we purify air?