Air purifier industry standards need to be standardized

At present, the home ownership rate of air purifiers in China is less than 1%. According to relevant agencies, sales of air purifiers in China will maintain a high growth rate of 30%-35% in the next five years, and the total market volume in the next three years may reach 19.5 million units. With 25 million units and 34 million units, China's air purifier industry is expected to exceed 60 billion yuan by 2015 and reach 100 billion yuan by 2017.

Faced with the huge domestic market demand, the first turmoil was a foreign-owned household electrical appliance company and it took the lead in occupying the market by relying on its brand advantages and technological advantages in the industry.

Panasonic’s massive air purifiers market launched new air purifiers for white-collar beauty and children's markets last year. Mitsubishi Electric also announced that it will officially enter the air purifier market in China in January 2014.

Industry insiders told reporters: “The reason why this happens is that with air purifiers, this product is maturing abroad, but it is in China's early stage of development. Most consumers do not understand the product, brand promotion, popularity, goodwill As a priority for consumers to purchase products, some foreign brands that entered the country earlier, such as Philips, Sharp, Panasonic, etc., are relying on their strong brand appeal to attract first-time buyers, and retain regular buyers with quality advantages. For domestic brands, especially new entry companies, if they want to compete for a share in the market, improving product quality is the only way."

Brand chaos

The expansion of market demand has given birth to the emergence of various brands of air purifiers on the market, which are experiencing mixed quality and high prices. In particular, some miscellaneous brands misled the consumers by simply imitating and exaggerating propaganda and undermined the ecological environment of the entire industry.

The reporter found through visits that the functions of some products on the market are now varied and the principles of purification are dazzling. Some products are marked with the words "bactericidal, net odor, removal of formaldehyde, removal of PM2.5" and others, and some products are marked with "activated carbon", "HEPA filter layer" and other technical indicators.

According to the sales staff, the air purifiers equipped with different filtration systems have different targeted purifying effects. The activated carbon adsorption ability is very strong, and they can effectively adsorb harmful substances (such as dust, particles, free molecules, bacteria, etc.) in indoor air; Oxygen ion purifier can remove secondhand smoke significantly and effectively remove dust, and can effectively enhance blood oxygen carrying capacity by about 20%. It has obvious elimination effect on indoor odor.

At the same time, some products are also suspected of exaggeration in advertising. The words “PM2.5 removal rate 99.99%” and “99% formaldehyde purification rate” appear to have become the standard for each air purifier. However, unlike refrigerators, televisions, and other products that can be seen at a glance, it is difficult for ordinary citizens to verify whether the purifier is reliable.

Previously, Shanghai conducted spot checks on the air purification products in the market, and randomly selected 22 prototypes for testing. The result was that 14 of them had inconsistent actual product specifications with product labels, and the pass rate was less than 20%.

“At present, there is no certification standard in the purifier market, and there is no authority on the 'certification' of companies themselves, and product prices are confusing. Consumers are confused about the difference between high-priced and low-priced products.” Insiders said, “In fact, it is concerned about the effectiveness of air purifiers. The number of consumers is very large.To clarify market chaos, on the one hand, companies need to strengthen self-discipline, followed by the implementation of industry-enforced standards is equally urgent.

Build unified evaluation standards and platforms

Currently, some purifier manufacturers in the market can advertise their products and their purification rate can reach 99.99%. Many industry experts do not agree with this. There are some imperfections in China's current evaluation standards for air purifiers, such as the use of terms that are not easily understood by non-professionals, incomplete indicators, and unstandardized labeling. Zhu Tianle said.

Song Guangsheng, director of the National Indoor Vehicle Environment and Environmental Product Quality Supervision and Inspection Center, once told the media that the current testing units are not standardized, and exaggerating the effect of purification is more serious. Some 30 cubic meters of test cabins were tested, and some of them were 1 cubic meter. Naturally, the results were different. The shorter the detection time after opening the purifier the better, but some open 40 minutes, some open 4 hours, the results are not comparable.

According to Zhu Tianle, under the support of scientific and technological projects such as the National 863 Program and Supporting Program, through technical research, China has formed a series of indoor air purification technologies and components adapted to the characteristics of China's indoor air pollution. Currently, it has entered or is undergoing industrialization and transformation. Application phase.

In December 2013, the National Standardization Committee has initiated the revision of the existing national standards for air purifiers. This revision aims to improve product technical indicators for different characteristic pollutants, refine the experimental methods, facilitate consumer understanding, and increase the applicable The method of conversion of area and air cleanliness, while improving product labeling requirements. Recently, the AQSIQ spokesman said that the new national air purifier will be announced as soon as possible. In this regard, whether the chaos in the market can be eased can not help but look forward to.

Air purifiers are products that can absorb, decompose, or convert various air pollutants and effectively improve air cleanliness. In the home, medical, industrial applications. Due to the persistence and uncertainty of the release of air pollutants in relatively closed spaces, the use of air purifiers to purify indoor air is an internationally recognized method of improving indoor air quality. Consumers still have to choose the purifier according to their own needs, formaldehyde and other harmful gases are "chemical pollution", and PM2.5 and other human inhalable particulate matter is "physical pollution", the removal principle of the two is not the same, a purification The device does not solve all problems.