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Until now, your options for reducing viruses, smoke, dust, dander, pollen, and other kinds of particle pollution in your home or office were more or less the same:
HEPA or HEPA-style air purifiers have different shapes, sizes, and features, but the way they remove particles is the same: using a mechanical pleated fiber filter and a fan. HEPA has been called the gold standard of air purification. More to the point, it has been only standard for portable air purifiers for a long time.
Now, you’ve got another option: Employing APART™, a patented particle removal technology, Brio is an innovative alternative to HEPA and HEPA-style air purifiers. The Brio Air Purifier offers constant effectiveness without clogging and a lower cost to own than most HEPA air purifiers in the same size category.
What’s wrong with HEPA air filters for your home?
It's not that HEPA-style purifiers are a bad option. A well-designed, better-quality mechanical air purifier will remove particulate pollution. In fact, HEPA filtration was designed over 80 years ago to protect workers developing the atomic bomb, by filtering particles that had radiation contamination. True HEPA filters, as per the US government standard, must remove 99.97% of particles that are 0.3 microns or larger. The 0.3-micron size is the most penetrating particle size (MPPS)—in other words, the hardest size to capture.
Today, the term HEPA is used in a more general way to refer to a high-efficiency filter, and there are no testing requirements to ensure a HEPA-style filter is actually at or above the HEPA standard. HEPA has become a shorthand, marketing term for a range of mechanical, fiber-based filters, with names like HEPA-style, HEPA-like and even just HEPA, which may or may not perform at the original HEPA standard.
HEPA filters, as originally designed, were highly efficient. It’s just that efficiency alone isn’t enough. Especially when it prevents effectiveness.
Effectiveness tops efficiency
All HEPA air purifiers have the same limitation: they use a particle collection technology which focuses on efficiency instead of effectiveness. HEPA-style purifiers efficiently block and trap particles so they can't pass through the filter. That sounds good, but as particles are drawn into the filter, it clogs.
The filter becomes even more efficient as it clogs, because it lets fewer particles through; But it also becomes less effective as clogging reduces the purifier airflow and clean air delivery rate (CADR) into the room.
As airflow is reduced, the air isn't getting cleaned as quickly, and all the while, additional pollution is coming into the room, making it a challenge to overcome the problem and clean the air. Time only compounds this problem, as the air gets dirtier, and the HEPA air purifier falls further behind in its task. Airflow is the key to air purification. No airflow. No air purification.
Practically speaking, as the filter clogs and the clean air delivery rate drops, the room size or living space that can be effectively purified gets smaller and smaller. For example, you might have thought your air purifier was suited to a 400 square foot room, but if, after a month or two, the clean air delivery rate has dropped by half or more, the room size it can clean in the same amount of time also drops.
So, the technology underlying HEPA air purifier efficiency--blocking particles from passing through the filter—is also its weakness. HEPA air purifiers can't get around this declining effectiveness problem. It's how they are designed to work. All of them.
The solution? Until now, the only solution was very frequent filter changes. Perhaps even three to four times the replacement frequency suggested by the manufacturer. Which is both expensive and a nuisance, and only briefly returns the air purifier to peak effectiveness—until the clogging starts all over again.
A better choice for effectiveness: Brio
For more effective air purification, the Brio Air Purifier with APART™ Advanced Particle Removal Technology is a better choice. Rather than pushing air and particles into a clogging mechanical filter, Brio draws particles away from the air flow. Viruses, gas stove combustion, woodfires, smoke, dust, mold, and pollen, among other particles, are electrostatically charged and attracted to and trapped in dense foam within the APART Collection Cartridge.
With APART technology, the clean air delivery rate (CADR) stays constant, and effectiveness stays high until the high-capacity, long-life collection cartridge is completely full.
Cost to Own over Time is the Key to Affordability
The best way to evaluate the affordability of any air purifier is with some simple math. Start with the purchase price and add to that the annual filter replacement costs and annual energy costs and multiply this by the number of air purifiers in your home or office. In this calculation, what stands out is the cost for filter replacement.
Because HEPA filters clog, often quite quickly, changing the filter frequently enough to combat declining effectiveness can be expensive and annoying chore if you have just one air purifier which you need to change 4-6 times a year. But think about having multiple air purifiers: with three air purifiers in a home, you could be buying and replacing 12-18 filters per year to maintain peak effectiveness.
Brio’s long-life, high-capacity APART Collection Cartridge can last 12 months or more, with no drop in peak performance. This small annual filter cartridge replacement cost gives Brio a more affordable cost profile than many HEPA-style or HEPA air purifiers. When you look over several years, and with multiple air purifiers in a home or office, the difference can be surprising.
Brio does what HEPA can't.
With Brio’s innovative, patented APART technology, you can enjoy constant effectiveness and no cost surprises. With Brio, you get better indoor air, by design.
Find out more about Brio.