Air is safe for one and all

Beijing Particle Levels

Air is safe for one and all

Ah, there is nothing like enjoying a mocha latte while reading the morning
paper at a Starbucks in Beijing. This morning the China Daily, China’s
official English language newspaper, announced that the air in Beijing is
safe to breathe. Apparently, the government’s efforts to clean up the air
as we approach the opening of the 2008 Olympic Games has been successful.

Unfortunately, there appears to be something wrong with my own air quality monitoring equipment. It seems some kind of malfunction was making the darn thing read 25 million particles per cubic foot (PC 0.3), and no matter how many times I retested I couldn’t get the thing to come down.

This entry was written by Kirk Sullivan. It was posted on August 6, 2008 at 5:36 pm.
Kirk Sullivan is a 25 year PR veteran. Since starting with IQAir in 2003 he has supervised our Â³special projectsÂ² to help raise awareness about good air cleaning technology. He has helped build the worldÂ¹s first clean room for a sick orangutan. He created the popular Clean Air team on ABCÂ¹s Â³Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.Â² And yes, he once really did lock Frank in a glass chamber and fire in tear gas with a grenade launcher (don't try this at home) to show the amazing innovations that are being accomplished in the world of air cleaning.

Beijing Weblog
archive
- Now live: Clean Air Home - Los Angeles Aug 22, 2008
  Three weeks after launching CleanAirApartment.com from Beijing, China, we have put our second ultra-clean home online. Located in sunny Southern California, this 1928 Spanish style home demonstrates that you do not have to live in…more
- CleanAirApartment.com is going global Aug 20, 2008
  We’ve received a great reception to CleanAirApartment over the last few weeks, so we’ve decided to take it global. We will start to wire homes and apartments around the world that use ultra-high efficiency air purification. On a…more
- 96% less PM10 and PM2.5 air in Beijing (Clean Air Apartment)! Aug 10, 2008
  Six days ago we took a not so healthy apartment in Beijing and outfitted it with some of the most advanced air purification on the planet. Today we have for the first time achieved our…more
- Where is all the dust? Aug 9, 2008
  Beijing homes, like most other homes, are known to need regular dusting. The dusty air from outside combines with house dust to build up a visible layer on glass surfaces and dark furniture. Since we…more
Introduction
We started the CleanAirApartment.com project while we were in Beijing, China for the 2008 Olympic Games. Beijing is a city known around the world for its air pollution problem, and we were there to work with the U.S. Olympic Committee on "Operation Clean Air" - a first-of-a-kind project to outfit US athlete residential and training facilities with ultra-high efficiency air cleaning.

We knew we would be living in Beijing ourselves during this project, and we thought it would be really interesting to see just what levels of air cleaning we could get in our own apartment.

We installed advanced air purification and wired the apartment indoors and outdoors with sophisticated air quality monitoring so that people worldwide could observe our progress. We were surprised ourselves when our measurements showed up to 99% improvement when compared to the outdoor air.

Going Global
Now we are taking Clean Air Apartment global and will be adding different homes around the world to prove the concept that advanced air purification can help create healthy living environments no matter where you live. The air cleaning systems used will vary from home to home depending on different aspects of the homes' designs. They will be a mix of existing and new technologies, depending on what is needed to create the healthiest possible indoor environment.

What the Measurements Mean
For our air quality tests we currently use laser-based particle counters. Our data is based on three times daily collections, between 8 AM and 8 PM.

All three measurements (PM10, PM2.5 and PC0.3) refer to airborne particles. PM 10 refers to particle mass (total weight) of suspended particles less than 10 microns in size. It is heavily biased toward large dust. PM 2.5 refers to the particle mass (total weight) of suspended particles less than 2.5 microns in size. It is a better indicator for particles that are actually harmful to human health. PC 0.3 refers to the total number of airborne particles (particle count) 0.3 microns in size. It is one of the best indicators for harmful fine and ultra-fine particles generated by automobiles and industry.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) guideline for PM 10 is 50 µg/m3, 24 hours mean and 20 µg/m3, annual mean. The WHO guideline for PM 2.5 is 25 µg/m3, 24 hours mean and 10 µg/m3, annual mean. There are currently no official health standards for PC 0.3. However, many air quality experts agree that particle count is a better indicator of air quality than PM 10 or PM 2.5, because small particles that contribute little to particle mass are the most dangerous in terms human health.

Air Quality Cam