Health benefit/burden, PM2.5 removal effectiveness, and power consumption based comparison of common residential air-cleaning technologies in the United States

This modeling study compared the common air cleaners in U.S. residences based on averted disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) related to indoor PM2.5 concentration reduction and the DALYs resulted from carbon-di-oxide (CO2) emissions from power consumption. The technologies compared include mechanical fibrous filters, electret fibrous filters, and electronic air cleaners. For DALYs estimation, the indoor PM2.5 concentration and power consumption were first calculated and compared. These were then multiplied by the respective health damage factors. Air cleaners were compared under several indoor particle size distributions scenarios. A methodology was developed to evaluate the influence of the aging of air cleaners on the selected comparison criteria. The results suggest that the averted DALYs from indoor PM2.5 concentration reduction far supersedes the indirect DALYs associated with the operational power consumption of the air cleaners. Hence, the DALY-based ranking of the air cleaners considered was the same as that of their effectiveness to reduce indoor PM2.5 concentrations. However, the result should be taken with care as only the use-phase of air cleaners was considered. For future study, a complete life-cycle assessment is recommended. Considering aging can change the ranking of the air cleaners and is thus advised to be incorporated in further studies.