When we think of air purifiers, we think of HEPA filters. But not Atvio, a company that specializes in making anion-based air purifiers, including the Atvio Pebble – a personal air purifier. Pebble is in the news because just a day before, politician Shashi Tharoor had posed wearing it and posted the photo on his Twitter aka X feed. In the photo, Tharoor is posing with the Atovio team while wearing the pebble-shaped device as a pendant. However, after a few hours, Tharoor again tweeted saying that his Pebble has stopped working.

It seems Tharoor is a fan of portable air purifiers. Due to rising pollution in Delhi, where he lives as a politician, Tharoor apparently uses some wearable and portable air purifiers. Before this he was using Airtamer, a product similar to Atovio Pebble. But AirTamer is not made by any Indian company. It is pebble.

“Many people are asking me why I no longer wear an Airtimer around my neck, especially when air pollution in Delhi is at its worst,” Tharoor tweeted. “In quite simple terms, the device can no longer be charged. I have now discovered the India-made alternative Atovio, which claims to do the same job more cheaply. The young team making it came to me yesterday “I appreciated the sleek design of their product (which we are all wearing in the picture) and will be trying it out for a while.”

Unfortunately for Tharoor – and possibly the Atovio team – Pebble also apparently stopped charging. Because several hours later Tharoor tweeted again, “Alas, my Ativo stopped working today despite charging all night. Looks like some improvements are still in the works!”

While Tharoor is doing his trial and error with personal and wearable air purifiers, the question remains: what are these Atovio and AirTamer purifiers and do they actually work, especially in a city like Delhi where the air is so polluted that you Can often taste it. ,

Filter out, Anion in

Let’s start from the basics: When we think of air purifiers we think of HEPA filters. Almost all commonly available air purifiers are essentially blow-in and blow-out air machines, with layers of filters sandwiched between this dirty and clean air. When you buy air purifiers from Dyson, Philips, Xiaomi, and other companies, essentially you buy a box that contains a few motors and a lot of filters. One motor draws in ambient air, pushes it through a filter and then the other motor expels clean air.

But personal air purifiers like the Atovio Pebble don’t use filters. Instead, they use ions to clean the air. Although companies like AirTamer and Atovio tout this technology as new, it is not exactly new or novel. It has been used sporadically for decades. Atovio says its devices generate ions – negatively charged particles – and release them into the air. These ions attach to surrounding elements in the air – including pollutants, viruses and bacteria. And by attaching themselves to the particles they charge them and force them to stick together.

The idea is that if you wear something like the Atovio Pebble around your neck, it will clean the air you breathe. And to highlight whether Pebble is effective, Atovio talks about testing its Ion technology in partnership with IIT Kanpur, although on its website it does not provide any specific details of the study.

While cleaning the air with ions sounds very high-tech and almost magical, one reason regular air purifiers – with filters and accessories – are becoming more prevalent and popular is that no one has conclusively proven, until now. have shown that ions can actually make the air cleaner, and especially in outdoor spaces like the streets of Delhi. In fact, most ion purifiers around the world are known as health devices, effective against viruses and bacteria, that can be used by people in confined spaces such as doctor’s clinics or airplanes. Rarely are ion-based air purifiers sold as regular air purifiers.

Their effectiveness is also under doubt. Consumer Reports, a fairly respected organization in the US, has called anion-based air purifiers ineffective compared to HEPA air purifiers. This led to a lawsuit against Consumer Reports in 2003 by a company called The Sharper Image. However, the court dismissed the case and forced The Sharper Image to pay Consumer Reports’ legal fees. This ultimately led to air purifier users suing The Sharper Image. After failing to defend its products, The Sharper Image went bankrupt.

However, The Sharper Image’s fate has not diminished the appeal of the ion-based air purifier as various companies around the world continue to tout it as a “revolutionary” technology.

Solution to Delhi’s polluted air

As some parts of the world are becoming more and more polluted, there are many companies that are pushing personal air purifiers. Atovio is not alone. Even Dyson recently launched a product called Zone, which consisted of a headphone and a wearable mask — it used filters and ions — that people could wear while traveling. Although the product was effective to some extent, it did not find takers due to its awkward design and weight.

Unlike the Dyson Zone, the Atovio Pebble or Airtimer products are more elegant solutions. But it also seems like they’re facing external circumstances that are too big to be solved by a small gadget, even if it was effective. Realistically, it is almost impossible to get clean air in large outdoor environments when the AQI is 300 or more in a city. The only hope is when you are inside a confined space. Indoors, especially if they are weather-sealed, it is possible to keep the air clean despite outdoor pollution. Similarly, it is possible to keep the air clean in confined spaces like cars and other vehicles. But no matter what technology or gadget you are using, it is not possible to get clean air while walking in a park when the AQI in Delhi is 500.