What is Smoke Filter?

What is Smoke Filter?
If there is nothing else you can do to reduce your and your family's exposure to smoke, an air purifier is your next best option. Before you start looking for one, you need to know exactly what you're dealing with. As mentioned earlier, it is not easy for an air purifier to handle the smoke. This is because smoke consists of two main types of pollutants: fine particles and gases, and often an air cleaner is designed to filter one or the other, not both.
Details on the Smoke Filter
particulate matter
 The first major type of pollutant in smoke is particulate matter or fine particles. Particulate matter in smoke is a mixture of solid and liquid droplets suspended in the air. While some of these smoke particles you can see are dark or large enough to be seen with the naked eye, others are so small that they can only be seen with an electron microscope. These fine particles are particularly harmful to health because they are small enough to enter the lungs and can cause burning in the eyes, runny nose and even lung disease. The size of particulate matter in smoke can be smaller than 0.1 micrometer.
gas pollutants
 Particulate matter is serious enough, but it's only half the story. Smoke also contains harmful gases. These gaseous pollutants include gases associated with combustion such as carbon monoxide or nitrogen oxides. Other gaseous pollutants are organic chemicals that are separate from the particles; these organic chemicals are specifically called volatile organic compounds or VOCs. Known carcinogens are benzene and formaldehyde, VOCs among others.

How are air purifiers designed to remove fumes?
Now you know exactly what you're dealing with when it comes to smoke-harmful particles and gases. Why is it so important to understand this? This is because the best air purifier for smoke should reduce both. As mentioned earlier, air cleaners are often designed with one technology – either filtering particles or filtering gases. Watch out for some air purifiers that say they're best for smoke, but only filter out one type of pollutant.