The new version of the air purifier standard has been implemented to promote product upgrading

The new standard of purification promotes product upgrading

The implementation of the new version of the air purifier standard can promote healthy competition in the industry, provide consumers with better products, and build a healthy and comfortable indoor living environment.

The recent frequent sand and dust weather has triggered heated discussions, and air purifiers have attracted the attention of consumers. Now is the time for air purifiers to change to the new national standard: the national standard of "GB/T18801-2022 air purifier" was released on October 2022, 10 and implemented on May 12, 2023.

The new national standard replaces the old standard of air purifiers in 2015, which has been implemented for many years, what are the changes worth paying attention to? Under the new national standard, what should consumers pay attention to when choosing air purifiers? How can manufacturers adapt to new standards and launch new products?

A new wind vane for the industry

Air purifier refers to products that can adsorb, decompose or convert various air pollutants to effectively improve indoor air cleanliness. Indoor environmental pollutants and pollution sources mainly include radioactive gases, mold, viruses, particles, decoration residues, second-hand smoke, etc. The functions of air purifiers in sterilization, dust and haze removal, and odor removal make more and more consumers who value respiratory health willing to pay for it.

Data show that about 70% of the global market's air purifiers are produced in China, and there are currently more than 20,<> air purification related enterprises in China.

The update of air purifier standards is closely related to the changing needs of consumers. In recent years, consumers' demand is no longer simply for haze purification, but also hopes to remove gaseous pollutants such as formaldehyde and toluene and microbial pollutants such as bacteria and viruses, and improve air quality and living standards to become a new vane in the air purification industry.

"The revision of the air purifier standard is to adapt to changes in consumer demand and the upgrade of new product features." Zhao Shuang, deputy director of the Standards Research Department of China Household Electrical Appliances Research Institute, said that with the improvement of China's atmospheric environment quality, the indoor purification goals that consumers are concerned about have changed from particulate pollutants in the past to other pollutants in indoor air. With the empowerment of intelligent technology and new purification technology, the product functions of air purifiers have also shown a diversified and personalized development trend, and some test methods for new functions need to be improved. This series of changes has promoted the timely revision of air purifier standards.

"The revision and implementation of the new national standard has injected new requirements and norms into the current market, and well interpreted the concept of standard service products and standards adapting to the market, I believe that under the framework of the new national standard, the entire empty market will be more standardized, consumers will also buy better products, so that the entire industry can achieve sustainable development." Chen Laixing, R&D director of air purifiers of Lake Electric Co., Ltd., said.

"For enterprises, standards are the basis and basis for designing and producing products, if a product does not have corresponding normative standards, it is irresponsible to enterprises and the general public." Liu Ning, product manager of filter element development of Beijing Zhimi Technology Co., Ltd., introduced that in recent years, purifier manufacturers have designed and developed many new products that meet the needs of the public, filter, electrostatic, catalytic, plasmatic, adsorption, ozone, composite and other air purifiers with different working principles have been put into the market, in this case, the 2015 version of the air purifier national standard can not fully meet the existing needs, need to be revised to play a standardized, guiding and demonstration role.

"As a functional product, air purifiers have always been the focus of spot checks by the State Administration for Market Regulation. In the past two years, the failure rate of spot checks of air purifier products in the circulation field has been high, indicating that the overall safety level and performance level of the product still need to be improved. Li Yi, director of the Health Home Appliance Testing Center of Zhongjia Yuan (Beijing) Testing and Certification Co., Ltd., said that the international IEC 63086 air purifier performance series standard being formulated also refers to many test methods in the new national standard, which is enough to prove the advanced nature of the new national standard in the world.

Enhance the leadership of standards

What are the main highlights of the revision of the standard? What does it mean for consumers?

"The new national standard adheres to the consumer-centric concept and continuously enhances the leading role of standards. Through scientific evaluation methods to solve consumers' doubts, through the improvement of technical requirements so that consumers can buy good products that are both good and can be used. Zhao Shuang said.

From the perspective of consumers, the new national standard has four highlights worth paying attention to.

The first is to pay attention to the long-term indicators of the product to avoid consumers being misled by products with high initial performance indicators but relatively low lifespan. The new national standard correlates the CADR value of clean air volume of particulate matter and gaseous pollutants (formaldehyde) with the CCM value of cumulative purification capacity, and establishes the correspondence between product optimization design and filter materials, CADR reflects initial performance, CCM reflects durability. "The concept of CADR and CCM correlation indicators for purification capacity was introduced into the national standard for the first time, making it easier for consumers to identify when choosing." Chen Laixing said.

The second is to improve the relevant test methods for the removal of gaseous pollutants. Considering the real use environment of air purifiers, the new national standard proposes the experimental method of mixed loading of gaseous pollutants and the experimental method of dynamic equilibrium, which solves the problem that the directivity of removing pollutants in the original standard is too biased.

Third, in response to social concerns, a method for evaluating the virus removal ability of purifiers is proposed. Consumers are particularly concerned about whether air purifiers can remove viruses and whether secondary pollution will occur during use. In this regard, the new national standard is based on a large number of test verification data, and adds a purifier to remove virus performance evaluation methods.

The fourth is to pay attention to the market segment of purifier products, and propose to evaluate the "odor concentration" by the qualitative method of "artificial olfend". China's consumer group is huge, and the differentiated demand for purifier products is significant. The removal of peculiar odors and secondary odors caused by use has become a performance indicator that some consumers pay attention to. However, due to the complexity and diversity of odor components, and the different perception ability of different groups of people, it is difficult to establish a correspondence between instrument measurement data and consumers' senses. Therefore, the new national standard adopts the qualitative evaluation method of "artificial olfactory discrimination" to evaluate the secondary odor generated by the air purifier and the ability to remove the odor.

Liu Ning introduced that the new national standard has also added many specifications that are more in line with the needs of the people, such as standardizing the silent mode of the product to ensure sleep quality; The standby power has been re-re-standardized, and products with high energy consumption will not be able to meet the standard; Added allergen removal performance, automatic mode purification performance, wearable purifier performance and other test methods.

How to adapt to the new national standard

How do air purifier manufacturers adapt to the new national standard?

"With the release and implementation of the new national standard, the air purifier industry will enter a stage of high-quality development." Zhao Shuang believes that enterprises should have an in-depth understanding of the new national standard, update the internal control standards of the enterprise in a timely manner according to the requirements of the new national standard, and complete the replacement of the whole process specification standards such as product design, production and testing as soon as possible. At the same time, accelerate the digestion of inventory products and products that have entered the market to ensure that the products produced and sold after the transition period meet the new national standard. It is necessary to gain insight into consumers' feelings and needs, focus on market segments, and use the test and evaluation methods recommended in the new national standard to achieve the transformation from meeting market demand to guiding market demand.

"Xiaomi air purifier has been the first in national sales for 6 consecutive years, relying on advanced technology and rigorous quality awareness. Xiaomi's existing products on sale meet the requirements of the new national standard. Liu Ning said that as a member of China's air purifier manufacturing industry, Xiaomi actively participates in the formulation and revision of the new national standard to jointly improve the standard; The purifier design team is also based on the new national standard, has fully verified and checked the product, products that do not meet the requirements of the standard will be updated or removed from the shelves in time, and the products under development should be designed to meet or exceed the new national standard, and the market praise rate after the release of new products is close to 100%.

"Lake is a staunch supporter, follower and beneficiary of the new national standard." Chen Laixing said that during the revision of the new national standard, Lake actively participated in various thorough tests organized by the home appliance institute to identify its own shortcomings and improve them, and also provided strong data support for the setting of various indicators of the new national standard; After the preliminary finalization of the new national standard, organize the company's internal product testing in accordance with the requirements of the new national standard to ensure that the test results sent to the third party are within the acceptable range; During the buffer period after the implementation of the new national standard, the relevant listed products will be sent to a third-party institution for testing of the new national standard project to ensure that the newly produced products meet the relevant requirements of the new national standard.

Chen Laixing told reporters that according to the new national standard design and manufacture of air purifier products, Lake now has two on the market, sales have steadily increased. "In the past two years, the sales of the empty net market have continued to decline due to the impact of the general environment, which is due to many reasons. However, with the implementation of the new national standard, the market will be more standardized, and I believe that the air purifier consumer market will slowly pick up. (Economic Daily reporter She Huimin)