CRI听力:Air Purifier Market Lacks Standards

The Shanghai consumer rights watchdog bought 22 air purifiers. Their prices ranged from 1,400 yuan to 9,300 yuan, mainly the medium and high end products.

The test used cigarette smoke as the test pollutant.

Shen Hao senior engineer of the General Station of Shanghai Environmental Protection Product Quality Supervision explains how the test works.

"This test is about the air quantity the purifier can clean. It tests a purifier's capability. The readings show the number of the pollutants remaining in the test box."

Only 3 out of the 22 purifiers could purify close to or over 99 percent of the air pollutants in the test box. Fourteen purifiers filtering ability reached between 90 to 99 percent. Three were between 80 and 90 percent, The remaining two was below 80 percent.

In the next test, engineer used formaldehyde as the pollutant. Test results showed that none of the purifiers' efficiency reached 99 percent, only one reached 90 percent. Three of the tested purifiers were between 70 to 80 percent. The performances of the remaining purifiers were also disappointing.

Tao Ailian, standing deputy secretary of Shanghai consumer rights protection committee says the general performance of the tested purifiers is unsatisfactory.

"May of the purifier manufacturers claim they can effectively erase the particulate matters and formaldehyde. But from the test results, we can see their efficiency is not as good as advertised."

Tao says the market of air purifiers is booming, but the industry lacks unified standards.

"We hope to push forward the perfecting of the standard. Meanwhile we hope to get the attention of the related departments. Because this is a new product and a new market, the manufacturers may exaggerate the capability or mislead the consumers."

Since January 1 this year, real-time air quality monitoring data on PM2.5 intensity in China's 74 major cities is available at www.cnemc.cn.

The move is considered a big improvement in air quality monitoring, and made at the strong request of the public.

PM2.5 intensity and other air quality information in these 74 cities is also available through mobile phones.

China is proceeding with its urban air quality monitoring program in stages and aims to cover all prefecture-level cities by 2016.