On Wed, 01 Jun 2005 03:33:19 -0400, wrote:



Begging your pardon, but this is simply not true. A negative ion is _any_
atom with an extra electron attached to it (or two, or however many you
can get to stick.) Ozone is a specific compound, chemical formula O3.
Simply a molecule comprising three oxygen atoms.

Mind you, ozone is a _by-product_ whenever there is ion generation going
on, but the idea that "negative ions" and "ozone" are the same is terribly,
deeply, mistaken. My intent here is not to hurt your feelings, but I guess
I'd have to say I'm on a crusade to prevent this kind of misinformation
from being promulgated as if it were fact.

Yes, you are correct, literally.

But, where you find negative ions, you will find ozone in the same
air. And, any voltage that is instrumental in producing negative ions
will also produce ozone.

Literally, they are not the same, you are absolutely correct. But,
with respect to the air purifiers...a negative ion generator must also
produce ozone.

I think it's not even necessarily true that it "must" produce
ozone - Dave Platt, in another part of the thread, seems to have
had a good experience with a negative ion generator that didn't
produce any ozone, and he seems to indicate that his eyes are
a very sensitive ozone detector.

And, do you remember those atomic phonograph record brushes? It
had some polonium or something in it, which spits out alpha
particles, which are basically fast helium++ ions. They didn't
make any ozone, but they put out enough ions to discharge the static
that made the dust stick to the vinyl. Radioactive stuff is pretty
much illegal these days, otherwise you could make an ionizer with
just a few volts of DC; but I can see how it'd be possible to create
some ions without necessarily dissociating O2 into atomic oxygen.

And since ozone is not very stable in its own right, it probably
wouldn't be hard to come up with some catalytic ozone destroyer;
but in small quantities, ozone really does clean and deodorize the
air - it's a very aggressive oxidizer, you know. It bleaches the
dust mites to death. ;-)

Cheers!
Rich