How to build a homemade air purifier

As we already know, having good air quality in our home is very important to contribute to a good general health for the whole family. Here we are going to see how we can build a home air purifier reusing some materials that we can have at home.

Para disponer de una buena calidad de aire podemos seguir una serie de consejos tales como:

	Ventilate the house daily to renew any air that may be loaded. It is good to take advantage of the first hours of the morning or the last hours of the day, when it is not hot and the breeze is soft. In times of pollen, such as spring, it is advisable to take advantage of it to ventilate at sunset, as long as there is no wind blowing, since that is when less pollen circulates in the air. We will avoid opening the windows to ventilate the house at times when it is very windy.
	We will provide ourselves with a few indoor plants to place in common areas such as the living room. Remember that the cycle of plants is to absorb CO2 during the day and release oxygen, this process occurs thanks to the sun’s rays through the process known as photosynthesis. At night, in the absence of sunlight, the process is reversed, absorbing oxygen and releasing CO2, so we will avoid placing plants inside bedrooms. We do not want them to make it difficult for us to rest by taking away oxygen and increasing CO2. There has been much talk that having plants inside bedrooms can be dangerous, but for this we should have the room full of them, as if it were a jungle. In any case, we will avoid placing them there, since the bedrooms are not a place where we spend time during the day and therefore we would not enjoy their purifying effect either.
	We must also control the level of relative humidity in the air, trying to keep it between 40% and 60% using humidifiers or dehumidifiers depending on whether we have a lack or excess of humidity. Too much humidity can lead to the growth of mold, which is a pathogen that can cause serious problems in the respiratory tract.
	Avoid accumulation of dust by vacuuming it regularly, thus preventing the proliferation of dust mites.
	Avoid smoking indoors, since tobacco smoke easily permeates fabrics, furniture and walls, and is difficult to remove.

How to build a home air purifier?

In addition to these tips that are very good to keep the air in our house in healthy conditions we can help ourselves with an air purifier which, as we can see in this article , it brings us many benefits by getting an air free of pollen, dust, mites, bad smells and other pollutants.

In this article we are going to see how we can build an air purifier ourselves taking advantage of disused materials that we can have at home while we can spend a fun afternoon doing DIY and learning how to recycle with the little ones.

Materials to build the air purifier

• A PVC pipe about 30 cm long and 12 cm in diameter.
• 2 computer fans of which can go inside the tower or inside a power supply.
• 2 caps with screw cap for the pipe of the same diameter (12 cm) to close the ends. These caps will fit inside the PVC tube so its diameter is somewhat smaller.
• A computer power supply.
• Grid metal mesh.
• 600 micron filter paper (such as for filtering coffee).
• Activated carbon
• Silicone to stick
• Electrical strip for two-contact connections

Steps to follow to build the air purifier

1. Make a hole in the pipe where we will let the cables out of the fans.
2. Cut the corners of the fans so that they can go inside the pipe.
3. Place each of the fans at one end of the 30 cm pipe so that they circulate the air in the same direction, that is, one will help to introduce the air inside the pipe while the other will force it out.
   We will place the fans inwards, at least the cm measured by the flange of the covers that we are going to fit inside the tube.
4. We will join the ends of the two black cables of the fans by twisting them together so that they make contact and then we will do the same with the two red cables.
5. Bring the cables out of the fans through the hole we made.
6. We will fix the fans to the tube with the silicone.
7. Remove the screw caps from the PVC caps leaving only the frame.
8. Cut 4 pieces of metal mesh in a round shape with the same diameter as the cap frames.
9. Cut 4 pieces of filter paper in a round shape of the same diameter as above.
10. Place the metal mesh in the inside hole of the PVC cover frame.
11. Place a filter paper on top of the mesh.
12. We will fix both to the frame of the PVC cover with silicone.
13. We will pour the activated carbon on top of the filter paper.
14. On top of the carbon we will place another paper and then another mesh and we will fix them with silicone.
15. This cover with the active carbon filter will be placed at the end of the tube where the air will enter.
16. Now on the other lid we will place a metal mesh the two remaining pieces of paper and the other metal mesh to finish.
17. We will fix it with silicone and place this cap on the other end of the PVC tube
18. Now we will take the black wire from the power supply and screw it to a contact on the strip and the other end, from the same contact on the strip, will screw the two black wires from the fans that we have previously braided between them. We will do the same with the other contact by inserting the power cable of the source into the first end according to the fan voltage and the other the two red twisted cables from the fans:
    • Orange: +3.3 V
    • Red: +5 V
    • Yellow: +12 V
19. To turn on the source, we will dot the green (ignition) wire of the source with a black one (ground or GND). Instead of tapping them directly, we can mount a switch between these two cables if we want to be able to turn the fans on and off without having to connect and disconnect the source from the power outlet each time.

And if we have done everything right when connecting the power supply to a power outlet everything should work correctly.

We have already managed to build our homemade air purifier cheaply and taking advantage of and giving a new use to materials that otherwise would have had to go to a recycling center.

If at any time you want to buy an air purifier

You may not want to spend money buying a air purifier or you simply want to give a new use to those materials that you no longer use to make your own purifier but it never hurts to have one of these devices in various places of the house.

If none of these convince you, visit our section of air purifiers for all tastes and with affordable prices for all budgets.

Other articles that may interest you

Where to place an air purifier?

What is an air purifier and when is it good to use?

Humidifiers What are they for and when to use them?