Can Ozone Generators Control Indoor Air Pollution?
Available scientific evidence shows that at concentrations that do not exceed public health standards, ozone has little potential to remove indoor air contaminants. Some manufacturers or vendors suggest that ozone will render almost every chemical contaminant harmless by producing a chemical reaction whose only by-products are carbon dioxide, oxygen and water. This is misleading. For many of the chemicals with which ozone does readily react, the reaction can form a variety of harmful or irritating by-products. For example, in a laboratory experiment that mixed ozone with chemicals from new carpet, ozone reduced many of these chemicals, including those that can produce new carpet odor. However, in the process, the reaction produced a variety of aldehydes, and the total concentration of organic chemicals in the air increased rather than decreased after the introduction of ozone. In addition to aldehydes, ozone may also increase indoor concentrations of formic acid, both of which can irri
