Design

When looking at how the Super Air 7 is built, it's interesting to see how all of the same principles that go into maintaining good system airflow apply. Let's take a quick look at the 5 stages of filtration before we go into greater detail.

Laminar airflow design

Schematic of the 5 stage system

Stage I: Pre-Filter

The pre-filter is a fairly large opener mesh that serves to trap large particles that may be in the air such as lint, hair, etc. It's essentially a grill to prevent large foreign objects from clogging the more critical components in the air filter.

Pre-Filter

Stage II: Positive Ionizer

The next stage positively charges the small particles that have made it through the pre-filter. These particles include things such as dust, smoke, and pollen.

Stage III: Collecting Plates

The bulk of the machine is in the collecting plates. These are negatively charged plates that attract the positively charged ions. Without a good collector plate, positively ionized particles can escape the air purifier and stick to other surfaces such as your wall. If you only had an ionizer without a sufficiently strong collector plate, you'd be throwing charged dust against the ceiling and wall.

Notice the dirt/grime collection on the plates

Stage IV: Blower Fan/Charcoal Filter

Behind the collecting plate is a charcoal filter and large blower fan. Charcoal is used primarily for removing any odors from the air and is ideally replaced every 3 months. If you are not concerned about filtering odors and simply want dust prevention, you can run the system without a charcoal filter. The centrifugal blower fan, such as the ones used in the NVIDIA FX-Flow or Coolermaster Aero Blower Fans, is a very important design choice. Centrifugal blower fans direct air at 90 degrees from the intake and provide a solid column of laminar airflow as opposed to a regular axial fan (regular CPU fan) in which the center column is stagnant. This is a high-pressure system that ensures that air flows through all of the previous filtration stages and maintains better guaranteed airflow.

Carbon Filter

The high-pressure 140 cfm blower

The blower up-close

Stage V: Negative Ion Generator

Finally the Super Air 7 has a negative ion generator. This charges the clean air with a negative charge to "help freshen stale air." This ends up producing a bit of ozone although Trion insists that their filters do not produce any more ozone than a computer CRT. Note that this is not part of the core electrostatic precipitation technology, but is an additional feature.

Finally, the air passes through an optional fragrance cartridge about the size of a quarter which is basically similar to a concentrated "car air freshener." It lasts for one month.

5-Stage Cleaning

This is what the US Navy uses in their Trident subs, which were one of the most critical components of maintaining peace during the Cold War. Let's take a closer look at why this electrostatic precipitation technology ends up being very well designed by comparing it to the competition.