What is an ionizer?

Can ionizers help us breathe better? Confronted with increasingly high levels of outdoor and indoor pollution, British people are becoming more and more aware of the importance of air quality. An ionizer is a type of air purification device that uses negative ions circulated in the air to render harmful particles useless. How does an air ionizer work and do you need one?

Operation principles of ionizers

To understand how air ionizers work, you must first understand what negative ions are.

Ambient air consists of neutral particles as well as positive and negative ions. Contrary to what their name might suggest, "positive" ions are harmful to our health. These are particles emitted by electromagnetic or chemical pollution. Unfortunately, they are nowadays more and more prevalent. A high concentration of positive ions in the air causes feelings of stress, tension, fatigue, and more.

Chemin dans une forêt

Negative ions are exactly the opposite and are quite beneficial to your health. Sea shores, forests, waterfalls and mountains are places rich in negative ions. So why not try and have more negative ions at home? An air ionizer is a device that generates negative ions which also serves to purify the air by intercepting positive ions.

What are air ionizers for?

Simple and effective, air ionizers are a great way to fight indoor air pollution.

Ionization is defined in physics as the removal or addition of electric charges to an atom or a molecule. The atom or the molecule loses its electrical neutrality and becomes a negative or positive ion. Ionization uses negative ions to annihilate the positive ions: they will attract each other and bond, either destroying them or weighing positive ions down to the floor, far away from your lungs.


Ionization is used in all sorts of appliances, both in the air and water.

Pollution due to fumes, smoke, pollen and dust are now standard in our homes. And sometimes airing out your space - a very important health habit - can actually worsen the indoor air quality, instead of improving it. Fortunately, whether in a house, an apartment or an office, an air ionizer can fight bacteria, allergens, viruses, doors and other microscopic pollutants for you.

Air purifiers such as AIRVIA Medical which use ionization are multi-purpose and are beneficial to everybody in the family, while being especially useful to people with allergies, babies, children, the elderly and the frail.

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