Great to see that air quality and the health impacts of fine dust getting more and more attention.
Talking about "smarter kids", we should not forget the impact of CO2 on cognitive performance.
In order to run air purifiers effectively you need to block outside air. This in turn will lead to a substantial increase in CO2. Last year we measured the CO2 development in a classroom and detected extremely high CO2 levels [1].
I am living in an area of high air pollution, and more and more people are starting to move away from standard air purifiers and install positive pressure fresh air systems [2] that take outside air, filter it and release it inside the house. Thereby keeping CO2 low and presenting dirty air from entering.
One of the reasons why many people install these systems is because they are getting more aware of the cognitive impacts of bad air.
I often see very high CO2 levels in bedrooms, which was also observed in the mini study https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/9/17/3533 , and the simple act of leaving the bedroom door open might presumably therefore improve sleep quality (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/ina.12435) according to these small studies. But of course, adequate ventilation could make sure this isn't a problem regardless if the door is open or not.
Just to add to your point about the importance of ventilation, there are also VOCs (eg. from furniture off gassing and cleaning products) that HEPA filters can't do much about, and at least in my experience (which is a bit skewed due to only measuring with "cheap" sensors), active carbon filters only help for a short while. Other technologies, like photocatalytic air purification, seem to also have limited effect, and do in turn produce CO2 as they break down pollutants (I'm not sure how much though), which again means adequate ventilation is important. So having "control" over where air gets in to the building is very helpful indeed, as you can't get around needing an adequate air exchange.
You seem to know quite a bit about this already, but in case you or anyone else is curious, a few more articles:
Talking about "smarter kids", we should not forget the impact of CO2 on cognitive performance.
In order to run air purifiers effectively you need to block outside air. This in turn will lead to a substantial increase in CO2. Last year we measured the CO2 development in a classroom and detected extremely high CO2 levels [1].
I am living in an area of high air pollution, and more and more people are starting to move away from standard air purifiers and install positive pressure fresh air systems [2] that take outside air, filter it and release it inside the house. Thereby keeping CO2 low and presenting dirty air from entering.
One of the reasons why many people install these systems is because they are getting more aware of the cognitive impacts of bad air.
[1] https://www.airgradient.com/blog/2020/02/07/we-measured-the-...
[2] https://www.airgradient.com/blog/2020/01/08/positive-pressur...