An ozone machine is one of the most aggressively marketed types of air purifiers. The supposed benefits of using it are:

1) It doesn't require a fan to operate, so it is silent.

2) It produces ozone that actively searches for any pollutants and then destroys them.

3) Ozone air purifiers can fight dust, allergens, bacteria, gases, odors ... simply everything that lowers the quality of the air we breathe.

Until now we've had to rely on multi-filter systems and even then we often felt disappointed. Everything has changed with the coming of an ozone machine – an ultimate solution to all the air purifying problems! Does it sound interesting?

Scam warning!

It sure does. The only problem is that a huge percentage of the information about ozone air purifiers isn't true. Not exaggerated, not overenthusiastic – just plainly wrong. Sadly, ozone machine manufacturers prey on misinformed and trusting consumers.

That is bad enough, but the real problem is that an ozone purifier is often a harmful or even life-threatening device that emits a toxic gas into the air we breathe.

What is ozone and what does it do?

Basically, ozone is a highly reactive form of oxygen. It naturally exists in the upper layers of Earth's atmosphere where it does an excellent job of keeping the deadly UV rays away. It doesn't however, exist naturally near the planet's surface, though small quantities of ozone are created during lighting strikes and near high-voltage electrical devices.

But what's so wrong with producing ozone? Since ozone is such a highly reactive particle, it oxidizes almost everything it touches. Because of this quality it is very useful for eliminating unpleasant odors, replacing them with its own, distinctive smell.

Unfortunately, it can go on to harm living creatures – not only bacteria or germs, as it is claimed, but all living tissue. Since it oxidizes, or incinerates, unpleasant odors and other particles, it is obvious that it can also oxidize all life forms, not just select ones.

What fans of ozone technology don't tell us is how the ozone knows to strike bacteria only and not our lungs! Obviously, since it's a machine, it can't make these kinds of distinctions.

An ozone purifier run at low output does virtually nothing. However if you try to increase the ozone production level, you will endanger your throat and lungs.

Good ozone/bad ozone:

Because none of the above information is secret, many ozone machine advertisements employ another strategy: they agree with most of the arguments, but they try to convince us that the detriments are a result of “bad ozone” while their products create “good ozone”. The problem is that the ozone they produce is basically the same as every other kind of ozone – O3 is a very basic particle and there is nothing you can really do to change its basic chemical properties. Either an ozone air purifier produces highly reactive (dangerous) ozone or it produces some less reactive gas (safe, but useless). The only less reactive and really safe version of ozone is O2 – the oxygen we breath all the time.