automotive filtration insight
What’s in the air inside your vehicle?
Protecting yourself, your customers and your family
Giacomo Menzio, Automotive Market Manager at Freudenberg Filtration Technologies, used a recent webinar to highlight some of the issues surrounding in-vehicle pollution during which he presented five key recommendations.
The facts revealed the extent of the risk to human health, as Giacomo explained: “Globally, 93% of the world’s children under 15 years of age are exposed to ambient fine particulate matter (PM2,5) levels above WHO air quality guidelines. This figure includes 630 million children under 5 years of age and 1.8 billion under 15.”
Although we instinctively feel protected inside vehicles, the interior air is often worse than that outside. This is due to the so-called ‘tunnel effect’, in which high concentrations of polluted air are sucked into the vehicle through its ventilation system. In heavy traffic, the result is that the interior air can be as much as six times more polluted than the air on the sidewalk.
A cocktail of pollutants
Pollution inside the vehicle comes from three sources: particulates from the outside, gases from the outside and contamination emitted by the interior plastics and upholstery (known as Volatile Organic Compounds or VOCs). As a result, we constantly need to contend with particulate matter, bacteria, allergens, fungal spores, gases, VOCs, aldehydes, hydrocarbons and organic substances.
Back in February 2018, Giacomo conducted a study in some of Italy’s most polluted cities in association with Italian car magazine “Quattroruote”. You can find full details here. The results highlighted the vital importance of top-quality cabin air filters, with high-efficiency “combi” filters seen as the best way to protect vehicle occupants against all forms of airborne pollutants.
Giacomo Menzio concluded his webinar by making five clear recommendations to ensure maximum protection inside the vehicle:
- Ask for high-efficiency OE cabin air filters (fine dust or combi-filters)
- Only use top-quality nonwoven cabin air filters
- Use cabin air filters that have been thoroughly tested for reliability and stability, in the lab and in the field
- Create your own customized designs to suit specific vehicle types
- Work with Freudenberg, the inventor and innovation partner for cabin air filters
If you have any questions about these issues, talk to your micronAir service contact or send an email to micronAir@freudenberg-filter.com.