Do Molekule Air Purifiers Live Up to the Hype?
CR tested the air purifiers everyone’s talking about—and recommends three better alternatives
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When the Molekule Air was released in early 2017, it made quite a splash. On social media, it gained attention for its sleek, cylindrical design with a vegan leather strap attached to a clean, minimalist home. Amid calming mint-green graphics were manufacturer claims that this new-to-market product with a revolutionary technology would destroy the harmful mold, viruses, bacteria, and gaseous chemicals lurking in the air you breathe at home.
Like many new brands that trend on social media, the Molekule Air was available only directly to consumers—for a whopping $800. It’s the sort of niche product that Consumer Reports wouldn’t necessarily test, but given the buzz it generated, we felt a responsibility to weigh in with test data. Our interest was further piqued because its manufacturer claimed to have revolutionized air cleaning with its proprietary PECO technology. However, our reporting and lab tests for the Molekule Air—as well as its newer offering, the Molekule Air Pro—suggested otherwise.
What Is PECO?
This acronym is short for photoelectrochemical oxidation. It isn’t new technology, per se, but rather a boosted version of photocatalytic oxidation (PCO), which has been used for decades to clean contaminated air and water.
A typical mesh filter—HEPA, for instance—captures only airborne particles. PECO and PCO, however, take it one step further and also target gases. They do this by coating filters in a catalyst (PCO usually uses titanium dioxide) that reacts with UV light to oxidize gaseous pollutants and break them down into harmless molecules.
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Molekule Test Results
We put Molekule air purifiers through our standard battery of air purifier tests. Each model was placed in a sealed chamber, which was then injected with particles 0.1 micron to 1 micron in size—a range that includes dust mite allergens, cat allergens, smog, smoke, and atmospheric dust. (For reference, human hair has a diameter of about 100 microns). A particle counter measured the change in air-particle concentration as the machines ran for 15 minutes. As usual, we tested the units at their highest speed and again at a lower speed.