Abstract

Cooking is one of the primary sources of indoor PM2.5 pollution. Nowadays, cooking with an air fryer has become increasingly popular in many households. This study investigated and compared the efficiency of range hoods and air purifiers in reducing PM2.5 emitted during air frying in residential settings. The experiments were performed in a test kitchen under controlled conditions. Three scenarios with different air ventilation methods were examined; Scenario 1: control setting without ventilation, Scenario 2: with a standard range hood system, and Scenario 3: with an air purifier system. Each scenario was repeated three times. Continuous measurements of PM2.5 were carried out at 5 minutes intervals for 70 minutes by an air quality monitor. The average concentrations of PM2.5 were plotted to describe the dynamic change over time during and after cooking and compared among the three different scenarios. The results indicate that cooking with an air fryer emits large amounts of PM2.5. Without air ventilation, the maximum PM2.5 concentration can reach up to 147 μg m-3. However, with a range hood or an air purifier, the maximum average concentrations were only 18 and 37 μg m-3, respectively. It can be concluded that both ventilation systems can reduce PM2.5 generated from air frying, but the range hood system has higher PM2.5 removal efficiency than the air purifier system.