Recent Developments in Cabin Air Filtration

The filtration of inlet air into passenger compartments of vehicles has been known since the late eighties in Europe, when predominantly particle filters were installed. Later on there has been a shift on emphasis to the so called “combination filters” which are capable of reducing the particulate and gaseous pollutants at the same time. The reasons for this trend are the increasing health and wellness demands of car owners. The contamination level of our air is different from place to place and has changed over the last years. The arrestance of fine dust particles, VOCs, NO_x and ozone increase in importance. The paper deals with the performance of new filter materials and introduces olfactometry as a new tool to characterize and specify the real life performance of filters and provide end user focused information in addition to the methods currently used.