The car air conditioner/air filter is dirty, can it still be used after blowing it?
When the air conditioner filter element is dirty, blow it clean before use. People think about the filter element to filter the air in the car. For the purpose of saving cost, blowing off the dust on the filter element can become a new one and continue to use, and there is no need to replace it. So is it really so?
There are two filter elements that are frequently replaced in the car, one is the air filter element and the other is the air conditioner filter element. These two parts are inconspicuous, but they have a great relationship with the car and the passengers in the actual use of the car. After reading today's sharing, I know that the filter element is dirty, can it be blown and reused?
What is an air/air conditioning filter?
The air filter element is equivalent to the mask of the engine, filtering dust, particles and particulate impurities in the air. Prevents dust and other airborne impurities from being drawn into the engine cylinders.
Because the engine needs to suck in a lot of air during the working process, if the air is not filtered, the dust suspended in the air will be sucked into the cylinder, which will accelerate the wear of the piston group and the cylinder. Larger particles entering between the piston and the cylinder can cause serious "pulling the cylinder", which is especially serious in dry and sandy working environments. Therefore, an air filter element is needed to protect the engine to protect the cylinder, piston and other components from wear.
How the air filter works
There are two types of air filters, dry and wet.
The dry air filter element separates the impurities in the air through non-woven fabric/filter paper. Filter paper is porous, loose, folded, has certain mechanical strength and water resistance, and has the advantages of high filtration efficiency, simple structure, light weight, low cost, and convenient maintenance. Now family cars usually use this dry type.
The other is the wet type which is divided into oil immersion type and oil bath type. It is generally used on construction machinery, heavy trucks, and modified vehicles. The filter element material is made of wire fabric and foam material. It can be washed and reused many times, but the purchase price is high, and it is not the main type of use for family cars. Therefore, we will not discuss the wet type for the time being.
Next, when the air conditioner is turned on, one of its working parts is the air conditioner filter element.
The air conditioner filter is to filter the impurities in the air blown from the air conditioner to the car, and optimize the air quality in the car. There are three main types of air-conditioning filter elements: filter paper, activated carbon, and HEPA.
(1) The filter paper type filter element is made of filter paper or non-woven fabric, which is folded to form a thickness to increase the filter area. The filter element of this material can only filter ordinary particles. Most cars use this filter element, and the air intake is large and cheap.
(2) The activated carbon filter element is a layer of activated carbon added to the filter paper material, which can absorb formaldehyde, odor and moisture. But it still has no effect on PM2.5 in the air.
(3) HEPA is a new type of filter element that is very popular. It filters particles with a diameter of 0.3 microns (PM0.3). To put it bluntly, HEPA is specially designed to deal with PM2.5 and haze.