JP2001349595A - Air cleaning apparatus - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an air cleaning apparatus wherein an energy saving countermeasure is achieved by properly controlling the time needed to regenerate a filter serving to remove contamination of air o the basis of information from a sensor for detecting contamination of air. SOLUTION: There are provided a housing having an air intake inlet and a takeout outlet of cleaned air, a fan for taking air into the housing, a filter for cleaning the air taken into the housing with the aid of the fan, a sensor for detecting contamination of the air taken into the housing, regeneration means for regenerating the filter using plasma, and control means for determining the regeneration time of the filter based upon the time when the sensor detects contamination and/or a level of the detected contamination.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an air purifying apparatus for purifying indoor air by removing dust and odor components such as house dust and pollen contained in the air.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, in addition to house dust, pollen scattered in the air in accordance with the season is mixed into indoor air, and odors generated from fragrances, foods, and other odor generating substances left indoors. In addition to the odor emitted by humans, animals and plants in the room, and the like, odor components due to air pollution such as exhaust gas may be included. In particular, the number of people who are allergic to house dust, pollen, and the like is increasing year by year, and accordingly, the demand for air purifiers for purifying indoor air is also increasing.

A conventional general air purifying apparatus has a housing having an air intake and an outlet for purifying purified air, and a fan for taking air into the housing and a filter for purifying the taken air. Is accommodated. The filter includes a disposable filter that is replaced with a new one after a predetermined use period has elapsed, and a filter that can be repeatedly used by regenerating. In the latter, a regeneration processing device for regenerating the filter is usually provided in the air cleaning device.

[0004]

Heretofore, conventionally, a regenerating process has been performed for a certain period of time after the use of the filter to regenerate the filter function. In this case, the regeneration process is performed for a fixed time regardless of the degree of contamination of the air, so that the regeneration process is performed under the same conditions as when the filter is very dirty even when the filter is not very dirty. However, if the filter is not very dirty, performing more regeneration than necessary has little effect and is useless from the viewpoint of energy saving.

[0005]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION Accordingly, the present invention has been made in view of the above-mentioned problems, and has been made in consideration of the above-mentioned problems, by optimally controlling the time required for regeneration of a filter based on information from a sensor for detecting air contamination. It is intended to provide an air purification device provided with the above. That is, a first aspect of the present invention provides a housing having an air intake and an outlet for purified air, a fan for taking air into the housing,
A filter for purifying the air taken into the housing by the fan, a sensor for detecting contamination of the air taken into the housing, a regenerating means for performing a filter regenerating process, and a control means for controlling the regenerating means for the filter An air purifying apparatus comprising:
The regeneration processing time, which is the time required to regenerate the filter, is determined based on at least one of the time when the sensor detects dirt and the level of dirt detected by the sensor.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, in the first aspect of the present invention, the filter regenerating means regenerates the filter using plasma.

According to a third aspect of the present invention, in the first or second aspect, the sensor is a dust sensor for detecting dust in the air.

According to a fourth aspect of the present invention, in the third aspect of the present invention, the control means determines the reproduction processing time based on a time when the dust sensor detects dirt and a level of the dirt detected by the dust sensor. And

According to a fifth aspect of the present invention, in the first or second aspect, the sensor is an odor sensor for detecting an odor component in the air.

According to a sixth aspect of the present invention, in the fifth aspect of the invention, the control means determines the reproduction processing time based on the time when the odor sensor detects the odor and the level of the odor detected by the odor sensor. And

According to a seventh aspect of the present invention, in the first or second aspect, the sensor includes a dust sensor for detecting dust in the air and an odor sensor for detecting an odor component in the air.

According to an eighth aspect of the present invention, in the seventh aspect of the present invention, the control means compares the level of the dirt detected by the dust sensor with the level of the dirt detected by the odor sensor, and determines a higher level of the dirt. The reproduction processing time is determined based on

[0013]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Preferred embodiments of the air purifying apparatus of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

As shown in FIGS. 1 and 2, an air purifying apparatus 1 according to an embodiment of the present invention has a housing 10 having an air intake port 11 and an outlet 12 for purified air, and takes air into the housing. Fan 3 for
0, a motor 31 for driving the fan, a pre-filter 42 and a filter 40 for purifying air taken into the housing. In the figure, reference numeral 13 denotes a grill, and reference numeral 15 denotes an operation unit.

Further, inside the air cleaning device 1, there is provided a plasma generating unit for performing deodorization of air using plasma and for performing regeneration processing of a filter. In the figure, reference numeral 50 denotes a discharge electrode used for plasma deodorization. In addition, the generation time of the plasma and the regeneration processing time of the filter are controlled by a control unit described later.

The air purifying device 1 includes a dust sensor 20 for detecting dust in the air and an odor sensor 22 for detecting odor components in the air, as sensors for detecting dirt of the air taken into the housing. Is installed. In the figure, reference numeral 21 denotes a human sensor for detecting the movement of a person and automatically turning on the air cleaning device 1.

The sensor for detecting air contamination is not limited to the above specification. For example, an odor sensor and a dust sensor may be independently mounted. In particular,
A combination of only a human sensor and an odor sensor, or a combination of only a human sensor and a dust sensor may be employed.
The human sensor is not an essential component of the air cleaning device of the present invention and may be omitted. Further, an ultraviolet sensor or the like may be used instead of the human sensor.

The air purifying apparatus 1 having the above configuration
In, the air is cleaned as follows. That is, when the air purifying device 1 is set to the automatic operation mode, when the motion sensor 21 detects a motion of a person, the motor 31 starts operating and the fan 30 is rotated. In the automatic driving mode, it is set so that driving is continued for a certain period of time when a person's movement is detected. The operation is continued for a long time, and as long as the movement of the person is detected within the fixed time, the operation is continued forever. Note that plasma is generated inside the housing 10 simultaneously with the start of operation of the fan.

The air taken into the housing 10 from the air intake port 11 by the fan 30 is first filtered by a pre-filter 42 to remove coarse dust. Next, plasma deodorization is performed by the discharge electrode 50 to charge dust and the like. Dust not removed by the pre-filter is removed by the next filter 40, and the odor (gas) component is deodorized by plasma inside the filter and deodorized by a deodorant (not shown). The purified air is discharged from the outlet 12 to the outside.

In the above-described air cleaning process, when the output from the dust sensor 20 or the odor sensor 22 exceeds a predetermined threshold value, the indication of air contamination on the operation unit 15 in the upper front part of the housing 10 changes, and in conjunction therewith. The fan operation level is controlled. Actually, the highest operation level among the operation levels determined by the outputs from the dust sensor 20 and the odor sensor 21 is selected.

When the filter performance is reduced by using the filter for a certain period to clean the air, it is necessary to perform a regeneration process to regenerate the filter function. Hereinafter, an example of a filter regeneration process in the air cleaning device 1 of the present embodiment will be described with reference to FIGS.

In the filter regeneration process described here, the regeneration process time is determined based on the time when the odor is detected by the odor sensor 22. FIG. 3 is a block diagram of a control circuit for the main reproduction process. The signal including the information detected by the odor sensor 20 is transmitted to the odor level determination unit 6.
Sent to 0. The determination result of the odor level determination unit 60 is sent to the fan level determination unit 63, and the operation level of the fan is determined based on the determination result. The fan level determination unit 63 sends information on the determined fan operation level to the fan operation control unit 65, and the fan operation control unit 65 controls the operation of the motor 31, that is, the fan 30, based on the information. At the same time, the fan level determination section 63 sends an ON signal indicating the start of plasma generation to the plasma control section 64. In addition, the odor level determination unit 6
“0” sends information on the odor level in the air to the odor level display section 70 of the operation section 15.

FIG. 4A is a graph showing the change over time of the odor level detected by the odor sensor 22. The vertical axis indicates the odor level, and odor levels 1 (weak odor) to level 4 (strong odor) are given in the direction in which the odor becomes severe. The horizontal axis is time. FIG. 4B shows the fan 30.
6 is a graph showing a change over time of the operation level of FIG. The operation level of the fan is controlled in four stages based on the odor level in FIG. That is, when the odor level detected by the odor sensor increases and reaches the odor level 1, the fan is operated in the quiet mode when the odor level 2 is reached, and the fan is operated in the weak mode when the odor level 2 is reached. When the odor level exceeds 4, the fan is operated in the rapid mode. FIG. 4 (c)
As shown in (1), a plasma for deodorization is generated at the same time when the operation in the silent mode is started. After that, the operation level of the fan 30 is controlled based on the signal provided from the odor sensor 22, and when the odor level finally falls below the level 1, the filter regeneration operation is started therefrom.

The time from when the fan 30 starts operating in the silent mode, that is, when the plasma is generated (plasma ON), until the timer 67 starts and the odor disappears, that is, in the above example, the odor level The time T1 until the time when the value finally falls below the level 1 is measured. The time T2 obtained by multiplying the time T1 by the constant α is the time required for the reproduction process. In the example shown in FIG. 4, α is 0 <α <1, but the value of α may be 1 or 1 <α. As shown in FIGS. 4D and 4E, the regeneration process is performed by turning on the plasma generation while keeping the fan operating for a period of time T2 from the time when the odor level finally falls below the level 1. Done.

In the above description, the time required for the regeneration process is obtained based on the time when the odor level 1 or more is detected by the odor sensor 22, that is, the time when the fan is operated in the silent mode or higher. Smell sensor 22
The time required for the regeneration process may be determined based on the odor level detected by the method. Hereinafter, another example of the filter regeneration process in the air cleaning device 1 of the present embodiment will be described with reference to Table 1, FIGS.

In the filter regeneration process described here, the regeneration process time is determined based on the odor level of the air detected by the odor sensor 22. FIG. 5 is a block diagram of a control circuit for the main reproduction process. In the example shown in FIG. 4A, the odor level detected by the odor sensor 22 exceeds the level 4 at the maximum during the air cleaning process by the air cleaning device 1. In other words, the operation was performed in the rapid mode which is the highest operation level as the operation mode of the fan. The mode in which the operating level of the fan has risen to the maximum is stored in the storage unit 68 (FIG. 5).

The appropriate regeneration processing time for the implemented operation level of the fan 30 is determined using, for example, a preset regeneration processing time table as shown in Table 1. That is, the time set corresponding to the highest operating level of the fan during the cleaning process is determined as the time required for the filter regeneration process. In the cleaning process of FIG. 4, since the fan was operated in the rapid mode, T4 is selected as the filter regeneration time. The regeneration process of the filter turns on plasma generation while the fan is in operation for the determined processing time from the time when the odor level finally drops below level 1, and FIG. 4 (d) and (e). Is the same as

[0028]

[Table 1]

In the above example, the time required for the filter regeneration processing is determined based on the time when the odor is detected by the odor sensor or the odor level detected by the odor sensor.
The time required for the regenerating process may be determined based on the time when dust is detected by the dust sensor or the dust level (dust level) detected by the dust sensor in the same manner. Further, in the above example, the odor level is evaluated in four stages, but the odor level or the dust level may be evaluated by subdividing into more stages.

Next, referring to Table 2, FIG. 6 and FIG. 7, the time required for the regeneration process is determined based on both the time when the odor sensor 22 detects the odor and the level of the odor detected by the odor sensor. The case will be described. In the filter reproduction process described here, FIGS. 7A and 7B
As shown in the figure, at the operation level of the fan 30 that is performed according to the odor level detected by the odor sensor 22, the time required for each operation mode
7 is measured. That is, the time from the start of the operation in the silent mode to the switch to the operation in the weak mode is measured as t1, and the time from the start of the operation in the weak mode to the switch to the operation in the standard mode is t2. , And thereafter, the times t3 to t7 required for each operation mode of the fan are similarly measured. The total operation time T1 of the fan in the silent mode is equal to t1 + t7, as is apparent from FIG. Similarly, the total operation time in the weak mode, the standard mode, and the rapid mode is defined as T2 (t2 + t6), T3 (t3 + t5), and T4 (t
4).

As shown in Table 2, constants α1, α2, α3 and α4 are set in each operation mode.
These are stored in the storage unit 68. For example, the constant α
1 is the total operation time T of the fan 30 in the silent mode.
Used to find the product with one. Similarly, the product of the total operation time and a constant is obtained for each operation mode. Finally, the sum of these products is obtained, and this is used as the time T required for the reproduction process. These calculations are performed by the calculation unit 69. The reproduction process of the filter is shown in FIG.
As shown in (e) and (e), the plasma generation is performed by turning on the plasma while the fan is in operation for a processing time T, which is the sum of the above products, from the time when the odor level finally falls below the level 1.

[0032]

[Table 2]

In the above example, the case where the filter regeneration processing time is determined based on both the time when the odor sensor 22 detects the odor and the odor level detected by the odor sensor has been described. The processing time of the reproduction processing may be determined based on both the time when dust is detected and the dust level (dust level) detected by the dust sensor. Further, in the above example, the odor level is evaluated in four stages, but the odor level or the dust level may be evaluated by subdividing into more stages.

Finally, referring to FIG.
A case will be described in which the dust level detected by the odor sensor 22 and the odor level detected by the odor sensor 22 are compared, and the reproduction processing time is determined based on the higher level of the stain.

As shown in FIG. 8, the signal detected by the dust sensor 20 is sent to a dust level determination section 61, where the level of dust (dust level) contained in the air is determined. Similarly, the signal detected by the odor sensor 22 is sent to the odor level determination unit 60, where the odor level contained in the air is determined. Each of the determination result in the dust level determination unit 61 and the determination result in the odor level determination unit 60 is sent to the fan level determination unit 63, where it is determined which is at a higher contamination level.

The regeneration processing time of the filter is determined on the basis of the determination result in the fan level determination section 63. That is, when the dust level is at a higher contamination level, the reproduction processing time is determined based on a table in which the association between the dust level and the reproduction processing time is set in advance, and the odor level is at the higher contamination level. In this case, the reproduction processing time is determined based on a table (for example, see Table 1) in which the correspondence between the odor level and the reproduction processing time is set. The regeneration process of the filter is performed by turning on the plasma generation while keeping the fan operating for the regeneration process time determined from the time when the higher contamination level of the dust level and the odor level finally falls below a predetermined level. It is done by doing.

In FIG. 8, the signal from the human sensor 21 is sent to the operation presence / absence determination section 62, and the operation presence / absence determination section 62 sends a signal to start the operation of the fan 30 to the fan level determination section 63. Enables the automatic operation mode. Also,
The odor level determination unit 60 sends information on the odor level in the air to the odor level display unit 70 of the operation unit 15. Further, the dust level determination section 61 sends information on the dust level in the air to the dust level display section 72 of the operation section 15. Although the preferred embodiments of the air purifying apparatus of the present invention have been described above in detail, the present invention is not limited to these embodiments. It should be understood that various modifications can be made by those skilled in the art within the scope of the present invention as defined by the appended claims.

[0038]

According to the air purifying apparatus of the present invention, the level of air contamination provided by a sensor for detecting air contamination, for example, a dust sensor or an odor sensor, or the time when the air contamination is detected (the air contamination is low). ) Or both of them are used to determine the filter regeneration processing time, thereby preventing the filter regeneration processing from being performed for an unnecessarily long time. The air purifying apparatus of the present invention, in which energy saving is performed as described above, meets the demands of the times in that it can contribute to the saving of electric power resources, and has high industrial utility value.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1A is a top view of an air cleaning device according to an embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. 1B is a front view of the device.

FIG. 2 is a cross-sectional view of an air cleaning device according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a control circuit block diagram of the air purifying apparatus according to the embodiment of the present invention.

4A is a graph showing a time change of an odor level detected by an odor sensor, FIG. 4B is a graph showing a time change of a fan operation level, and FIG.
Is a graph showing a plasma generation state during the air cleaning process, (d) is a graph showing the operation state of the fan at the time of filter regeneration, and (e) is a graph showing the plasma generation state at the time of filter regeneration. It is a graph.

FIG. 5 is a control circuit block diagram of the air cleaning device according to the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 6 is a control circuit block diagram of the air purifying apparatus according to the embodiment of the present invention.

7A is a graph showing a time change of an odor level detected by an odor sensor, FIG. 7B is a graph showing a time change of a fan operation level, and FIG.
Is a graph showing a plasma generation state during the air cleaning process, (d) is a graph showing the operation state of the fan at the time of filter regeneration, and (e) is a graph showing the plasma generation state at the time of filter regeneration. It is a graph.

FIG. 8 is a control circuit block diagram of the air purifying apparatus according to the embodiment of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Air purifier 10 Housing 11 Air inlet 12 Air outlet 13 Grill 15 Operation part 20 Dust sensor 21 Human sensor 22 Odor sensor

──────────────────────────────────────────────────の Continued on the front page (51) Int.Cl. ⁷ Identification symbol FI Theme coat ゛ (Reference) B01D 46/46 B01D 46/46 F24F 7/00 F24F 7/00 A (72) Inventor Takayuki Nakata Kadoma, Osaka 1048 Ichidai Kadoma, Matsushita Electric Works, Ltd. HH05 JJ01 JJ05 KK02 LL01 MM40 QQ17 4D058 JA12 MA51 MA60 PA01 QA30 TA07

Claims (8)

[Claims] A housing having an air intake and an outlet for purified air, a fan for introducing air into the housing, and a filter for purifying air taken into the housing by the fan. An air purifying apparatus comprising: a sensor that detects contamination of air taken into the housing; a regenerating unit that performs a regenerating process of the filter; and a control unit that controls the regenerating unit. An air purifying apparatus, wherein a regeneration processing time, which is a time required for regenerating the filter, is determined based on at least one of a time when the sensor detects dirt and a level of dirt detected by the sensor. 2. The air purifying apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said regenerating means regenerates the filter using plasma. 3. The air purifying apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the sensor is a dust sensor that detects dust in the air. 4. The apparatus according to claim 3, wherein said control means determines the reproduction processing time based on both the time when the dust sensor detects dirt and the level of the dirt detected by the dust sensor. Air purifier. 5. The air purifying apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the sensor is an odor sensor for detecting an odor component in the air. 6. The apparatus according to claim 5, wherein the control means determines the regeneration processing time based on both the time when the odor sensor detects the odor and the level of the odor detected by the odor sensor. Air purifier. 7. The air cleaning apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the sensor includes a dust sensor that detects dust in the air and an odor sensor that detects an odor component in the air. 8. The control means compares the level of dirt detected by the dust sensor with the level of dirt detected by the odor sensor, and determines a reproduction processing time based on a higher level of dirt. The air purifying apparatus according to claim 7, wherein: