AIR  IN  DANGER

 

 

CHAPTER IV

 

 PROBLEMS  AND SOLUTIONS

 

 

 1 -  SOME EDIFYING PARADOXES

 

It is always instructive to examine closely the arguments  known as " of good direction ":  they generally lead to comical  conclusions... or dangerous, very seldom with advantageous discoveries  for those which suffer.  Here a first example. 

 We know all that as we rise in the atmosphere, the pressure of the air  decreases, and with it the quantity of oxygen available.  Between 1000  and 1200 meters of altitude, this quantity of oxygen available  decreased by approximately 18 % compared to the sea level.    On the other hand, we recall that the rate of micropollution is  generally very weak, the negative ionization rate very high. 

 Except these three factors, whose only one with " officially " being  recognized is obviously the pressure, other factors - hygrometry,  temperature, wind, sunning, etc .do not differ hardly on average from those  which one meets " in bottom ". 

An organization tired, depressed, subjected by the  constraints of the urban environment to a permanent under-oxygenation,  imperatively needs a periodic return to a normal oxygenation.  It  could even be necessary to impose an auxiliary oxygen treatment to  him, by enriching the ordinary air by a supplement of pure oxygen.   No one would not have the absurd idea to then propose a stay in depression chamber, where one would lower the rate of oxygen  from 15 to 20 %!...  in spite of the moderate cost of such a stay " in  altitude ". 

 Therefore the stay - especially prolonged - of an organization tired  on average mountain, at an altitude from 1200 to 1500 m, is absolutely  to proscribe ! 

 All things considered, in the name of the " good direction ",  consolidated by the data of the physiology of breathing, it seems  completely excluded to observe a favorable  effect then!  However we know all, to have lived it, which extraordinary  well-being we test finally in this air however " rarefied ", but so  pure, so " light ".  Would this be thus a simple illusion, a " psychic  " effect?  This last aspect is certainly not negligible, but its  possible impact remains completely marginal.   Whereas does  it remain ?  Could it be for example that the barometric pressure plays  finally only one rather secondary role, the first roles being then  held by... ionization and the quasi absence of micropollution, only  able to allow an excellent oxygenation under a pressure of air already  definitely reduced? 

In nap dreadful a good direction  should already have warned to us:  " Why to have much oxygen good  if one can't use it well?"  Question how the unhappy inhabitants of  these places of altitude, private of air without appearing to suffer  from it, could pose to people " of in bottoms " provided so much  better! 

 But which wanted, in the world " of in bottom ", to draw a  conclusion from it and from there a rule of life? 

 And which will be able to deny that it is easy, too easy, to absorb a  tablet anti ache, a capsule of tranquillizing:  it is enough to read  a dosage and to swallow the tablet or the capsule, by hoping that  the relief will come and that the " remedy " too often renewed will  not involve a worse evil. 

 This undoubtedly brings me to the second paradox, less obvious, and  which always fits in these crazes of physicist of which I do not  manage to demolish myself! 

 The ionization of the atmosphere has been known and studied for soon a  century, its effects on the living organisms studied and known for  more than seventy years .

 Thousands of work and publications clarified this subject, work very  often   due to men of science of world fame, forts of a solid  knowledge and with a wealth of an immense experiment.

Of this innumerable work arises the  completely convergent experimental conclusions  that  the remarks or lived never cancelled   

 - the negative oxygen ions are always present in  an atmosphere healthy, salubrious, with a density all the more high  since the atmosphere is purer; 

 - no experiment never could highlight the least  harmful character of negative the oxygen ions, neither on the  animals nor on the human ones, even with the most considerable  densities and after durations amounting of tens of years    

 - all the observations, made on exceptionally salubrious recognized  sites, places of " cures " of all kinds relating to the pulmonary  diseases particularly, showed the double systematic presence of a high  negative ionization, associated with a very weak local micropollution of the  air; 

 - the presence of a strong excess of large positive ions and the  correlative disappearance of the negative oxygen ions always occur in the places where reign a significant  micropollution;

- the subjects placed in an atmosphere with strong positive  overcharge (animals or human) quickly express disorders or varied faintnesses, being able to become serious in the event of prolonged  exposure.   The return to an atmosphere with negative  prevalence involves the disappearance of these disorders or  faintnesses and the restoration of the health; 

 - these disorders and faintnesses occur in a number growing at the  people of which working conditions and the environment comprise a  strong well identified micropollution, and the electric imbalance of  the ambient air which in results ; 

 - these disorders and faintnesses are particularly raised in the  closed buildings provided with systems of recycling of the air and  where function strong sources of positive ions (video screens in  particular). 

 

It thus is currently allowed to affirm, not under a free and  contestable assumption, but within sight of facts recorded and checked  since soon hundred years, that the electric state of the air in which  we live, in close relationship to the nature and the quantity of  impurities which it can contain, is one of the fundamental factors of  our physiological balance and our maintenance in a satisfying health.   

 

He well, all occurs as if this biological obviousness, and  the indisputable physical facts on which it rests, were regarded as  plot or daydreams of scientist! 

 And to fight effects that nobody can obviously deny, one is then  constrained to use a chemotherapy of which nobody disputes the  utility, but who is impotent in front of problems which it is naturally  unable to solve. 

 Admittedly, no one can deny that in the presence of symptoms  unpleasant or painful, it is often urgent and legitimate to fight such  symptoms as fast as possible. 

 But no one will not claim either that, thanks to the immediate relief  obtained, one can give to later the care to deal with the causes! 

However, by a strange perversion,  one asks  chemotherapy to fight here only effects, due to causes which are  completely foreign for him, and to which it is completely unsuited.   The ransom to be paid is known:  in addition to a precarious  relief, they are all the side effects of the drugs thus consumed  without reserve, the immense wasting which they maintain.... 

 It is an attitude, rather an abandonment, which we must and  can refuse, because there is not in all that null fate. 

 

 We have, I hope for it, well defined and determined the causes of our  problems.   As it is the rule in this nature, a correctly  posed problem comprises the elements of its solution;  and it is not  only true with problems of mathematics!... 

 It thus remains us now to take the last step, to undertake the urgent  task:  to conceive then to carry out the restoration of a mutilated  atmospheric environment and to find, simply, which nature never ceased  offering to us without counting. 

That made, we will be able finally..... to breathe  ! 

 

 

2 -  MICROPOLLUTION, IONIZATION, HEALTH: 

               IDEAS AND AN ASSESSMENT

 

In front of the serious problems that the micro pollution of the  air poses - for us, but more and more for the children, particularly  vulnerable - I said and I will not cease repeating that there is  neither fate of the thing, nor impossibility of treating it. 

 I thus will endeavour to show you how a " good use " of concepts  sometimes rather abstract can lead fortunately to completely concrete  solutions and in addition very, very effective...

 

 Thus let us start by returning on what is in sum the cause of all our  problems:  micro pollutants and their generally positive charge.

We saw that the things are unfortunately not the same ones inside a  room, whatever it is.   Ground and walls insulators, charged  on average positively, prohibit the capture of the big positive  ions, situation that all measurements confirm. 

 Let us look at table N° XVI now:  it shows us the fundamental  mechanism by which a particle, neutral or charged positively, can be  affected by the presence of antagonistic charges, here negative.

 

Table 16

 

 

 Thus let us inject into the atmosphere of a micro polluted room  a small  quantity of electrons (they will be of course ions (0  2 - . 

 Initially, the large positive ions (not very mobile) will attract  towards them the very mobile negative ions, and will be thus  transformed into neutral particles.   It is a first  encouraging result, because the harmful effect suitable for the  positive charge will be already more or less mitigated. 

 It is unfortunately very insufficient  for two reasons at least: 

 - the micropolluants remain in the atmosphere because of the  properties recalled  to the chapter first,

 - these same micropolluants remains able to acquire a new positive  charge, created by the ambient sources (remember radon in particular). 

  If thus the quantity of negative ions injected is weak, we will have  obtained only one poor result and in particular, we will have  eliminated neither the particles responsible for allergies nor the  infectious germs.  As much to say that this form " of aéro-ionization  " is quasi useless and that it maintains the dangerous illusion of " cleansing ", almost non-existent  in fact. 

Completely inapt to ensure a real and permanent depollution, it will  lead its user to feel justified disappointment and mistrust:  a  perfectly effective natural process will simply have been betrayed by  an incoherent use. 

Thus let us return to our micro polluted room.   Let us  take now a source of electrons (thus of negative ions) enough  powerful to ensure the complete sequence of the events  appearing in table N° XVI: 

 - initially, the strong density of negative ions injected into the air  will involve their fast capture by the big positive ions present and  will neutralize those; 

 - these neutral particles, subjected to the intense electric  forces created by the negative charges, acquire a " polarization "  involving the capture of one or more electrons;  the big negative ions thus created carry a negative charge  then growing like the surrounding negative density, thus being able to  reach a high value (such an  effect was envisaged theoretically and  proven in experiments (cf Bibliography at the end of the  text) by German physicist LADENBURG (published in 1930 in famous  Annalen der Physik in BERLIN) and French physicist PAUTHENIER  (published in 1932 in the Reports of the Academy of Sciences, Paris...).  Moreover, all the particles present ,  whatever their dimensions or their nature, acquire such a load  negative ; 

-              this significant electric charge then will involve an increasing  mutual repulsion of the particles of micropolluants, sufficient so  that their diffusion and precipitation towards the ground of the room  (charged in general positively, cf table N° XV) is started and  continues regularly. 

Besides to this end " kinetic " purely is added a second effect quite  as significant on the aero contaminants present, bacteria, virus, etc,  effect specific to the only negative ions:  it is observed whereas  the strong electric charge acquired by these varied germs, very quickly  blocks their essential exchanges with the atmosphere, thus resulting  in their death (effect checked by Finnish and American works in the  Seventies - cf Bibliography). 

One is thus in the presence of a true  germ-destroying process.   Thus the double operation will then  be carried out for which I stated the need : 

 - to bring back the rate of the residual micropolluants to  that of the natural places most salubrious,

 - to restore the permanence of a negative overcharge of the air  identical to that of these places. 

 They are there effects being able to be qualified primarily of "  physics ", strictly related with those which one meets and observes in  external natural environments, far from any intense source of  micropollution. 

 Their existence and the quality of the results observed, as well in  test laboratories as in real sites of dwelling, would be enough to  justify of it - or rather to recommend some - the generalized use. 

 But, as I recalled it at the end of the second chapter, the presence  of the ionized oxygen  in the atmosphere is contemporary appearance of  the life;  this one had to integrate this fundamental and permanent  factor in its daily unfolding and its evolution, in particular on the  level of the respiratory and cutaneous exchanges. 

One must thus expect that a return in an  atmosphere provided well in ions (0₂^-)allows the attenuation, even supplements it disappearance, of the  disorders or faintnesses tested in micro polluted air with positive  charge.   Here still, the results observed in natural sites, but  also the observations made in closed mediums laying out of the necessary negative density , and during a sufficient time, agree  perfectly and provide almost identical results. 

 In the very many publications concerning the physiological  effects of the negative oxygenates ions  , a certain number of sites of  action are about unanimously recognized for essential with the  demonstration of these effects;  it is among others : 

- the complete respiratory tree,

 - the immune system via the macrophages (white globules known  as lymphocytes " killers"),

 - the Neuro vegetative system via serotonin and various  neurotransmitters. 

 Not less significant, but of origin more difficult to determine, are  the often spectacular effects on: 

 - tiredness, its arrival, its recovery,

 - general tonicity, vigilance, the aptitude for the effort,  the pain (cutaneous burns, ulceration's, but also rebellious  cephalgias, migraines). 

 Lastly, of very many observations (inter alia in the cribs of urban  children) confirm, during periods of epidemics in winter, the undeniable  protection brought by the installation and the permanent maintenance  of a high negative density. 

Such a protection is neither surprising nor additional:  it  results from the two fundamental properties of a sufficient negative  ionization of the ambient air:  the germ-destroying effect on the  aérocontaminants present and their precipitation at the ground, but  also the unquestionable action on the organization, in particular on  the immune system and natural defences. 

 The majority if not the totality of the recorded failures, as well as  the irregularity of the results, remain closely related on  the characteristics of the apparatuses used,  the conditions  of use, and confirm the peremptory necessity to use  perfectly sure sources and sufficiently powerful    Such an obligation will be all the more pressing besides  since the room to be cleansed will be of greater volume and object of  a strong micropollution, while the number, the provision and the  characteristics of the apparatuses will be the subject of a  preliminary thorough study. 

Let us reconsider one moment the biological effects of our  negative oxygen  :  we know that it is narrowly implied in several  physiological mechanisms completely essential with our life - if not  our survival - which I will very briefly point out.  

 First of all, of course, breathing or more exactly the mechanism by  which, on the level of the " membrane " which papers our air cells, is  done the fundamental gaseous exchange.   It is there that the  oxygen, brought by the air inspired, gains the network of capillary  vessels surrounding and is collected by haemoglobin.   In the  same moment, carbon dioxide leaves this haemoglobin and the blood of  the capillaries, crosses the membrane of the cells and is evacuated  towards the atmosphere.   All this process complexes proceeds  in a few seconds, with each inspiration and expiry...

It is here that negatively ionized oxygen seems to play a  completely essential role, by ensuring a transit much easier and rapid  of the molecules of neutral oxygen, immensely more, and consequently  facilitating the opposite transit of carbon dioxide.   The  respiratory " output " is some increased, in the same way of course as  the oxygenation of blood and its " purification ". 

 If it is obviously necessary to be kept of saying that in the absence  of negatively ionized oxygen, we would die asphyxiated, it does not  remain about it per less that in this absence the " respiratory output  " is clearly decreased, the exchanges reduced , and that the disorders  observed systematically in such an atmosphere occur then when the  people concerned present a respiratory deficit.

The second field, in which the molecule (0₂^-)   plays a fundamental role, is that of our  immunizing defences, in particular in the essential phase of the  destruction of a foreign body (bacterium, cell, etc.)  by the " white  globules " responsible for this task and called " macrophages ".. 

 The third field, in which we have all the evidence of the essential  role of negatively ionized oxygen, relates to a completely fundamental  chemical substance of our organization, true molecule " conductor" :  the serotonin. 

 At the same time messenger and actor, this molecule is present everywhere  and is worth us besides often serious nuisances.   You owe him  in particular severe and tough migraines, without speaking about the  innumerable inflammatory problems from which we suffer always more or  less.   However such nuisances always result from the presence  of a serotonin excess in our blood plasma and translate in fact a true  " state of alert " of our organization in relation to an interior or  external aggression.

In particular, a positively overcharged and micropolluted  atmosphere maintains a systematic excess serotonin in blood and can  thus involve the appearance of all the disorders resulting from such  an excess;  contrary, an atmosphere with sufficient negative charge  makes it possible to observe a true regulation of the serotonin rate,  that the organization controls again fully. 

 To finish some with these concrete examples, a case should be quoted  where seem to combine itself and to harmonize the properties of this  ion (0 2 - :  that of the cutaneous wounds  by burns or ulcerations subjected to a sufficiently intense flow of  negative ions.  Here, the observation is easy, the results immediately visible   and recordable, in particular by photography .

Whoever saw and intended a very young child to hopelessly  seek his breathing during one night whole, cannot remain indifferent  to the problem.   Here still, the negatively charged air, and  of this fact largely removed from the aero-allergens present, brings  to the small patient a relief which always leaves  at the same time the delighted observer, relieved, but passably doubtful .   I add  that such a result, observed on multiple occasions and easily  verifiable, is obviously not the prerogative of the young children.   Simply, it is much more difficult to call upon in their cases  a " placebo effect " " of circumstance ", completely impossible since  they are perfectly unaware of  the means then used, like their  possible  effects!! 

Let us retain however that such results should not absolutely  enable us to claim that negative ionization is the panacea, remedy for  all the come evils and to come!  It is registered more modestly, but  with its own indications and its undeniable effectiveness, among the  best means than nature places at our disposal to relieve or prevent  some of our evils.   I think that it is amply enough to  justify it! 

 And I thus will get busy, in what follows, showing how can   and especially how must, being  implemented such a means to bring to us what we can expect.

 

 

 

 

3- ACTIVE AERO-IONIZATION : WHICH SOURCES ?

 

 

One would of course be tempted to answer:  " natural " sources,  obviously, if one is likely to live in a permanent way in a place of  perfect healthiness:  clearing of mountain, foot of a cascade,  snow-covered slopes...

 Such permanent stays being reserved only for one rather reduced number  of our contemporaries, it will be necessary for us well to have  recourse to an " ionizer" ! 

 Thus let us return to our problem:  to find the best possible source  of electrons, therefore of negative oxygenates ions  , i.e. a source  offering the ideal efficiency with the minimum of harmful effects and  ensuring inside a room  the concentration of ions (0₂^-) considered to be necessary, whatever may be "a priori" the  volume of the room and the ionic concentration required. 

 Nature offers to us in practice four possible sources of electrons,  more or less directly usable.   Thus let us see if such  sources have the exigible characters .. 

a) Radioactive sources and radiation U.V. 

 These obviously are - though natural  !  - sources " with risk " which, except very particular cases, will never be used for  a usual ionization of inhabited buildings.  

b)  " Thermionic " sources

 One thus names sources able to emit electrons when they are  heated.   What we call " heat " is only, indeed,   the result of perpetual agitation, around their  position of balance, of all the atoms or molecules of all the existing  bodies.   A piece of burning iron, it is a piece of iron whose  atoms are agitated frantically! 

 A piece of ice, it is water whose molecules ceased their agitation  until enabling them to join in a compact solid;  in the ice, like  besides in iron in a solid state, atoms and molecules are satisfied to  oscillate indefinitely around their average position, without  destroying the global structure. 

Well...  And electrons, in all that?  A little as  beans in a pan which one shakes:  as a long time as the jolts are  moderated, you will not lose beans!  But if you increase agitation  (the temperature of the piece of iron), then caution with the bean leakages, and the escape of the electrons, that the increasing  agitation of the iron atoms starts to project outside. 

 And, of course, more you agitate the pan, more you lose  beans:  the more the temperature of the piece of iron increase, the  more it emits electrons!  This phenomenon is abundantly made  profitable in the multiple electronic devices which surround us, and  particularly in all the " tubes " intended to provide us images:  data-processing screens, television sets, inter alia.... 

Then, we have the solution? 

 Not, unfortunately, and this because of oxygen because a  piece of iron, especially heated, places at the disposal of this  oxygen a genuine basket of electrons. 

 Without same waiting until those left their atom, the molecules of  oxygen will make a rush on the iron atoms, clinging thanks to the electrons  thus lent, and to give us " rusted " iron ! 

 That made, good-bye with the electrons, finished the external  emission, finished the ionization of the air! And this is alas true for almost the whole of the metals,  made thus unusable in the air by way of " hot sources " of electrons.

 

c) " Soft " sources :

Two of them constitutes really appreciable sources  of electrons, therefore of ions oxygenates negative:  green sheets of  all the plants lit by sunlight and the cascade or rainwater drops. 

 The contribution in ions (0₂^-)  of the plants is considerable, not because the power of the emission  is very low, but because the quantity of these plants is enormous, and  that they are still largely widespread. 

 The contribution in negative ions due to the rains relates to  especially the strong downpours, from the medium to the end of storms,  and thus keep a very specific character ("negative rains"). 

And the contribution due to the cascades, located in theory in  mountain, remains obviously narrowly localised with the site  concerned.   Let us specify immediately that the use of "  cascades " or equivalent in apartment brings to the user a completely  appreciable environment, but alas very little of negative ions usable! 

 For essential that are thus the interest and the contribution of these  sources in the external medium, their use in the closed buildings is  obviously excluded, or at best completely additional.  There thus  remains a last possible means, that which nature implements at the  level of the sheets of conifers and the lightning conductors inter  alia:  it is " the effect of point " still called " Corona effect ". 

d)  The effect " of point " or " Corona " (or " crowns") 

 Table N° XVII summarizes the essence of this  phenomena :  one will make an effort  to accumulate at the end of a very sharp-edged " point " the greatest  possible quantity of electrons.  The point will be obviously made of a  conducting metal particularly not very miserly of its electrons  (Nickel, Gold, etc.)   

Table 17

 

 To obtain such a result, it is obviously necessary to provide  to the electrons of metal a good reason to flee their asylum.    In the truth, simplest will be to have an external source of electrons,  in the shape of a generator with very high voltage, able to provide  the energy of  wrenching to the electrons of the point.    Pushed, hustled, piled up towards the point, they will be constrained  to jump in the " vacuum "! 

 It is exactly what occurs and one  observes moreover  than one same generator of very high  voltage (VHV of table N° XVII) will provide a number of electrons all  the more large since the point is more " fine ";  we will say more  precisely " all the more large since the ray of the end of the point  is weaker ".   Moreover, for the same  point with the same  final  ray, the number of electrons grows quickly when the tension applied to  the point increases. 

 It would be then trying to say:  " to have an intense source,  rather than to endeavour to manufacture extremely fine, fragile and  delicate points to use, let us use more rustic but robust points,  under a higher tension." 

 It is there a new example of the harmful effects which a  ill-considered use of the " good direction involves ":  it is indeed  easy, therefore trying, to increase the tension applied to the points  and  almost the totality of the manufacturers does not deprive  itself any! 

The trouble is that one of the usual means to manufacture  ozone - you remember, this variety of oxygen with three atoms - is  precisely to carry a driver, in particular a " rustic " point, with a  raised tension, higher in fact than 5000 volts.   An  additional trouble is that the produced quantity of ozone  grows very, very quickly  when the tension of the points is  increased, involving very quickly for the user a serious and obviously  unacceptable risk. 

 And as a trouble never arrives only, another difficulty also will  arise:  that of the creation of a " plasma " of charges, whose presence  strongly reduces the output of emission of the point, but especially  is responsible for the creation of undesirable ozone! 

 What is this thus still that this plasma? 

 In what concerns us, source of additional troubles , which is  easy to  understand considering what precedes, but less easy to  fight!  And here why. 

 If you return in table N° XVII, you see there that, by its nature,  this plasma plays an energetic role of brake with regard to new  electrons resulting from the point, and that it thus tends to reduce  the emission  very appreciably:  installed in front of the point,  any fan, therefore powerful it is, will never manage to  dislodge it... while it will ensure a broad distribution of ozone  produced !.... 

The problem is now clearly posed : 

 - to have the electrons and the ionised oxygen which we need,  one would need a strong tension applied to the points,  but  the ozone produced in quantity would make the apparatus  dangerous and unusable what the experiment proves  immediately; 

 - then, it would be necessary to operate with moderated tension, without  production of ozone... but with an output in electrons very  decreased and poor or null results  in  particular concerning depollution and decontamination, which proves  pitilessly the experiment.....

 

 For almost the whole (except for an exception) of the currently  marketed apparatuses, the adopted solution is a compromise between the  two requirements:  one operates between 6000 and 12000 volts by  producing an ozone rate which claims to respect... " the international  standards ", but which quickly becomes intolerable  for the users, in particular the all young children and the fragile or  sensitive people. 

It is however interesting - but  worrying - to note that these  " standards " vary   very largely on both sides from Atlantique :  the American standards  tolerate 0, 1 " part per Million " (which one writes 0, 1 ppM) or "  100 ppB " (part per Billion) of ozone in the places " intended to  accommodate the people ";  the Russian standards, more severe, tolerate  only 0,05 ppM (50 ppB).   As for the O.M.S.  (the World Health  Organization), seized of increasing pollution due to ozone, it studied  the problem for a lowering of the tolerable rate very below the  Russian standards. 

 Let us add that in France, inter alia, there is not  imperative standard and that this gap in the law - largely  exploited by the manufacturers - does not support protection against  ozone....

Let us add finally that the prolonged stay in a  place containing more than 0,025 ppM (that is to say  25 ppB) of ozone can involve more or less severe disorders or  accidents for the famous individuals  " sensitive ".... but  also for the others. 

still set us recall that the ozone  emission is inseparable from the production of oxides of nitrogen,  very aggressive substances towards the mucous membranes of the  respiratory tree and the cornea, inter alia.   It is to say  once again that the electric characteristics and the nature of the  emissive point will not be enough in no case to  qualify an equipment and that it will imperatively be necessary to  take into account the globality of the problem.   It is there  pure and simple problem of physics, and more exactly of this  completely abstract and passably unpleasing part that one names "  electrostatics ".  Courage !  We... almost arrived. 

Because from now, if we apply with a perfect rigour the fundamental  rules that nature proposes and imposes to us clearly, we will  end without surprised to the results until we wait. 

 Without surprise,  but at the price of a long adventure, rich in  difficulties and developments ! 

 It is a little this adventure which I now will tell you. 

 Soon thirty years ago (I write this in 1999) that I tackled the  problems of the physics of the atmosphere, and that I learned to which  complex phenomena I was going to be confronted.   With this  very complexity being added their unquestionable impact on the beings  living in this atmosphere and thanks to it, even if this impact were  not perfect obviousness. 

 And so that measurement was packed, I was going very quickly to learn  that these alive beings could in return modify or disturb the most  essential characteristics of the air of which they lived! 

Very quickly also I noted the importance of the electric  phenomena - the ionization of the air - on the state and the behavior  of these same living beings .  This led me to take part, in university  laboratories, with the direction of several biological research tasks  with a new generator of negative ions which I had designed. 

   Sanctioned by a thesis of doctorate inter alia, this work confirmed  what we then knew of the effect of the ions of the two signs on the  alive medium. 

 These various circumstances having led me to ensure a post-doctoral  university education, I was going naturally to be led to widen the  field of investigation which arised at me, in order to obtain if  possible a complete vision of the phenomena.  Thus, with the passing  of years, from the innumerable articles or documents read and  analyzed, from the multiplied experiments, from the accumulated  results, was going to constitute the solid screen on which the  achievements are pressed in question in what follows.  But before that, one precisely needs that certain rules are  pointed out and specified,  precisely those which emerged from  this long study, and naturally were essential. 

The experiment then proved unceasingly that they must  be very strictly respected so that the equipment  implemented ensures us without fault the essential effectiveness and  harmlessness. 

 Here thus these rules, which make besides only summarize all that was  known as with the length of these lines. 

 1 -  The device will have to act permanently on the whole of the  volume of air contained in a given room, in order to act at the same  moment on the whole of the micropolluants and charges present. 

 2 -  The device will have to act on the totality of  the categories of micropolluants and contaminant present  ("granulometric spectrum"), extending in fact from some micrometers  (limits of the largest suspended particles) with some thousandth from  micrometers (virus, aggregates of " big" molecules, etc.) 

 3 -  The device will be, whatever its power, of a total  harmlessness (ozone emission and oxides of nitrogen to most  equal to that of the natural places most salubrious), thus authorizing  its established post in all closed places and near sensitive or  fragile people in particular.

4 -  The device will have to restore and maintain  the balance electric of the atmosphere of a room in accordance with  that of a salubrious natural atmosphere , whatever  may be the dimensions, the structure, the contents  and the conditions of  use of the room. 

 5 -  The device will be easily adaptable to the  structure and the conditions of use of a room, whatever are dimensions  or  destination. 

 6 -  The device will ensure a permanent operation with a low  fuel consumption of energy returning its cost of moderate  exploitation. 

 7 -  The device will have an enough weak cost of use and of acquisition  to allow  its installation in  all the places where it is necessary or justified. 

 8 -  The device will be of simple and easy current use. 

 9 -  The device will have a long permanent utilisation period (3 to 5  years without intervention), as well as a simple and reduced  maintenance. 

10 -  The device will exclude all accessories  (ventilators, turbines, etc.)  useless and  expensive   

 11 -  The device will be quiet  in order to be able  to function in all rest or places of work, sensitive person or  patient. 

 12 -  The device will be able to function normally in aggressive  atmosphere without risk of deterioration or danger to the user. 

 

 The first conclusion which emerged from this statement was the  quasi obligation to have recourse to electric devices , only able to  satisfy completely the rules N° 1, 2 and 4 and to bring the best  solution to the nine others.   These electric devices would  consist then, taking into account all that precedes, of one (or several)  source of  oxygen negative ions  for " point effect". 

 Remained to specify exactly what would be in practice such a source  and the requirements that it should satisfy. 

It was going to take twelve years of work to have the answer,  in the shape of a new apparatus and of its successively improved  versions, answering all the imposed conditions indeed. 

 Subjected to the long torture of the tests and controls in laboratory,  then to the same tests in real sites of all natures and all  dimensions, the new apparatus brought finally the proof that the  obstinacy of the physicist - some would say his crazes - are and will  remain always an essential rule ! 

 It also brought the proof that, contrary to assertions too often  heard, there was no contradiction between the stated rules , the essential consequence being the opening of a  considerable field of application to a technique remained up to now  very confined and very disputed. 

 From all this, it results that what will follow, which relates to all  the practical uses of aero-ionization, of course refers  exclusively to the new equipment which I have just evoked.  

 Its characteristics thus make it possible to envisage and  adopt these conditions of use within the strict framework of the " 12  rules ". 

 Of course, any equipment similar to come, which would answer  in a way unquestionable and proven the same  criteria, would be usable under these same conditions and should thus  lead to same  results . 

 

 Remember:  in nature, the same causes never ceased producing the same  effects. 

 

 

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