“Clean” rooms, in which air remains contained in a closed system for filtering rather than mixing with the rest of the facility, are in high demand at hospitals. Enter the OptiClean ($2,000–$4,000), a mobile air purifier built by Carrier that has two air-scrubbing functions. It can turn any room into a so-called negative air-pressure space to prevent potentially contaminated air from flowing out, pushing it instead through a high-efficiency HEPA filter before releasing it back into the room. Or, it can simply filter out pathogens from a room. So far, the company has 15,000 orders for the units from hospitals as well as schools, universities, offices and other buildings looking to provide safe indoor environments. —Alice Park
The Best Inventions of 2020
