Airora - From Open Air Factor to Hydroxyl Cascade Technology
Airora is the only technology that can quickly deactivate and continually suppress both air and surface borne viruses and bacteria (including COVID-19) throughout a whole indoor space.
Solving Big Environmental Challenges
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Neutralising
Allergens |
Eliminating
Pollution |
Removing
Odours |
Killing
Pathogens |
Hydroxyl Technologies invents breakthrough technologies, licenses patents and designs and provides in-depth know-how and support.
Our technologies focus on some of the biggest environmental challenges we face, including:
Our technologies focus on some of the biggest environmental challenges we face, including:
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Hydroxyl Radicals
Safely and efficiently creating airborne 'Hydroxyl Radicals' is at the core of what we do. Hydroxyls are the powerful, safe and natural atmospheric cleansing agent that gives 'fresh air' that clean and refreshing feel that we all love.
Hydroxyls are very small (just two atoms) and highly reactive, each one typically existing for less than a second. Outside, they are continuously and naturally created in vast quantities. They cascade throughout the open air, continually decontaminating our environment of pollutants to make it safe for living things. They are so essential to life on earth that a Nobel Prize winning scientist Paul Crutzen named them 'Nature’s Detergent'.
But hydroxyls are only created naturally outside. Where others have tried and failed, only our patented technology re-creates 'the outside inside', spreading an entirely safe Hydroxyl Cascade into every corner of an internal space, continuously and effectively cleaning the air and all exposed surfaces of allergens and irritants, VOCs, odours, human pathogens, and other pollutants.
Hydroxyls are very small (just two atoms) and highly reactive, each one typically existing for less than a second. Outside, they are continuously and naturally created in vast quantities. They cascade throughout the open air, continually decontaminating our environment of pollutants to make it safe for living things. They are so essential to life on earth that a Nobel Prize winning scientist Paul Crutzen named them 'Nature’s Detergent'.
But hydroxyls are only created naturally outside. Where others have tried and failed, only our patented technology re-creates 'the outside inside', spreading an entirely safe Hydroxyl Cascade into every corner of an internal space, continuously and effectively cleaning the air and all exposed surfaces of allergens and irritants, VOCs, odours, human pathogens, and other pollutants.
To create Hydroxyl Cascade Technology, the Airora team solved the mystery of Open Air Factor whose origins date back a over a century.
Preventing infections arising from contaminated air or surfaces remains one of humankinds greatest challenges.
Cholera, bubonic plague, smallpox, and influenza have been some of the most brutal killers in human history. Smallpox alone has been estimated to have killed circa 500 million people over the last century. More recently, in 2020, COVID-19 was declared a pandemic, and as of May 2023 the WHO reported that, worldwide, there have been more than 760 million confirmed cases and almost 7 million resultant deaths.
Few doubt that a new COVID-19 like pandemic will arise in the future. Indeed, the UK’s 2021 Integrated Review of Security estimates that another novel pandemic remains a “realistic possibility” before 2030 as population growth, and the loss of wildlife habitats, are set to increase the risk of diseases jumping from animals to humans.
While COVID-19 has dominated recent headlines, The WHO estimates that more than 1.4 million patients worldwide in developed and developing countries are affected at any one time by health care-associated infections (HAIs), that is an infection occurring in a patient during their stay in a health care facility which was not present or incubating at the time of admission. To put this into perspective, out of every 100 patients in acute-care hospitals, seven patients in high-income countries and 15 patients in lower income countries will acquire at least one HAI during their hospital stay. Sadly, on average, 1 in every 10 of those patients will die from their HAI.
That is the bad news, but the good news is that a new ‘hydroxyl cascade’ technology, promises to greatly reduce both HAIs and future pandemic related infections.
Fifteen years in the making, this breakthrough technology arises directly from our recent better understanding of the origins of outdoor air’s natural and powerful germicidal property, and how that effect can be replicated indoors.
The recognition that outdoor air has germicidal properties was widely exploited during the late 19th and early 20th centuries in the treatment of tuberculosis, where patients underwent 'open-air therapy' to help them heal. It was further exploited by military surgeons during the First World War who used the same open-air technique to disinfect and heal severe wounds and by doctors to treat influenza patients during the 1918-19 pandemic.
There appears to have been little further interest in the germicidal properties of outdoor air following this period and during the 1950s chemical therapies superseded ‘open air therapy’, and interest diminished.
During the 1960s and 1970s these germicidal properties were briefly re-visited by UK biodefence scientists at Porton Down who conducted experiments proving that open air has a potent germicidal effect. However, not knowing the origin of the effect, they simply called it the ‘Open Air Factor’ or OAF. The Porton Down scientists demonstrated that OAF effect occurred outside but didn’t occur inside unless ventilation rates were very high indeed. From this they concluded that whatever the active agent was, it was clearly short lived. However, they ultimately failed to identify the active agent, as at that time no test technique was sensitive enough to identify and measure the OAF present in the air.
When this research ended in the 1970s, interest in the OAF again fell away except amongst a small group of scientists, including the inventor of hydroxyl cascade technology, who were determined to unravel the mystery.
In the years that followed, while hydroxyl radicals were recognised as one possible source of the germicidal effect, others contended that, given typical concentrations, their very short life and their creation at random locations, they were statistically unlikely to react with harmful viruses, bacteria and moulds in sufficient numbers to be the OAF germicide, but that other Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS) might play a dominant role.
But by the start of the 21st century, by persistently focussing on advances at the intersection of atmospheric chemistry, microbiology and aerobiology the inventor of hydroxyl cascade technology concluded that OAF wasn’t just hydroxyls in general and / or other ROS, but a particular subset of hydroxyl radicals that are created in a particular way, such that they became a powerful targeted germicide.
There are multiple sources of hydroxyls in outdoor air. The most common daytime source being a photochemical reaction which creates randomly dispersed hydroxyls. However, another significant source is the natural 24 hour outdoor reaction of ozone with aromatic essential oils emitted from plants. The defining feature of this second source is that the underlying cascade reaction condenses and has a strong propensity to occur on surfaces, including the surfaces of particles such as harmful viruses, bacteria and moulds. It is hydroxyls created from this condensing reaction, at the very surface of viruses, bacteria and moulds, which target the hydroxyls and make them such a powerful germicide.
Fortunately, humans, animals, and plants have evolved over millennia to co-exist with hydroxyls and their reaction by-products. Atmospheric hydroxyls cannot enter the blood stream or tissues within the body, because skin and mucosal membranes have evolved to provide a protective barrier.
It became clear that hydroxyls were not just a powerful outdoor germicide, but as they were not harmful for humans, they held considerable promise in infection prevention.
Over the last decade ‘air cleaners’ based on creating hydroxyl radicals by photocatalytic oxidation (as pioneered by NASA) have become available. However, because the life of a hydroxyl radical is so short, their impact outside of the air cleaner is, whatever the claims made, strictly limited. In fact, these hydroxyl radical ‘air cleaners’ basically act as filters and share all the same physical limitations as other filters, principally that typically only 50% of the ever changing air in a room passes through the filter and is ‘cleaned’.
The development challenge then was to create hydroxyl radicals throughout an indoor space, in a similar concentration to daylight outdoor levels, 24 hours a day, employing the natural ozone + aromatic essential oil cascade reaction which in turn preferentially targets harmful viruses and bacteria both in the air and on surfaces. The inventor’s ‘Hydroxyl Diffuser’ does exactly that. And the results are remarkable:
And the benefits go well beyond virus, bacteria and mould inactivation. Hydroxyls also remove all odours, break down all VOCs and most other polluting gasses and damage the protein and tertiary structure of allergens so that they are no longer recognised by the body's immune system. It is no surprise then that they have become known as ‘The Detergent of the Atmosphere’, because without them, life as we know it would not be possible on planet Earth.
If it is so simple, how has it taken fifteen years for Hydroxyl Diffusers to become available?
Beyond creating the necessary reliable technology, the fundamental issues for the developers were to decide on and achieve a target hydroxyl concentration and to ensure that none of the emissions or by-products of the very complex underlying chemical reactions are harmful.
The concentration of hydroxyls in the lower atmosphere has been determined to generally lie between 0.5x106 per cm3 and 5x106 per cm3 depending on many factors, including time of day, humidity, temperature, season etc. In general, the concentration is lowest at the poles and highest at the equator.
The developers decided to fall well within this range by targeting output in the range of 1 to 3x106 per cm3 with a focus on 2x106 per cm3. Performance within this range varies a little in terms of the time taken to inactivate pathogens, but the outcome over time is very similar.
Measuring hydroxyl concentration is however not easy, and so the developers turned to both Leeds University Atmospheric Chemistry Group and the UK’s National Health and Safety Laboratory to cross check measurements using different measurement techniques and then calibrate the hydroxyl diffuser technology.
Following detailed experimentation, the developers determined that the quantity of essential oil and ozone necessary to create the required hydroxyl concentration was fortunately very low, well below any cautionary, advisory or regulatory limits.
In fact, by employing the latest sensor technology, the Hydroxyl Diffuser monitors the air quality in real time and dynamically adjust its outputs to ensure that, where pre-existing background ozone levels are found to be too high, the resultant level falls to well within all advisory and regulatory limits.
In terms of by-products, the developers asked the world leading UK Building Research Establishment (BRE), Indoor Air Quality Group, to develop a test and evaluation regime to establish the product’s safety. That regime was focussed on two principal issues; are all by-products safe at the concentration created and do any by-products accumulate over time.
The test results were unambiguous:
As the Inventor told me, it was fifteen years well spent!
In conclusion, Hydroxyl Diffuser technology is both effective and safe and is set to revolutionise how we make those who are indoors safe from infection while simultaneously protecting those indoors with breathing problems from allergens and irritants.
Cholera, bubonic plague, smallpox, and influenza have been some of the most brutal killers in human history. Smallpox alone has been estimated to have killed circa 500 million people over the last century. More recently, in 2020, COVID-19 was declared a pandemic, and as of May 2023 the WHO reported that, worldwide, there have been more than 760 million confirmed cases and almost 7 million resultant deaths.
Few doubt that a new COVID-19 like pandemic will arise in the future. Indeed, the UK’s 2021 Integrated Review of Security estimates that another novel pandemic remains a “realistic possibility” before 2030 as population growth, and the loss of wildlife habitats, are set to increase the risk of diseases jumping from animals to humans.
While COVID-19 has dominated recent headlines, The WHO estimates that more than 1.4 million patients worldwide in developed and developing countries are affected at any one time by health care-associated infections (HAIs), that is an infection occurring in a patient during their stay in a health care facility which was not present or incubating at the time of admission. To put this into perspective, out of every 100 patients in acute-care hospitals, seven patients in high-income countries and 15 patients in lower income countries will acquire at least one HAI during their hospital stay. Sadly, on average, 1 in every 10 of those patients will die from their HAI.
That is the bad news, but the good news is that a new ‘hydroxyl cascade’ technology, promises to greatly reduce both HAIs and future pandemic related infections.
Fifteen years in the making, this breakthrough technology arises directly from our recent better understanding of the origins of outdoor air’s natural and powerful germicidal property, and how that effect can be replicated indoors.
The recognition that outdoor air has germicidal properties was widely exploited during the late 19th and early 20th centuries in the treatment of tuberculosis, where patients underwent 'open-air therapy' to help them heal. It was further exploited by military surgeons during the First World War who used the same open-air technique to disinfect and heal severe wounds and by doctors to treat influenza patients during the 1918-19 pandemic.
There appears to have been little further interest in the germicidal properties of outdoor air following this period and during the 1950s chemical therapies superseded ‘open air therapy’, and interest diminished.
During the 1960s and 1970s these germicidal properties were briefly re-visited by UK biodefence scientists at Porton Down who conducted experiments proving that open air has a potent germicidal effect. However, not knowing the origin of the effect, they simply called it the ‘Open Air Factor’ or OAF. The Porton Down scientists demonstrated that OAF effect occurred outside but didn’t occur inside unless ventilation rates were very high indeed. From this they concluded that whatever the active agent was, it was clearly short lived. However, they ultimately failed to identify the active agent, as at that time no test technique was sensitive enough to identify and measure the OAF present in the air.
When this research ended in the 1970s, interest in the OAF again fell away except amongst a small group of scientists, including the inventor of hydroxyl cascade technology, who were determined to unravel the mystery.
In the years that followed, while hydroxyl radicals were recognised as one possible source of the germicidal effect, others contended that, given typical concentrations, their very short life and their creation at random locations, they were statistically unlikely to react with harmful viruses, bacteria and moulds in sufficient numbers to be the OAF germicide, but that other Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS) might play a dominant role.
But by the start of the 21st century, by persistently focussing on advances at the intersection of atmospheric chemistry, microbiology and aerobiology the inventor of hydroxyl cascade technology concluded that OAF wasn’t just hydroxyls in general and / or other ROS, but a particular subset of hydroxyl radicals that are created in a particular way, such that they became a powerful targeted germicide.
There are multiple sources of hydroxyls in outdoor air. The most common daytime source being a photochemical reaction which creates randomly dispersed hydroxyls. However, another significant source is the natural 24 hour outdoor reaction of ozone with aromatic essential oils emitted from plants. The defining feature of this second source is that the underlying cascade reaction condenses and has a strong propensity to occur on surfaces, including the surfaces of particles such as harmful viruses, bacteria and moulds. It is hydroxyls created from this condensing reaction, at the very surface of viruses, bacteria and moulds, which target the hydroxyls and make them such a powerful germicide.
Fortunately, humans, animals, and plants have evolved over millennia to co-exist with hydroxyls and their reaction by-products. Atmospheric hydroxyls cannot enter the blood stream or tissues within the body, because skin and mucosal membranes have evolved to provide a protective barrier.
It became clear that hydroxyls were not just a powerful outdoor germicide, but as they were not harmful for humans, they held considerable promise in infection prevention.
Over the last decade ‘air cleaners’ based on creating hydroxyl radicals by photocatalytic oxidation (as pioneered by NASA) have become available. However, because the life of a hydroxyl radical is so short, their impact outside of the air cleaner is, whatever the claims made, strictly limited. In fact, these hydroxyl radical ‘air cleaners’ basically act as filters and share all the same physical limitations as other filters, principally that typically only 50% of the ever changing air in a room passes through the filter and is ‘cleaned’.
The development challenge then was to create hydroxyl radicals throughout an indoor space, in a similar concentration to daylight outdoor levels, 24 hours a day, employing the natural ozone + aromatic essential oil cascade reaction which in turn preferentially targets harmful viruses and bacteria both in the air and on surfaces. The inventor’s ‘Hydroxyl Diffuser’ does exactly that. And the results are remarkable:
- Inactivating 99.9999% of high concentration benchmark MS-2 airborne virus in less than 5 minutes according to Public Health England (Porton Down no less!)• Inactivating 99.9999% of high concentration MRSA on glass in 1 hour according to Public Health England
- Inactivating 99.999% of high concentration airborne Staphylococcus epidermidis bacteria in less than 2 minutes according to Public Health England
- A simulated sneeze test with high concentration of bacteria saw a greater than 99% reduction in transmitted live bacteria after only 600mm according to BRE & IOM Stafford – the hydroxyl cascade is so powerful it creates a real time person to person infection shield!
And the benefits go well beyond virus, bacteria and mould inactivation. Hydroxyls also remove all odours, break down all VOCs and most other polluting gasses and damage the protein and tertiary structure of allergens so that they are no longer recognised by the body's immune system. It is no surprise then that they have become known as ‘The Detergent of the Atmosphere’, because without them, life as we know it would not be possible on planet Earth.
If it is so simple, how has it taken fifteen years for Hydroxyl Diffusers to become available?
Beyond creating the necessary reliable technology, the fundamental issues for the developers were to decide on and achieve a target hydroxyl concentration and to ensure that none of the emissions or by-products of the very complex underlying chemical reactions are harmful.
The concentration of hydroxyls in the lower atmosphere has been determined to generally lie between 0.5x106 per cm3 and 5x106 per cm3 depending on many factors, including time of day, humidity, temperature, season etc. In general, the concentration is lowest at the poles and highest at the equator.
The developers decided to fall well within this range by targeting output in the range of 1 to 3x106 per cm3 with a focus on 2x106 per cm3. Performance within this range varies a little in terms of the time taken to inactivate pathogens, but the outcome over time is very similar.
Measuring hydroxyl concentration is however not easy, and so the developers turned to both Leeds University Atmospheric Chemistry Group and the UK’s National Health and Safety Laboratory to cross check measurements using different measurement techniques and then calibrate the hydroxyl diffuser technology.
Following detailed experimentation, the developers determined that the quantity of essential oil and ozone necessary to create the required hydroxyl concentration was fortunately very low, well below any cautionary, advisory or regulatory limits.
In fact, by employing the latest sensor technology, the Hydroxyl Diffuser monitors the air quality in real time and dynamically adjust its outputs to ensure that, where pre-existing background ozone levels are found to be too high, the resultant level falls to well within all advisory and regulatory limits.
In terms of by-products, the developers asked the world leading UK Building Research Establishment (BRE), Indoor Air Quality Group, to develop a test and evaluation regime to establish the product’s safety. That regime was focussed on two principal issues; are all by-products safe at the concentration created and do any by-products accumulate over time.
The test results were unambiguous:
- None of the by-products, at the concentration created, either from the underlying process, nor from their reaction with any of the typical VOCs found indoors, are known to be harmful. This is the first time that such a comprehensive analysis has been carried out and involved not just the BRE but also two specialist Universities, Leeds and York, to identify each and every by-product.
- None of the by-products accumulated over time, be they particulates or VOCs, indeed most tend to reduce over time.
As the Inventor told me, it was fifteen years well spent!
In conclusion, Hydroxyl Diffuser technology is both effective and safe and is set to revolutionise how we make those who are indoors safe from infection while simultaneously protecting those indoors with breathing problems from allergens and irritants.
Indoor Air Cleaning
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Our patented air cleaning technology spreads the powerful cleaning actions of hydroxyls throughout the air in a room and onto exposed surfaces from a single compact device, which works safely and efficiently 24/7 to:
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Some Potential Applications
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