Zeco Aircon has introduced an air purification technology that would destroy harmful viruses, including Covid-19 causing SARS-CoV2, the company said.
Karthik Singhal, Director of Zeco Aircon, a leader in the central heating, ventilation, and airconditioning market in the country, said these air purifiers that can be both in centralised ventilation systems, as well as stand-alone units, has been certified as an effective anti-viral technology by the Hyderabad-based Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB).
The technology, developed by a US firm RGF Environmental Group and licensed to Zeco Aircon, used ionised hydrogen peroxide for destroying germs, including deadly viruses. According to Singhal, these air purifiers have been installed at around 10,000 places, including a number of hospital wards across the country.
He said hydrogen peroxide is a known disinfectant and is commonly used in operation theatres (OTs) for sterilising the environment. “But, in OTs, it is normally used in vapourised form by keeping the bottle of hydrogen peroxide open in order to saturate the air. But, it is harmful to humans if the concentration in the room is more than 1 part per million (ppm),” Singhal said.
RGF, an environmental design, and manufacturing company, on the other hand, designed a proprietary technology that would use ionised form of hydrogen peroxide. The superoxide ions produced using this REME-PHI technology are capable of inactivating bacteria, viruses, mould, odours, and particulate matter. More importantly, the concentration of hydrogen peroxide used for this is just 0.01 ppm, 99 per cent less than that in the vapourised form, said Singhal.
The tests carried out by CCMB, a constituent laboratory of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, New Delhi, showed that there was a 97.48 per cent reduction in viral load in the closed atmosphere 15 minutes after the device is activated. Within 60 minutes the reduction goes up beyond 99 per cent, according to the report submitted by the institute. According to Singhal, similar tests carried out in the Sandia National Laboratories in the US too yielded the same results.
Zeco Aircon, which has distribution rights for REME-PHI in 20 countries, said this air purifier requires no maintenance or cleaning for four years, making it an ideal solution for keeping homes, offices and other indoor areas safe from microbes, and particulate matter.