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(More customer reviews)This device has generated controversy here on Amazon, bringing mostly either glowing five star or scathing one star reviews, and the technical discussion has been uninformed. Until such time as the product is evaluated by a neutral expert such as Consumer Reports, I hope to clear up a bit of the scientific side by taking a close look at the information put out by Activeion, a one year old marketing operation in Minneapolis. I have not tested the device myself - nor do I see how anyone could properly test it at home, since that requires a specialized laboratory. This is an engineering analysis; I studied a laboratory test of alleged bacteriocidal properties which the company sponsored and frequently refers to, I analyzed some of the company's patent applications, and I applied my own scientific background in physics and chemistry.
The Activeion product claims to convert ordinary tap water into a powerful cleaning agent and disinfectant by means of an electrochemical process implemented in a handheld spray bottle. The bottle incorporates a battery to pass a current through the water, together with a type of ion exchange (electrolytic) membrane. The basic chemistry is far from new; in fact the phenomenon of electrolysis and its use in producing bleach or chlorine were discovered in the late 1700's, around the time of Benjamin Franklin! It is important to know that the process relies not on water but on SALT water. The method used by the Tennant Company, a manufacturer of commercial cleaning equipment and the corporate parent of Activeion, yields what is usually called "Electrolyzed Water" or "Electrolyzed Oxidizing Water" (EOW). There are several places to read about the relevant chemistry, which can be found by Googling terms such as "electrochemistry" or "electrolysis," or on Wikipedia. Tennant is not the only company which offers this type of technology; there are others such as Electrolyzer Corp., Ecopep Electrocide, and EcaFlo Anolyte, the latter of which has been certified by the EPA as a broad spectrum disinfectant.
Without going into too much detail, the electrolysis process converts salt water into two streams, of which one side generates sodium hypochlorite (otherwise known as ordinary laundry bleach) solution, which of course is a widely used cleaning agent and disinfectant. (I note that Tennant claims in other patent applications, such as 2007/0187261 - which can be searched from the USPTO website - that a nanobubble mechanism also comes into play. More recently their website switched to talking about a third mechanism, "electroporation" as the antibacterial action. But let's keep this discussion to what seems the primary process.) In the version used by Activeion the two streams are recombined which means the two liquids cancel each other out, and revert to plain salt water. But by and large, the end effect is a short-acting solution which is not very different from adding a few drops of inexpensive bleach to one's water bottle, spraying and then quickly wiping it off.
There are some key factors to appreciate about the process. The first is that it is dependent on the incoming water containing a sufficient amount of salt (sodium chloride), without which the water will have no conductivity for electric current and also generate no hypochlorite. Thus pure distilled water or deionized water will not work at all, and in general the efficiency of the process is highly dependent on the exact analysis of the available water, how much salt, how much other minerals. In fact the Tennant patent referenced above says that the water needs to have a certain minimum of salt content to work properly, about 6 grams per liter. But everyone knows that tap water supplies around the U.S. vary tremendously in hardness and salinity.
Second, the process is energy intensive. A significant amount of electric power is required to convert part of the input salt water to bleach in any useful quantity. Third, the cleaning effect of the electrolyzed water is rather mild. Another of Tennant's patent applications, 2009/0120460, reports some measurements they made for carpet cleaning. In that case, by Tennant's own tests, it was only about 20% more effective than plain water, and not nearly as effective as a standard detergent solution. And this was for the large industrial version of the machine, not the handheld, and the solution was also allowed to soak into the carpet for several MINUTES before it was sucked up. So even under these idealized conditions, it had only a mild cleaning effect, and the required soak time makes it impractical for many tasks.
Even if the item being sold here works exactly as claimed, all it appears to do is convert salty water into a sort of temporary weak bleach solution, which is chemically the same as you would buy at the supermarket. The same. It is misleading to say that you will be using 'only pure water to clean, in place of harmful chemicals.' Activeion describes the cleaning as using an 'activated' form of water, which is inaccurate; it is more correct to say that the indispensable ingredient is sodium chloride. Salt may be benign, but once you break it up chemically into sodium and chlorine ions, it becomes potentially harsh. The chloride ion is highly reactive chemically and a well known bacteriocide (swimming pools, water treatment). In its pure form, chlorine gas is not only a 'harmful chemical' but highly toxic - it was used as a poison gas in World War I. The liquid produced by the Activeion is a temporary form of the identical chemical found in Chlorox; except for being short acting, it is not more green or less toxic. As Tennant themselves write in the first referenced patent filing, "the anolyte .. is acidic in nature and contains very strong oxidants in the form of active chlorine" .. and .. "care should be taken on surfaces having a potential for corrosion." In other words, Tennant says that the liquid sprayed out by this bottle could pit and scar a metal surface! It produces chlorine; only a quite expensive form of chlorine. Indeed, way more expensive, since $180 will buy you enough Chlorox to last an ordinary household hundreds of years. The only undeniably green thing about chlorine is its color - yellowish green.
Taking all this into account, the remaining question is really whether the scaled down, handheld device being sold here is actually effective in producing a strong enough solution to do anything useful. So next let's move from the theory to exactly what Activeion claims to be the laboratory proof that their handheld device is "99.99% effective in killing E. coli bacteria." The relevant document is posted on Activeion's website in the form of a report they sponsored from ATS Labs in Eagan, Minnesota, a company which carries out bacteriological tests for a fee. The key word here is "sponsored" - the company paid ATS to do this. Amazon won't allow posting of a link, but you'll find it if you look, or see Comment #1 below. I read this report carefully.
Now think back to junior high school. Suppose someone asked you to test a spray bottle which converts tap water into an antibacterial, how would you go about doing that? Well, if you had the expertise gained from taking ninth grade General Science, you would probably prepare three glass slides with a standard bacterial load on each (such as letting your dog lick each one). One you would keep aside as a control. The second you would dip in your local tap water - which of course you would obtain from your very own tap. Even better, you might use a range of tap waters from different sources. The third slide would be treated with the same water squirted through the magic spray bottle you were trying to test. This would make a great science project, and you might get to represent your school at the state fair!
Pretty logical, right? But - amazingly - this is not what ATS Labs did at all. Instead, they signed a contract with Activeion which required (this is all written down in the report) that ATS would use only the `tap water' provided to them by Activeion, and furthermore they had to promise NOT TO ANALYZE IT in any way. No suspense here by the way - it did end up killing the bacteria. Annihilated them. Are you surprised?
In fact, it is not quite accurate to say that Activeion insisted on providing the testing lab with their own preferred `tap water.' To be more precise, they supplied an UNKNOWN LIQUID. There is absolutely no way to know what was in that liquid - and significantly, ATS was also required to GIVE IT ALL BACK at the end of the tests, and not retain a sample - which I found a bit suspicious. It could have been some kind of tap water, or highly concentrated salt water, or distilled water, or it could have been not water at all but commercial bleach, or another disinfectant, or battery acid, or Chanel Number 5, or the kind of cheap tequila used at frat parties to make large volumes of bad margaritas. Activeion made sure there was no way to ever know.
Furthermore, it is considered a procedural error for a consumer product testing lab to accept the handheld spray/processing unit direct from the company; instead it should have been purchased from a regular retail channel. Normally I would not be concerned but in this case - given Activeion's unusually intense and fervent campaign to market this - the company might not be above providing a souped-up unit to fake the test, which they could do for example by replacing a cheap ion exchange filter with a more expensive, high performance version, or installing more powerful batteries. This is why, to eliminate any such doubts, Consumer Reports buys all their products at retail and accepts nothing direct from the manufacturer.
In other words, the ATS Labs antibacterial test pointed to by Activeion as a pillar of their credibility...Read more›
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