The science
How Airora technology works
What makes Airora's technology different?
Airora is the only technology which creates a condensing Hydroxyl Cascade to destroy or neutralise all types of germs, mould spores, allergens and odours plus most other irritants and pollutants throughout an indoor space.
Unlike filter-based air purifiers, Airora treats all of the air and surfaces in a space, not just the air that passes through the device. In fact, Airora is 1000+ times more effective in removing harmful viruses and bacteria throughout a room than any filter.
And Airora’s patented Hydroxyl Cascade technology doesn’t just sanitise the air in the room; it also destroys harmful bacteria and viruses on surfaces and contents within the room.
No other technology comes close!
What is a Hydroxyl Cascade?
Airora’s patented technology recreates natural air chemistry indoors with its unique Hydroxyl Cascade.
Hydroxyl radicals (hydroxyls) are continually produced in abundance in the lower atmosphere and wage a constant war of attrition against contaminants such as viruses, bacteria, allergens, irritants and pollution — making our planet safe for living things. After their discovery in the 1960s, a Nobel-prize-winning chemist called them ‘Nature’s Detergent’.
Outdoors, hydroxyls are created and replenished naturally through reactions between plant oils, water and sunlight. But indoor environments don’t provide the conditions to sustain a good supply of hydroxyls.
But our scientists have invented a way to reproduce natural outdoor air chemistry indoors! Airora’s Hydroxyl Cascade is a natural cascade reaction which creates ample hydroxyls, distributed by molecular diffusion, throughout the indoor space in seconds, without relying on air movement. Just like outdoors, the hydroxyls produced by Airora products condense around and destroy all types of harmful viruses and bacteria, allergens and odours plus most other irritants and pollutants both in the air and on surfaces.
Have your scientific claims been independently verified?
Yes they have; you can find out about our development programme and independent test results on our Testing, performance and safety page.
How quickly does the hydroxyl cascade clean the air?
Airora’s Hydroxyl Cascade reaches every corner of the room and every exposed surface in seconds … and interacts with pollutants on contact.
Some pollution, such as germs and viruses, are killed instantly on contact with hydroxyls. Others, such as odours and VOCs , take a little longer (but still very fast) as the hydroxyls break them down to ever shorter chain molecules and eventually into carbon dioxide.
Physically large contaminants, such as pollens, also take a little longer to neutralise as hydroxyls are very small indeed and multiple interactions are often required. Fortunately, these heavier contaminants rapidly drop onto a surface where the hydroxyls continue the process of neutralising them before they are disturbed and made airborne again.
The self-sustaining Hydroxyl Cascade continously produces more hydroxyls, so once Airora is switched on, it continuously cleans the air and surfaces of any new contaminants.
Does Airora's technology work in all ambient environmental conditions?
Yes, Airora devices work reliably and effectively within a wide temperature band and in conditions of both high and low internal humidity.
The products
Airora's indoor and personal solutions
Does an Airora require regular refills?
Yes — Airora products use what is technically termed an essential oil, distilled from plants and flowers, as part of our unique process to recreate nature’s outdoor atmospheric chemistry indoors. Essential oils are everywhere in the air we breathe outside (remember the song ‘The Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia’? —the blue colour is the light reflecting on essential oils given off by the pine trees!)
This ingredient comes in low-cost, easy-to-install cartridges.
There are no HEPA or carbon filters to replace.
Does an Airora require regular maintenance / changes of filter?
Airora air purifiers have only one moving part, which is a quiet fan, with a long MTBF (Mean Time Between Failure) which requires no routine maintenance.
Airora products do not use a filter, so there is no reduction in efficiency that can happen as a filter becomes contaminated, and no need for filter cleaning or replacement.
How do I control my Airora product?
Airora’s Hydroxyl Cascade automatically adjusts to changing pollution levels.
You can control Airora manually or via its associated App.
Operating it manually, simply switch your device on, and it starts working immediately to continuously clean air and surfaces of harmful pollutants.
Operate yor pyramid or wall / floor mounted device in association with the Airora App and you can also remotely monitor all of the Airoras on your WiFi network for their on/off / fault status, hydroxyl output and track the remaining life of the consumable.
In addition the App provides both a history and current information on temperature, humidity and ventilation (using CO2 concentration as a surrogate) status and also provides a notification when a new consumable is required or the fan filter requires cleaning.
How can I sell Airora products?
Please contact us by completing our online form.
Health and Safety
Health Benefits with Airora
How does Airora help prevent infection?
Airora destroys all types of air and surface bourne germs.
During independent testing our technology has been verified to destroy 99.9999% of high concentration airborne, hard to kill, MS2 virus, throughout an entire room, in minutes.
The US CDC recommends testing against MS2 as sanitisers that can kill MS2 can kill all types of virus and bacteria.
In fact, Airora doesn’t just destroy all types of germ, it acts so quickly against new sources of airborne infection that it creates, 24/7, an active person to person airborne infection shield. For example, in a simulated sneeze, Airora’s hydroxyl cascade has been independently measured destroying 99% of expelled bacteria before it had travelled just 600mm (2 feet)!
How can Airora help with allergies and those with chronic breating problems?
Indoor air is typically five times more contaminated than outdoor air.
Airora protects asthmatics and others who react badly to airborne pollutants by neutralising all types of airborne allergens, such as pollen and pet dander, and removing most irritant gasses and chemicals, such as VOCs and airborne cleaning products.
Is Airora completely safe?
Absolutely. Hydroxyl radicals are a natural part of the outside environment, often occurring in outdoor air at higher densities than are generated by Airora.
Humans, as well as all animals, insects and even normal skin flora, evolved alongside hydroxyls across the millenia, resulting in our skin and mucosal membranes providing a protective barrier that prevents hydroxyls from entering our blood stream or tissues within our body.
Hydroxyl generation has been approved by the FDA as a safe air cleaning technology.
Our technology has been tested at leading independent laboratories worldwide and been shown to be both highly effective and entirely safe.
Our research and testing partners include:
- The UK Building Research Establishment’s Internal Air Quality Team and Laboratories
- Campden BRI
- The UK Government’s Health Protection Agency at Porton Down
- The UK Government’s Health and Safety Laboratory
- FDA Laboratory, Rochester, New York State
- The University of Leeds
- The University of York
- The University of Ottawa
You can find details of the testing we have had undertaken at independent laboratories on our Testing, performance and safety page.
Are all of Airora's emissions safe?
Airora charged Europe’s leading Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) specialists, the UK’s Building Research Establishment (BRE), to independently ensure that all aspects of Airora’s technology meet, by a wide margin, all national and international regulatory safety standards, and where no such standards exist, fall well within worldwide best practice consensus standards by the World Health Organisation (WHO), the US FDA and EPA and the EU.
Testing by BRE and York University specifically identified ALL by-products of Airora’s hydroxyl cascade creation process, including those resulting from the breakdown and removal of the wide range of VOCs typically found in the domestic environment and confirmed that none are known to be hazardous.
Aren't 'free radicals' bad for my health?
There are many types of ‘radical’, not just the hydroxyl radical, and collectively they are sometimes termed ‘free radicals’. Concerns regarding the potential damage arising from excessive ‘free radicals’ in our bodies have been a hot topic of debate for some years.
However, hydroxyl radicals are completely safe, often occurring naturally in outdoor air at higher densities than generated by Airora. Humans, like all animals, evolved alongside them, resulting in our skin and mucosal membranes providing a protective barrier keeping them from entering our blood stream or tissues within our body.
Is Airora a medical device?
A medical device is broadly defined by regulators as a device which is used for diagnosis, prevention, monitoring, treatment or alleviation of disease in human beings or animals.
Airora is generally NOT considered to be a medical device by regulators because its purpose is the purification of air / sanitisation of environments and it does not come into direct contact with patients.