Infection solutions company ActivePure is aiming to revolutionise how environments from hospitals to elite sports facilities stay clean with its air purification system that harnesses NASA space technology, as Stephanie Price reports.
Covid-19 has put the spotlight on infection control, with hospitals and public spaces ramping up efforts to stay clean.
At an innovation event in Reykjavík, ActivePure told HT World how it is harnessing cutting-edge technologies to eliminate pathogens in hospitals and other settings, emphasising the importance of partnerships with health systems.
Byron Bartlett, Vice President of ActivePure Medical Canada.
The company explains that it has developed a scientifically proven air and surface purification technology that proactively cleans indoor air and decontaminates surfaces more effectively than passive filtration solutions.
“The technology works through a honeycomb matrix, with optics inside. As air and humidity passes through it, it creates oxidised molecules that are all naturally occurring. That goes out into the air and will disinfect and decontaminate air and surfaces all at the same time, along with any unoccupied space,” said Byron Bartlett, vice president of ActivePure Medical Canada.
“The technology has been around for about 20 years and was developed by the University of Wisconsin and NASA, however, ours is five generations later.”
Bartlett says the photohydrolysis technology can kill the Covid-19 virus in 30 seconds, and can also take on tougher contaminants in healthcare settings.
Bartlett said: “In the US market, for example, 2 million people walk into a hospital and end up getting an infection each year, and 100,000 of them die. Our only solution to date is to take a chemical, put it on a rag and wipe down surfaces to try and kill those contaminants.
“You can’t cover all the surfaces, you can’t cover the entire hospital, and as soon as you walk out of that room, you recontaminate.
“We’ve been looking for persistence, something that you could put on a persistent or continuous kill, and that’s what our technology is for. It covers not just a room but the entire floor, the entire hospital. And by outputting these very, very effective oxidative molecules continuously, as soon as there’s contamination, it immediately interrupts that and starts to take it down to zero.”
ActivePure’s technology was FDA approved in 2020, approved as a medical device in 2021, and has been authorised by Health Canada.
More recently, the company published a study in the American Journal of Infection Control which showed the positive effect of the technology in killing MRSA in a clinic environment, with results demonstrating that surface and air bioburdens were reduced up to 99%.
“We’ve grown in multiple different countries,” explains Bartlett. “Covid has a big impact and during that time we’ve done a lot of advancements on our technology – we’ve come leaps and bounds even from the fourth generation to the fifth generation of it.
“We’ve changed the outer skeleton of our matrix so it gives better optics through the honeycomb material for better light penetration. So, these marginal improvements are incremental, but we also changed our light to a higher powered light source, which has made a big difference.
“Right now, everybody thinks about episodic interventions – once a day cleaning and disinfection. This is changing that mindset.”
Bartlett explains that human cleaning regimes will still need to be carried out as usual, but that this technology reduces human error, adding an extra layer of protection against infections and other contaminants.
“Mould is a big thing here in Iceland. So our technology does great on that – we’re fighting that off. The technology is very dynamic, where it can kill pathogens and mould spores in the air and on the surface, but also does reduction of VOCs [volatile organic compounds] and formaldehyde,” added Bartlett.
So far, ActivePure has completed installation trials in Tufts University Health System, New England; Life Bridge Health Care, near Washington, DC; UCLA Medical Centre; and Unity Point Health Care, as well as an installation in its first VA hospital.
However, the technology is also being utilised outside of healthcare. The company recently secured a £2 million deal with York County which will be installing the ActivePure air purification system in its prison, and the system has also been installed in elite sports facilities where players can pick up infections such as MRSA.
“The whole idea is accelerating the adoption of new technologies that can disintermediate old ways of doing things. So, partnering with health services in their innovation has been a really good vehicle.
“It’s solving problems in many places from healthcare to professional sports teams and everything in between, and we can do a five square metre office to multi million square metres of building space.”
Health Tech World spoke to ActivePure at an event organised by Business Iceland on behalf of Reykjavik Science City.
