Sask. company develops bio-decontamination unit using ozone to help battle COVID-19

Once the COVID-19 pandemic hit, many businesses had to shut down or find new ways use their products.

That was no different for Ground Effects Environmental. The Regina-based business uses ozone to kill bacteria and viruses in the environment, like in wastewater.

President and CEO Sean Frisky, says his business was one of the ones affected by the pandemic. He had to lay people off, but a call from a friend made him think about how to shift the focus of the business.

“I got a call from my very first customer from 22-years ago, Trevor Carlson, and he said his wife’s business was losing a bunch of money because of this, and he said we need to find a way to kill the virus and make these places (businesses) safe and make customers feel safe entering these spaces,” Frisky explained.

Frisky says because his business uses ozone in environmental decontamination, he thought there had to be a way to apply it in a commercial way to decontaminate offices, warehouses and even sports arenas.

“The advantage of ozone is it’s a gas and every surface that it comes into contact with – it’ll kill viruses and bacteria – the trick is while it’s in the air it’s not safe for people, it has to be done in unoccupied spaces,” said Frisky.

He said once it’s done its job, the ozone converts back to oxygen, so there are no chemical by-products and it’s safe to use.

Frisky said the challenge then became building a prototype to use the ozone in this way. They partnered with Geosyntec Consultants, where his friend Carlson works, and in six weeks they developed the SANOZONE bio-decontamination unit.

He says in the unit, they take air and convert it to oxygen. Then they run it through an ozone generator and use high voltage electricity to add a molecule onto the O2 (oxygen) and it becomes O3 which is stronger than chlorine. It then penetrates the lipid layer of the virus, the little fatty layer.

“So it is very effective on the virus in drinking water and things over the years, so the concept isn’t new but the application is, and developing a product around that,” said Frisky.

He says one of the cool things about the product is it doesn’t involve jugs of dangerous chemicals because it is airborne.

He says there aren’t a lot of regulatory issues to deal with before taking it to market, because of the nature of the product.

“If you get into the medical side, there would be – for sanitization there really isn’t any regulatory side, so other than the practises and safe use and protocols around using ozone, that’s basically what we are adhering to,” said Frisky.

He said they had no idea going into this, where it would take them, whether it would be one office in Saskatoon or 100, but he said they’ve been getting a lot of very interesting inquiries.

“As part of our journey we’ve had inquiries from everything from New York City subways to the NHL – so very large – the governments of Dubai (and the) Netherlands, and then your local – mining – so sort of a local flavour but also these very large international opportunities.”

Frisky says they still don’t know exactly where it’s going to go, or what it could be, but it’s been an interesting journey.