Hygeia: Science Meets Magic in a Bottle

The art of alchemy involves taking a base substance and turning it into a valuable resource. The traditional pursuit was lead to gold but no human (that we know of) was ever able to turn this whimsical concept into a scientific reality. While they haven’t made gold, one company we ran into at Austech has created their own kind of alchemy.

We came across Clearlink’s simple yet powerful product while roaming the massive halls of the Melbourne Convention Centre for Austech 2017. While it doesn’t turn lead into gold, their Hygeia pump bottle turns ordinary tap water into a germ-killing cleaner more powerful than chlorine.

A mechanism in the nozzle enriches the water with O₃ (activated oxygen or ozone). So what comes out is still completely harmless to humans but empowered with the ability to destroy germs through oxidisation. It’s like alchemy in a bottle.

The product has been lab tested and confirmed to consistently kill 99.9% of pathogens including:

• MRSA;
• e coli;
• salmonella;
• common viruses;
• odour causing bacteria.

The beauty of the bottle is that it works on demand. So there’s no worries about waste or loss of cleaning power if it’s left sitting for a while.

We spoke to Fred Itaoui of Clearlink who explained the product is brand new and yet to be launched. They were offering demonstrations at Austech but the official, global launch won’t be until later in 2017.

Fred makes Hygeia sound super extreme, like napalm for germs:

“You leave it on the surface for 30 seconds, everything’s dead.”

While this level of extremity is accurate for the germs, for humans, its clear skies and sunny days; there are no harsh chemicals, just ozone.

“You can spray it on your hands and nothing will happen. You’ll notice there are no safety stickers on it. Because we don’t need them. We’re not required by law to do it. Anything else, whether it’s an enzyme cleaner, anything, they still need safety stickers on them because they can be hazardous.”

Since all you’re pumping out is water, there’s no waste or residue, which means it’s as friendly for the environment as you can get.

The product promises to revolutionise cleaning for the hospitality and catering industries, hotels, BnBs, Air BnBs, shopping centres, aged care facilities, workplaces, and pretty much anywhere humans go and hang out in close quarters with each other’s germs. Hygeia is a safe, chemical-free way to sidestep stomach bugs, food poisoning and those seemingly endless bouts of flu that cruise through the workplace, taking everyone down one by one.