Oxygen Sanitization
Now offering treatment for boots and shoes, with more to come.
Drop it off and pick it up the next day.
- Monday to Friday 8 am – 6 pm
- Saturday 8 am – 4 pm
- Sunday 9 am to 3 pm
We also pick up and deliver!
Refresh your gear!
De-stink your smelly boots and shoes by killing odour-causing bacteria.
Also neutralizes smoke odours.
Safe for all materials.
More information and items coming soon.
The story
A few weeks ago, one of our regular customers called and asked if we can clean hockey equipment. She, her husband and two sons all play competitively. I have been learning about hockey equipment.
The basic level of cleaning is to launder the protective equipment (not skates or helmet) in a big, front load machine with a special disinfectant soap and then air dry. Even with disinfectant soap, some bacteria will survive and the odours will return after multiple uses.
The better cleaning is an oxygen sanitization to kill the bacteria that cause the odours. Oxygen sanitization will eliminate the bacteria causing odours, but does not remove physical dirt such as salts from sweat.
For Monk’s Fine Fabric Care, I’ve bought a cabinet for oxygen sanitization. We are offering sanitization for boots and shoes, and have already had success with de-odourizing winter boots, hiking boots after a week-long trek through wet lands of Killarney, regular leather shoes and pillows. With further testing, I expect to be soon able to offer de-odourizing for hockey equipment and for garments exposed to smoke from a recreational campfire or house fire.
For science nerds
The equipment in the air-tight cabinet splits O2 oxygen molecules (oxygen forms 20% of the air we breathe), converting a tiny fraction of them to O3. O3 is metastable, and gradually reverts to stable O2, giving off a reactive single atom of oxygen. In the cabinet, we monitor concentrations of O3. Starting at 0.0 parts per million (ppm), the O3 level peaks at 20 ppm at 10 minutes, and reverts to 0.0 ppm after an additional 30 minutes.
As it reverts to O2, the free oxygen atoms looks for things to bind to. They’re naturally attracted to free carbon atoms. When a carbon atom bonds with two oxygen atoms, the result is carbon dioxide, the same gas found in soda pop. Carbon is one of the building blocks of all living organisms and is a key component of wood smoke. So we’re converting wood smoke to odourless carbon dioxide. O3 also kills bacteria.
The strength of the treatment is measured in ppm-minutes. If we double the concentration and use half the period of exposure, we achieve the same toxicity for bacteria or the same neutralizing effect for smoke on garments.
By the end of the treatment, the active agent, O3, has reverted to regular oxygen or been converted to carbon dioxide, odours have been neutralized, and nothing remains that could be toxic to humans.
Our expanding menu of services for Oxygen Sanitization can be found on our Monk’s Fine Fabric Care price list here: https://cleancloudapp.com/w/5551/prices.