The
electrochemical activation technology is based on producing in
special technical electrochemical systems of metastable (activated)
solutions with anomalous physicochemical and catalytic reactivity
for their further use in various technological processes in place
of traditionally used special chemical agent solutions. The only
raw material for electrochemical activation (ECA) processes is
direct seawater or fresh water with/without brain solution.
Electrochemical activation is effected by simultaneous electrochemical
and electro physical action on water or diluted water solution
in the electric field of the double electric layer of one of the
electrochemical system electrodes. Water or solution unipolar
electro treatment (simultaneous electrochemical and electro physical
action in the electric field of electrode) is accompanied by controlled
mass transfer in the interelectrode space with minimal heat generation
and with obligatory creation of conditions for the closest contact
of each micro volume of liquid under treatment with the dense
and/or diffuse part of the double electric layer on the electrode
surface where the electric field intensity reaches several million
volts per centimeter.
As a result of electrochemical activation, water (solution) transforms
into metastable state, which is due to emergence of chemical and
physical excitations and is accompanied by directed changes in
pH, oxidation-reduction potential and other physical
and chemical parameters in a wider range than under chemical regulation.
Chemical excitations in electrochemically activated water and
solutions are primarily represented by metastable products of
electrochemical decomposition of fresh or low-mineralized water,
including free radicals, whose reactivity is based on extremely
high electron activity in cathodically treated water (catholyte)
or extremely low electron activity in anodically treated water
(anolyte). Physical excitations are micro-heterogeneous electrically
active structures including gaseous electrochemical reaction products
(micro bubbles and clusters), as well as metastable changes in
the ion-hydrated sheath structure charged particles.
To implement electrochemical
activation processes in practice, unique Envirolyte Machines,
which have no analogs worldwide, have been developed. Most advanced
to date are Envirolyte reactors for producing activated ecologically
safe sterilizing, purifying, disinfecting, bio stimulating and
washing solutions.
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In
the late twentieth century, chemical disinfectants development
was aimed at searching ways of activating disinfectants in use
rather than creating new agents. For instance, until recently,
6% hydrogen peroxide solution was used for high-level sterilization
and disinfection purposes. To decrease its corrosive activity
and at the same time maintain or even enhance its biocidal ability,
technologies of its application as vapor or gas plasma are presently
being developed. Thus, activation of chemical disinfectants is
aimed at achieving physical and chemical effect providing high
bactericidal efficiency with minimum concentration of active substances,
with corrosives or destructiveness against the item’s material
as well as toxic effect on human beings being insignificant. In
this connection, time of exposure, concentration, temperature
and conditions of active substances’ application are principal
characteristics of the process of disinfecting a medical item
and are the major parameters of any practical method.
Thanks to Envirolyte’s special
manufacturing conditions, electrochemically activated biocidal
solutions a prior satisfy today’s need of universal and
ecologically safe agents for disinfection, pre-sterilization cleaning
and sterilization purposes.
Electrochemically activated solutions (Anolyte
acidic and neutral) have been found to contain compounds whose
co-presence in a solution is impossible from the standpoint of
equilibrial chemical thermodynamics.
In particular, those substances include ozone and active chlorine
compounds – Hypochlorous acid, Hypo chlorite-ion,
chlorine dioxide and chlorine.
The
main factors of ECA solutions’ activity are the following:
Electrochemically synthesized alkali in catholyte and acids in
anolyte, whose concentration depends on chemical composition and
source solution mineralization, and is proportional to specific
expenditures of electricity amount in the process of synthesis.
The presence of acids in anolyte and alkali in catholyte determines
pH values maintained in the solution for a long time, and is a
stable factor of ECA solution activity.
Electrically charged micro-bubbles of electrolysis gases, stabilized
by non-compensated electric charges concentrated in gas-liquid
interface. Micro-bubble sizes vary between 0.1 and 60 µm
and their concentration can reach 106
ml¯¹. The term “micro-bubbles” cannot be
considered absolutely exact though these electrically active medium
disturbances are really small because the above objects do not
feature even relatively stable gas-liquid interface. In particular,
Japanese investigators regard such small-size disturbances
as clusters. In ECA solutions, micro-bubbles are evenly
distributed in the volume and remain intact up to 6–400
hours. Micro-bubbles are electrically and chemically active components
and can serve as catalysts or inhibitors in oxidation-reduction
reactions. Their role is especially considerable in Anolytes solutions,
since these solutions are saturated with micro-bubbles formed
during both anodic and cathodic processes, due to which the active
components of these solutions behave as conjugated oxidation-reduction
pairs.
Electrochemically activated Anolytes demonstrate universal action,
i. e. produce damaging effect on all major systemic microbial
groups (bacteria, fungi, viruses and protozoans), being harmless
for the tissue cells of humans and other higher organisms, i.
e. somatic animal cells making up a multi-cellular system.
This is due to essential distinctions in the structure and life
conditions of cells representing these life forms. The cells of
higher organisms, in the process of their life activity, for instance
in oxygenize reactions of P-450 cytochrome functioning, during
phagocytosis when microbial cells are adhesive and immobilized,
produce and employ a number of highly-active oxidants, such as
O2-,
O•, 1O2, H2O2,
HO2•, HO•, ClO- and others.
These cells possess powerful chemical system of anti-oxidant defense
preventing toxic effect of such substances on vitally important
cell structures. Antioxidant properties of somatic cells are associated
with the presence of a strong three-layer lipoproteid membrane
containing diene conjugates (-C=C-) with electron-donor properties.
Microorganisms do not produce such substances in the process of
their life activity and have no powerful anti-oxidant defense
systems, that is why electrochemically activated biocidal solutions
are highly toxic for them. Biocidal substances in electrochemically
activated solutions commonly used as antiseptic or chemotherapy
agents are not toxic for human somatic cells, since 50-95% of
them are represented by oxidants similar to those produced by
the cells of higher organisms.
Chemical
potential of molecules and ions in electrochemically activated
biocidal solutions (ECA solutions) is much higher than that in
non-activated ones. Low mineralization of ECA solutions and their
better hydration ability increasing cell wall and membrane permeability
ensure intensive osmotic and electro osmotic oxidant transfer
into inter-cellular medium. Osmotic oxidant transfer through microbial
cell membranes is much more vigorous than that occurring through
somatic cell membranes due to essential difference between osmotic
gradients of these types of cells. Accelerated electro osmotic
oxidant transfer is intensified by a multitude of electrically
charged micro-bubbles of electrolysis gases creating powerful
local electric fields with high level of heterogeneity in areas
of contact with biopolymers.
All animal somatic cells are heterotrophic: their trophicity depends
on the presence of such nutrient components as glucose, amino
acids and fatty acids in extra cellular environment. Biologic
well being of a somatic cell is associated with the place it occupies
in the process of distributing trophic functions of all multi-cellular
system elements (cell backs cell).
Animal cell trophic functions subordinate to the interchangeability
law. If a cell’s trophicity is disturbed, this disturbance
can be corrected by neurotrophic regulations, endocrine regulations,
functions of the neighboring cells, blood nutritive function,
etc.
All microbial cells are autotrophic and their nutrition depends
on their own energetic activity, i. e. if enzymatic processes
in a microbial cell are suppressed, it results in its death since
there are no compensatory mechanisms. A microbial cell performs
all its trophic functions only with the help of enzymatic reactions.
Interaction between microbial cells in their habitat environment
is not compensatory; that is, a weak spot of a microbial cell
is its autonomy. Maximum employment of the fundamental differences
between living creatures of micro- and macro-biologic world is
the ideological basis of electrochemically activated biocidal
solutions.
In contrast to traditional disinfectant and sterilizing solutions,
such as glutaric aldehyde, formaldehyde, chloramines, sodium hypo
chlorite, dichlor-izo-cyanurates, per-acetic acid, quaternary
ammonium compounds (QAC), heavy metal compounds and other synthetic
biocidal substances, the active ingredients of Anolytes
are not xenobiotic substances and produce no adverse effect on
the organism of man and warm-blooded animals. These substances
are inorganic short-lived peroxide compounds usually synthesized
in the organism of man and warm-blooded animals by specialized
electrochemically active cell enzymes and take part in the processes
of neutralizing harmful and foreign substances in the body (phagocytosis).
A metastable peroxide mixture formed in the course of bio-electrochemical
reactions in the bodies of man and warm-blooded animals is the
most efficient of all commonly used means for microorganism destruction,
as it has a multitude of spontaneously realized opportunities
to change (irreversibly damage) vitally essential functions of
microorganism polymers on the level of electron transfer reactions.
In its biocidal action mechanism, electrochemically activated
neutral anolyte is similar to gas plasma, and its degradation
products are source substances, i. e. low-mineralized water. Upon
utilization, they spontaneously degrade forming no toxic xenobiotic
compounds and do not require neutralization before being discharged
into sewerage system.
Activated solutions kills pathogens of bacterial, viral and mycotic
etiology and its efficiency considerably exceeds that of such
well-known disinfectants as chloramines, sodium hypochlorite,
etc.
According to recommendations of the World Health Organization,
the presence of chlorine dioxide in gaseous chlorine helps
avoid formation of trihalomethanes and other toxic products of
chlorine interaction with organic substances normally present
in water.
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