Thomas Bone-Winkel: Levelling up the Hygiene in Buildings and in Transportation

Our mission is to level up the hygiene in buildings and in transportation. Especially in public spaces people don’t have to transmit infections in 2022 anymore. oji active air is a technology that fully automated controls the hygiene of whole buildings.

It improves the overall health and is a big improvement for the environment, as the huge air exchange of buildings (especially high during Covid-19 Pandemic) can be drastically reduced. We want this cost-effective and simple technology to be used all over the world to decrease sickness rates not only in wealthy countries.

The technology is simply an add-on for HVACs and has the power to monitor the whole room climate for the best health.

Tell us about yourself?

I was part of the supervisory board of one of europes biggest live events (Apassionata/ Later Cavalluna) when covid-19 started. I realized that the whole industry is going to stand still now and started researching.

I involved more and more experts (medicine, chemicals, sensors, physics, ..) in my research in the following months.

We found the endogenous hypochlorous acid is perfect to achieve our goals and developed a perfect system to bring molecular hypchlorous acid into the air that we breathe. I founded oji europe GmbH in April 2020.

If you could go back in time a year or two, what piece of advice would you give yourself?

Don’t listen to sales agents in early stages. First develop your idea to the highest perfection you can imagine, invest in prototypes and talk to people who understand and share your vision.

What problem does your business solve?

People contaminate their environment with lots of pathogens, whenever they exhale air from their lungs or touch surfaces.

These pathogens lead to infections in other present people. During epidemic or pandemic times this is a huge issue for public buildings and public transportation.

Desinfecting hands, wearing masks and developing vaccinations is good, but not good enough. We have to upgrade our hygiene standards for a safe future.

What is the inspiration behind your business?

We think, that air has the power to interrupt chains of infections. In a globalized world we have to find global solutions that are affordable for any country on the planet. People travel so quick, so far and so often as they never did before in the history of humans. Same do infections and we have the solution to stop this.

What is your magic sauce?

Status Quo: We don’t have competition. There are companys selling HEPA/UV Systems. They suck in the air, that travels trough the whle room before getting desinfected, while oji active air is a molecular hypchlorous acid that is present in any corner of the room disinfecting immediatly.

There is this NASA-Concept where they use hydroxyl molecules, oji active air is about 10x more effective. Also we monitor and control the protective atmosphere at all times.

What is the plan for the next 5 years? What do you want to achieve?

We want to develop a stand alone product in 2022 to serve buildings and vehicles without HVAC. oji active air is installed in public buildings, especially at pivot and hinge points of the world like airports, airplanes and big trade fairs.

Within the next two years oji active air is installed in hospitals all over the world to stop multidrug-resistant germs from harming more humans.

What is the biggest challenge you’ve faced so far?

1. making HOCl(Hypochlorous acid) stable and concentrated enough 2. developing a new sensor to measure the protective atmosphere (Drägerwerk did it for us from their own ressources) 3. Explaining this whole system to people, as peoples natures seems to be to think “This is to good to be true” or “This is so good, can’t be that you are the first one to have developed this”

How do people get involved/buy into your vision?

We are very interested in talking to HVAC companys and technology companys from all over the world. We are also interested in finding investors who are already involved in hygiene or safety business.