MADISON, WIS.—The Ozone Company, located in Madison, Wis., recently unveiled its new Ecowash Premier Ozone Laundry System. Like other ozone laundry systems, Ecowash allows one to reduce energy, water, chemical and labor costs at any laundry facility. It features a proprietary logic control board developed by The Ozone Company that allows it to independently supply ozone to four separate washing machines at the same time. Other ozone laundry systems can at most control only two washers, resulting in lower capital expenses for Ozone Company customers utilizing the Ecowash system.
In addition, the Ozone Company’s Ecowash system only produces ozone when the washing machines are in use. This means that if a laundry room has four washers, but only one of them is in use, Ecowash will produce only enough ozone to service the one machine. This noteworthy feature also lowers operating costs and extends the already long life of Ecowash components all without changing the routine of employees in the laundry room. Its user interface shows its status at all times, but once it’s installed by Ozone Company trained technicians, no further action is necessary to achieve savings.
Ecowash uses direct injection technology to deliver the ozone. Other ozone systems rely on passive injection, charged reservoirs, or recirculation. Passive injection systems deliver ozone through the water fill line. These systems are inexpensive and easy to install. Because these systems inject ozone into the water before it reaches the washing machine, they can only inject ozone once per cycle. Due to the pH levels in most wash cycles as well as the constant agitation present in a washing machine, these systems might as well just be washing with cold water and no ozone. Also, because passive systems use the existing water fill line and ozone is such a powerful oxidizer, they can wreak havoc on laundry systems. The ozone will eventually oxidize the rubber hose, gaskets, brass couplings, and water fill valves, basically ruining the washing machine.
Charged Reservoir Systems
Charged reservoir systems also inject ozone through the water fill lines. Although these systems do a better job of keeping dissolved ozone near the proper level, they have the same problems due to running ozone-rich water through the fill lines. In addition to the problems listed above, systems that use the water fill lines can leave nasty rust stains on linens.
Recirculation systems do a much better job of achieving proper levels of dissolved ozone throughout the laundry process. This type of system produces excellent results without damaging existing equipment. However, recirculation ozone systems involve lots of additional plumbing, tanks, pumps and lint traps. The lint traps often become clogged and greatly reduce system efficacy. All this extra hardware takes up a lot of space and can be costly and time consuming to maintain, not to mention all the additional up front costs due to high retail prices.
The Ecowash system moves beyond all of these problems. It is small and unobtrusive. It is easy to install and requires almost no maintenance. According to independent testing, it does a better job of killing bacteria and viruses than any other system and does as well as any of them in terms of soil oxidation.
