jasen said:
why is ozone better than, say, chlorine? chlorine is easy to make.
Jasen
Mold grows hyphae (a kind of root) into the things it feeds on. It
loves cotton and other organic materials. Here is a SEM photo of a
plant growing on a cotton fibre:
http://fungus.org.uk/images/mildew.jpg
This image is from the article below, where you see mold also
growing on plastic:
http://fungus.org.uk/nwfg/rot.htm
Clothing carries Aspergillus spores into hospitals. So when you
visit your aging grandmother and give her a hug, she may die a week
later from the infection you brought her:
http://www.news.cornell.edu/Chronicle/01/2.8.01/clothing-spores.html
Mold grows on just about anything, including the concrete in your
basement. Because it is so small it is usually invisible to the
naked eye, so you can have a severe infestation and not be able to
find it.
Here are some excellent images of hyphae and the mold life cycle:
http://www.cals.ncsu.edu/course/pp318/intros/fungi/fungi.htm
The links on this one are very good:
http://www.uoguelph.ca/~gbarron/MISCELLANEOUS/hyphae.htm
Some more info on hyphae:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypha
You can kill the exposed part of the plant with bleach, but it grows
back just like a dandelion when you cut the top off. So the only way
to kill the root in fabric is to heat the wet material in a
microwave until it steams. But you have to be careful and not let it
dry under power, or it will catch fire. That is very dangerous since
the inside is hot. As soon as you open it to look inside, oxygen
reaches the material and it bursts into flame. The first instinct is
to toss it in the air, which only makes the problem worse.
While growing, the mold excretes waste products to the outside. It
also excretes the toxins it uses to combat other nearby molds, plus
any other chemicals it cannot use, such as cyanide, from the
material it grows on. This is called Exocytosis:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exocytosis
The resulting combination can be so toxic that only microgram
amounts are needed to be lethal in 24 hours. This is an ideal poison
since the amount needed is so small, and it is metabolized in the
body so it simply disappears and leaves no trace.
The spores have this coating, so when you breath them into your
lungs, it can make you very ill. Humans developed long after molds
appeared, so we learned to live with the spores and their toxins.
But exposure to high concentrations can destroy your ability to
handle the spores, and you become very, very sick. That is what
happened to me.
The spores have a coating of chitin, which is the same material in
lobster claws and the bodies of insects. This protects the spore
against most environmental hazards such as UV light and most
chemicals. They are not affected by heat - even steam in a microwave
won't kill them. It takes about 240F to kill most of them.
Sodium hypochlorite bleach, NaOCl, cannot penetrate the chitin and
kill the spore.
However, ozone attacks the carbon bonds in the chitin, turning it
into carbon dioxide. This destroys the outer coat and exposes the
core, which kills the spore.
This requires fairly high ozone concentrations, about the maximum
that can be obtained without using oxygen as a feed gas. It also
destroys cotton, rubber, and most other organic fabrics, so you need
to find clothing and bedding made of ozone-resistant materials. I'm
hoping polyester clothing will survive, at least for a while.
Regards,
Mike Monett
