Ozone—What's all the fuss about?
To help understand the hype about the technology that is helping propel AMFE up the charts, I thought I'd put together a bit of information on ozone—what it is and why it's so important to MJ growers (and growers of other crops, as well) in case you don't know.
There are two types of naturally occurring ozone in our atmosphere—good stuff, in the upper atmosphere, and the bad stuff, closer to us. Focusing on the good stuff here.
Oxygen, also known as O2--due to it having two oxygen molecules--makes up a large part of our atmosphere. Pure oxygen, O, is rare, as oxygen molecules tend to want to stick to each other and hang around in pairs. The sun's UV rays are able to break the bonds of O2 atoms, and because of their tendency to not want to be alone, some of these solitary atoms find their way to an O2 molecule to form ozone, or O3. O3 is a very unstable molecule, however, and breaks down very quickly (has a short half life), and has an incredible ability to oxidize almost everything it comes into contact with. For example, interacting with copper, the ozone breaks down and the spare oxygen atom bonds with a copper atom (Cu) to form copper oxide (CuO). All that is left then is the oxygen (O2).
Cu + O3 --> CuO + O2
With prolonged exposure to ozone, it's goodbye copper.
It's actually this oxidization property that makes ozone so helpful to the MJ growers.
As has been mentioned in the news recently, one of the biggest problems MJ growers have is mold (among plenty of other things). Relatively low concentrations of ozone in the growing environment allows the ozone to break down the mold, killing it completely. This happens when the ozone attaches itself to the cells of the growing mold. Essentially, the O3 attaches itself to the cell wall of the mold, and due to it's volatile nature, breaks down very quickly to leave a tiny hole in the wall as the 'spare' oxygen molecule breaks away. Not much on its own, but when you consider the countless numbers of ozone molecule attaching themselves to the cell, all breaking down very quickly, the cell is damaged beyond the point of being of any use. Dead cells means dead mold. And, as ozone itself breaks down quickly and completely, there is no residue. Chemical treatments are to be avoided due to them leaving a residue which can be equally bad for the MJ grower, though they may be completely natural (even a milk and water mix can kill mold). Bottom line is that if left unchecked, mold can completely ruin an entire crop, possibly worth many hundreds of thousands of dollars for the grower. Ozone can be used to counter all sorts of other pests, and can even sterilize the growing environment as it attaches itself to airborne bacteria and breaks those down, too—completely inhibiting bacterial growth.
Additionally, ozone can be used to purify water. Adding O3 to water will break down compounds and bacteria to the point where they are not soluble (or dead), and can then be removed by subsequently filtering the water to remove any residue. Lots more technical stuff, that isn't needed, could go here. Suffice to say, ozone cleans water, too.
Ozone can be harmful to anything that grows, even us, but in the quantities that are generated for commercial use, the ones that fear ozone the most are the tiny things--like mold spores, bacteria, etc., as ozone is a phenomenal sterilizer.
As far as Amfil is concerned, check out the link to see what they have to say about their system grozone.biz
Their technology has also “...passed product review by accredited USDA certifying agent to be used in organic agricultural production in California and Pennsylvania.”
More AMFE, please.
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