Air quality is literally a matter of life and death. More than one in 10 deaths worldwide are attributed to dirty air, polluted through a matter of means and molecules, which makes the battle to clean up our atmosphere and make the air we breathe a significant, important goal to achieve. Millions more of us suffer from hayfever or allergies that are caused by molecules in our air that interact with our bodies in a negative way.

Finding ways to generate and maintain clean air is a challenge that many organizations and businesses are trying to reach—but it’s one that Panasonic has been meeting over the last two decades.

Since 2003, Panasonic has been utilizing its proprietary nanoe system in a range of products. Inspired by nature, its goal is to use technology to recreate the conditions that we see in our natural world, away from the tarnishing impact of human civilization. And at its core are little-known molecules called hydroxyl (or OH) radicals. Abundant in nature, hydroxyl radicals have the capacity to inhibit pollutants. Panasonic aims to scientifically bring these benefits indoors using nanoe X technology, so that soft furnishings and the indoor environment can be a cleaner and more pleasant place to be.

“The OH radical is a molecule contained in nanoe particles, which are nano-sized water particles, and can inhibit allergens such as pollen, and deodorize, sterilize, and inhibit viruses,” says Yohei Ishigami of Kurashi Living Appliances and Solutions Company within Panasonic, who was a key contributor to the development of the nanoe X technology. Ishigami labored to fine-tune the technology behind nanoe X, testing more than 100 different prototypes of varying shapes and materials to increase the amount of OH radicals—a mix of hydrogen and oxygen molecules attached to each other—in the air to 48 trillion per second. That’s 100 times as many radicals as the first nanoe technology.

First-generation nanoe technology uses electronic atomization, which condenses water in the air onto electrodes and applies high voltage to the electrodes to generate fine water particles. Those fine water particles are generated through electric discharges, and the water particles contain OH radicals, which are highly reactive substances.

“Electric discharges are interesting things, and their form changes depending on the configuration of the electrodes and the value of the current flowing through them,” says Ishigami. However, first-generation nanoe technology is relatively inefficient. An alternative, called spark discharge, which harnesses the power of an instantaneous discharge that occurs when a voltage exceeds a certain limit, is better at producing lots of OH radicals—but there’s an issue: “it also generates a lot of harmful substances and heat,” says Ishigami. “From the standpoint of safety, this type of spark discharge is not suitable for commercialization.”

So Ishigami toiled until he found a solution—a happy medium that combined safety and efficiency to produce the best possible answer. The moment between a traditional electric discharge and the spark discharge was the ideal—but maintaining that form of discharge, called leader discharge in the scientific literature, was a challenge.

But it was one Ishigami wanted to tackle. “We thought that it should be possible to maintain the system by stopping the application, so we assembled a circuit that would detect the discharge and turn off the application in microseconds, and continued to make adjustments,” he says. Ishigami approached experts within Panasonic for support on how to fine-tune his work. “What I appreciated was the breadth of Panasonic’s knowledge,” he says. “If there was something we didn’t understand, or if we had a problem, someone had the wisdom to give us a hint.” Ishigami tried different materials and methods, eventually settling on tungsten electrodes and tweaking his process to get the desired result.

It took eight years, but Ishigami had developed what became known as nanoe X technology. Not only was it world-beating in its production of the number of OH radicals, but it could also knock out of action an increased number of harmful substances: “The number of pollens [the system can tackle] has increased from four to 13, and the number of allergens has increased from three to 16,” says Ishigami. But it’s not just in helping hayfever sufferers that Panasonic’s nanoe X technology—which is used in its global air-conditioning units—excels. It’s also able to tackle tough smells in buildings and rooms, including cigarette smoke. Rooms equipped with nanoe X technology can get rid of that stale cigarette smell in a tenth of the time of other technology.

And it’s used worldwide. Since its commercial release in 2003, Panasonic has sold nearly 11 million units that are utilized in restaurants, vehicles and homes. They’re also miniaturizing the technology into deodorizing clothes-hangers and shoe deodorizers, tackling lingering smells where we’re most likely to encounter them. 

It’s vindication for Ishigami, who has spent a huge chunk of his working life perfecting the product. Persistence helped through the challenging moments, as did a vision of the bigger picture. “There were many moments in the development process when we got stuck,” he says. “It is precisely at such times that I feel it is important to take a closer look at the product, work as a team to come up with many ideas, and try as much as we can.”

This article was originally published by WIRED UK