The patented Dissolved Oxygen Generator (D.O.G.) technology uses Electrolytic Hydrolysis in a unique and innovative way (Patent # 6,689,262-B2 other patents pending). It oxygenates water in real-time, at various flow rates and at controlled oxygen levels. The extremely high levels of oxygen produced by the WATER D.O.G. Iron Hunter oxidize 100% of Iron and Manganese minerals in water for easy removal by filtration, while eliminating iron oxide and hydrogen sulfide odors.
Technology Platform
Electrolytic hydrolysis is the process by which an electric current is used to split water into its component elements, oxygen gas and hydrogen gas. Typically, a large electrical current is passed between an anode and cathode positioned some distance apart in the water solution. The electrical current pulls the positive and negative charges of the water molecule apart, causing it to split into hydrogen and oxygen.
Electrolytic hydrolysis is used to oxygenate water for various uses, including specialized industrial water purification applications and water for hospital disinfecting. In these applications, economics are secondary to function. This is an important consideration because current methods of hydrolysis utilize large amounts of energy, are inefficient, expensive, and slow, making their use in broad applications impossible. Aqua Innovations, WATER D.O.G. WORKS' technology licensor, was the first to discover a method for efficiently and cost effectively producing highly oxygenated water with hydrolysis, making its use in commercial and consumer applications practical.
The Company’s technology is unique and can be scaled to effectively oxygenate greater or lesser quantities of water and to achieve very high levels of oxygenation, when desired. Oxygen is formed into extremely small bubbles, called micro-bubbles, which are unable to break the surface tension of the water. As a result, virtually all the released oxygen remains dissolved in solution.
Mechanics of Electrolytic Hydrolysis
A water molecule is made up of two atoms of hydrogen and one of oxygen (H2O). This molecule can be formed because oxygen has two “holes” in its outer atomic layer, allowing it to bond with two hydrogen atoms, each of which have one available electron ready to fill these atomic holes.
While oxygen shares the electrons equally with hydrogen, it pulls harder on them, drawing the electrons a little closer to the oxygen atom. Even though the water molecule as a whole is electrically neutral (meaning the positive and negative charges balance), the ends of the molecule associated with hydrogen have a semi-positive charge, and the ends associated with the oxygen atom have semi-negative charges. The positively charged ends of one water molecule are attracted to the negative ends of another, creating the water solution and holding it together.
Generating an electrical charge across a cathode and an anode placed a precise distance apart in the solution forces the semi-positive and semi-negative charges to attract to the anode and cathode, respectively, separating the molecule into its component parts, hydrogen gas and oxygen gas.
Dissolved Oxygen and Iron, Manganese, & Hydrogen Sulfide Removal
Oxidation is one method of converting dissolved iron, dissolved manganese, or hydrogen sulfide (rotten egg smell) into a form that can be filtered and removed.
The chemical reactions that explain how iron, manganese, and hydrogen sulfide are oxidized are:
| Iron | 4 Fe + 3 O2 | = | 2 Fe2O3 |
| Manganese | 3 Mn + 2 O2 | = | Mn3O4 |
| Hydrogen sulfide | H2S + O2 | = | H2O (Water) + S (elemental sulfur) |
The ability to increase the oxygen level in water via electrolysis is not new. Typically, electrolytic hydrolysis requires that large amounts of electrical current be passed between a cathode and anode positioned in the water solution. This current creates positive and negative electrochemical charges that pull the water molecule apart into its component parts, hydrogen and oxygen gas. Being a very small, light molecule, hydrogen quickly leaves solution and can be collected or allowed to dissipate into the atmosphere. Oxygen is heavier and will stay in solution contributing to the dissolved oxygen content of the fluid, or will dissipate across the air-water interface. While research on this technology has progressed for many years, we are the first to discover a means to apply electrolytic hydrolysis technology efficiently and economically using a low voltage process.
To date, the available technology has been inefficient, expensive, and slow. By contrast, our technology is unique and highly efficient. Proprietary materials are used to produce an anode and cathode that are placed a precise distance apart in a cell. A very low voltage electrical charge is then passed across the anode and cathode. The combination of specific materials, precise placement, and low current promotes the electrolytic process. Extremely low energy expenditure is required and the physical dimensions of the cell can be increased or decreased to accommodate greater or lesser volumes of water to be oxygenated, or to produce more or less oxygen in a given volume of water. The process is equally effective in static conditions, or in dynamic, “flow through” situations where continuous flow of oxygenated water is desirable.
WHEN IT COMES TO BUBBLES, SIZE MATTERS!
The thickness of a human hair is about 75 microns. WATER D.O.G. WORKS’ smallest bubbles, as measured by an independent testing laboratory, were approximately 70 microns in diameter. So our bubble diameter is about the thickness of a human hair. Stated another way, both the width of a human hair and the diameter of our smallest bubbles are .0025 inches.
By comparison, the diameter of the smallest air bubbles produced by a Fishing product line Aerator was .020 inches or 7.5 times greater.
A comparison of surface area and volume, based on WATER D.O.G.’s oxygen bubbles being 7.5 times smaller by diameter than aeration, shows them 56 times smaller by surface area and 424 times smaller by volume, than aeration.
It is this 424 times smaller size, plus the fact that our bubbles are 100% oxygen compared to air bubbles at 20.9% oxygen, that gives us a clear advantage in transferring oxygen to water and keeping that oxygen from escaping.