Trendsetters: Sanitizing Spaces

Aguair is helping businesses reopen while keeping customers safe.

As businesses and organizations across Georgia and the world reopen amid ongoing coronavirus infections, the challenge is to reassure patrons of a safe and sanitary environment where they can congregate. Manufacturing at one Marietta company has increased to meet the challenge.

To understand Aguair’s booming business during the pandemic, it helps to know its history. The company was born as an offshoot of Prodew Inc., which has been manufacturing systems that mist and sanitize produce since 2001. In 2015, Prodew’s founders realized there was a need to apply the technology throughout the perishables supply chain – in greenhouses, storage facilities, processing centers, food transportation and retail backrooms. They created Aguair to supply air sanitization, humidity control, water treatment and biosecurity. The coronavirus quickly broadened the food industry focus, and now Aguair sanitation products are being used in virtually every industry.

“In this pandemic, there was a demand,” says Faizan Aly, Aguair managing director. “We had the product line. We were involved in sanitation in the ag market. With modification from engineering, we were able to provide a unique solution that didn’t exist in the [public spaces] market.”

Two of Aguair’s products are especially effective at fighting the spread of the coronavirus. SaniCart™ is a wheeled cart that can be used with several EPA-approved disinfecting agents, including virus-killing chlorine dioxide, to deliver air and surface sanitization. The mobile unit, which typically operates in empty spaces, emits a dry fog of disinfectant that leaves no moisture behind. Nadya Merchant, Aguair scientific director, says it is the only disinfecting equipment on the market that can be safely used directly on and around sensitive electronics, such as those in airplane cockpits, without wetting surfaces. The only labor it requires is someone to place it in the space.

ClensAir™ is an air purifying system that uses the latest technology and an advanced filtration system to attack pathogens in multiple ways, down to the genetic material level. Tests have shown it to be 99.9% effective in removing the viral stimulant for COVID-19 and other viruses and bacteria. No active pathogen can leave ClensAir and make it back into the environment. ClensAir is safe to run continuously in spaces where people are present. Merchant says combining the two products creates a complete sanitization package for businesses like restaurants, hotels, airlines and medical offices as well as churches.

“Practically every industry [has] found a need for disinfection so they could return to business as usual,” she says.

Design, engineering and manufacturing of these products occur in the company’s 40,000-square-foot facility, and this integration helps it respond quickly with equipment modifications based on customer requests.

“We are seeing our customers invest heavily in disinfection equipment, not just to address COVID-19 but for the long haul,” Merchant says. “I only see the demand for disinfection and sanitizing continuing to grow.”