Tennant Co. Ech2o Floor Cleaning System

The Tennant Co. has a cleaning approach that may revolutionize housekeeping chores. The Ech20 floor cleaning system doesn’t use chemicals to clean your floors, making it an environmentally friendly approach to cleaning. It also saves you money by eliminating the need for buying cleaning chemicals. Presently it’s a commercial cleaning product, but it sounds interesting enough that the home market will hopefully have affordable access to it soon. Researches are progressing in this direction.

 

The need for environmental friendly cleaning solutions

 

In a world of increasing environmental consciousness, many businesses find themselves facing tighter regulation of the kinds and amounts of chemicals they are permitted to discharge into city sewers. One industry that faces growing regulation is the commercial cleaning profession. Apart from the tight regulations that call for strict adherence to environmental norms that keeps on changing, business owners have to be careful in choosing the kind of cleaners that they use for cleaning.

 

Hotels, hospitals, shopping malls, and other large users of cleaning chemicals also face heightened scrutiny. Now they have a breakthrough technology that can help them cut the amounts of chemicals they dump down the drains and save money, too. Sounds interesting, right?

 

The Tennant Co., a well-known name in commercial floor cleaning systems, unveiled in the Fall of 2007 a new technology dubbed Ech2o (pronounced “echo”) that may revolutionize floor cleaning.

 

The company claims that Ech2o will save money, be easier to user, make operators safer, and provide an environmentally friendly alternative to conventional floor cleaners.

 

How does the Ech2o work?

 

“Ech2o’s cleaning effectiveness is proven to be the same or better than general purpose cleaners, without the negative environmental impact and health issues associated with producing, packaging, transporting, using and disposing of traditional cleaning chemicals,” the company stated.

 

The Ech2o secret is nothing new. The system uses nothing but water. Water in, water out. How is that supposed to clean as well as traditional chemicals that use numerous chemical ingredients and detergents? Or is the science involved too complicated for a layman to understand? In fact, it is just simple physics. Read further to find out.

 

As Tennant explains it, the system works by unlocking the energy trapped in every H2O molecule. Inside the Ech2o unit embedded within a Tennant floor cleaner, two main steps occur. In the first step, the water passes through electrified screens in an oxygenation chamber. This step results in highly oxygenated micro-bubbles. In the second step, the oxygenated water is sent through a cell where an electric current is applied.

 

What comes out of the cell is highly charged acidic and alkaline water, which has many of the properties of commercial chemical cleaners, according to Tennant.

 

“The electrically charged water attacks the dirt, breaks it into smaller particles and suspends it off the floor’s surface — enabling the scrubber’s pads or brushes to easily remove the soil,” the company states. About 45 seconds after the energized water is created, it reverts back to plain neutral tap water. What’s left is just water and dirt trapped in the system’s tank. It can be handled and disposed of in perfect safety. The Ech2o system reduces water use by 70 percent compared with traditional chemical cleaning systems, the company says. Since no detergents are used, there is no slick film left behind on the floor. No hazardous chemicals are discharged into the sewer system. Eliminating the need for chemical cleaners enhances worker safety and reduces costs for purchasing, transportation, storage, mixing, and disposal. Just imaging all the trouble you will save in the environmental front by using such a clean commercial cleaner. After all, it is just water and how much harm can water cause?

 

“While similar technology is currently in use in some niche applications within food processing, water purification, medical device and other industries, Tennant Company is the first to introduce it for commercial cleaning,” stated Chris Killingstad, Tennant’s president and chief executive officer.

 

Tennant’s Ech2o is widely acknowledged

 

Tennant’s Ech2o technology won the Innovation Award 2007 at the ISSA/Interclean USA trade show in October, 2007. “We’re pleased to receive this award — an award that undeniably validates our position within the industry,” says Killingstad.

 

How much longer will it be before Ech2o floor cleaning system technology becomes available in a consumer floor cleaning machine? Not long, I hope. For the sake of our environment and the world we live in, such innovative ideas needs to be nurtured and brought into mainstream for the use of general public. This can be achieved only by making it affordable for people to use it for their house and floors. When they are able to replace their current cleaning solutions that use chemicals and detergents by this Ech2o technology which primarily uses water, the result will be phenomenal and hard to say no to.