Tersano lotus LBU100 Sanitizing System Review

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(More customer reviews)I am a physician and a homemaker. I am always looking for safe, effective, easy ways to clean. This product has been the answer for me in the following ways:
1.) Washing fruits and vegetables. Now I am finally following Rachel Ray's advice to wash everything when I bring it home from the grocery store. I pile in as much as the bowl (included with the system) will hold and rinse it briefly under the faucet to remove loose dirt. Then I fill the bowl with cool tap water and place it on the base. As I write this, I am processing 5 avocados, 4 tomatoes, and 2 peaches in the bowl. The cleaning cycle takes about 4 minutes, then you leave the produce in the water for another two minutes. The base unit counts down the time so you know when you're done. Finally, I use the bowl's lid, which has a built-in strainer, to drain the bowl.
There are a number of advantages to this method of washing produce. For me, the most important one is that I know that the produce is truly clean when the final beeper goes off. In the past I was never sure when I could stop rinsing my produce. This method is also a time-saver, since I can wash quite a bit of produce in each batch, and I can do other things while it is processing. Washing the produce when I bring it home from the store also makes it last longer, because the bacteria which cause decay are destroyed. Additionally, when I drain the water from the bowl into my sink, the super-oxygenated water helps to sanitize the sink. Finally, I don't have to wash the bowl, because it is sanitized with each use.
2.) Sanitizing my kids' orthodontic retainers, and the family's various toothbrushes, nail clippers, nail files, etc. I use the bowl for this. I wish I had had this when my kids were babies, because according to the instruction book it can be used to sanitize pacifiers, baby toys, and other baby paraphernalia.
3.) Sanitizing my kids' shower shoes and gear when they get back from camp or a field trip. I use the spray bottle, which is included with the system, for this. First I rinse the gear in my utility sink or with the hose outside. Then I fill the spray bottle with cool tap water. I place the bottle on the base, and start the processing cycle which takes about 2 minutes. Then you have 15 minutes to use the super-oxygenated water, after which it starts to break down into oxygen and water. The base unit counts down the 15 minutes, so you know when your time is up. I spray everything and let it dry in the sun.
There are several advantages to this method of sanitizing gear over my old way of using bleach and other cleaners. First, it is extremely effective. Second, there is no residue left on the gear (again, the super-oxygenated water breaks down into oxygen and water), so there is no rinsing. And third, I do not have to wear gloves.
4.) Cleaning my refrigerator inside and out. I use the spray bottle for this. I especially love the fact that no residue is left in the refrigerator, and there is no odd cleaning-product smell either.
5.) Kitchen countertops, sink, and cabinets. I have an under-mounted sink, and the thought of all the bacteria growing in the space between the countertop and the sink used to really bother me. In the past, I would fill my sink with hot water and bleach, but now I use the spray bottle. It is quick and easy, requires no rinsing, and there is no bleach smell or concern about getting bleach on my clothes. Plus there is a strong environmental benefit to avoiding bleach and the plastic bottles that bleach comes in.
6.) Bathrooms. In the past I used cleaning products that smelled terrible and that warn you to only use them in a well-ventilated area. It made bathroom-cleaning a dreaded chore. Now I use the spray bottle, and the job is quick and easy. I live in Florida, where mold and mildew are a big problem in the bathroom. We have had a particular problem with mildew growing in the toilet tanks (up where the flush mechanism is). This has been difficult to keep under control in the past, because bleach damages the rubber portions of the flush mechanism. The super-oxygenated water has not caused any damage, but has been extremely effective against the mildew.
I like the fact that no residue is left behind on surfaces, and the bathroom is truly sanitized. I will also note that although I have arthritis in my hands, the spray bottle is easy to use.
Other reviewers have mentioned getting an error code when trying to use the Lotus system. I have also had error codes in two situations, but I figured out how to deal with them.
The first error code I have encountered occurs when there is no water in the base. During processing, water circulates between the base and the attachment you have chosen (either the bowl or the spray bottle). Between uses, clean water remains in the base unit. However, when you are first starting out, or if you have emptied the base unit, it takes time to get water into the base unit. This is when I have had an F4 error code. I remove the attachment, fill the blue reservoir on the base with water, and then put the empty bowl on the base unit. Using a large measuring cup, I pour cool tap water directly over the valve system in the bottom of the bowl to get water to go through the valve into the base. Then I turn on the processing cycle and see if it will go. If not, I repeat these steps until it does. Normally you do not have to worry about this, because clean water will be left in the base between uses.
The second situation where I have encountered an error code is when washing fruits that shed tiny seeds or hairs, such as raspberries, blackberries, strawberries, and kiwi. I belive that there must be a sensor in the base that reads the water as dirty, and halts the processing. Even when I pre-rinsed these fruits, I still got an error code because you can't get rid of all the tiny seeds and hairs. I dealt with this situation by emptying the "dirty" water out of the base. Next, I get clean water into the base as described in the previous paragraph. Then I put clean water in the bowl and process it in the usual way. At the end of the processing cycle, I remove the bowl from the base and add the fruit to it. I let the fruit sit in there for two minutes before draining. This way, no seeds or hairs circulate through the base to create problems. This is actually the method that the instruction book suggests for meat, poultry, and seafood.
I highly recommend this product, and plan to give it to family members as Christmas gifts. Please note that I am not associated in any way with the company that makes this product.

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Live Chemical Free with the lotus Sanitizing System
Take a step towards healthier living! This amazing Sanitizing System from Tersano lets you turn on your faucet and treat your home to an effective sanitizer that safely wipes out germs, odors, stains, mold, mildew and pesticides -- all without chemicals.
When you use lotus, you turn ordinary tap water into the world's most powerful sanitizer in about two minutes, for a fraction of a penny. Studies have shown that ozone is 50-percent more powerful and more than 3,000 times faster acting on bacteria than chlorine -- at 100 times the strength. Water treated with this system will kill 99.9 percent of germs on any surface it contacts.
Use the lotus to clean countertops, appliances, floors, high chairs and other baby items, upholstery, windows, cutting boards, and any surface that attracts mold or mildew. Even carpet and laundry stains -- including red wine and pet stains -- are easy to remove, with no harsh fumes or residue. Lotus also eliminates germs and pesticides from your food. It even extends the shelf life of fruit and produce up to four times longer than if they've been rinsed with tap water.
How It Works
The system has two main purposes: (1). to disinfect surfaces and (2). to remove pesticides and kill germs on food. It does this using ordinary tap water.
The lotus patented Oxyshield technology infuses cold tap water with an extra oxygen atom, creating a natural sanitizer. By passing air through 4,500 volts of electricity, the lotus system splits oxygen molecules into atoms and forces this extra atom to combine and form super-oxygen, or ozone. The third oxygen atom becomes the sanitizing agent, a natural oxidant -- which kills bacteria and viruses, and neutralizes pesticides.
Using the lotus spray bottle, it takes about two to three minutes to turn tap water into antibacterial lotus water with 100-percent potential (this is indicated on the unit); and then it remains fully effective for about 15 minutes. After 15 minutes, the contents begin to revert to plain water. A countdown timer on the unit tells you when it's time to reload and recharge.
Once the tap water reaches its fully transformed potential (in about five minutes, if you’re using the bowl), maximum bacteria and pesticide reduction is achieved after two minutes of soaking. That same helpful countdown timer tells you when your food is completely sanitized and cleansed of pesticide residues.
The lotus Sanitizing System was recognized as one of the Best Inventions of 2006 by Time Magazine. It was also recognized by Donny Deutsch as The Big Idea of the Month.
Key Technical Specs: FDA and USDA approved for food sanitation UL and CSA tested and approved EPA registered for produce and household surfaces Non-abrasive; safe for use on non-porous surfaces Kills 99.9-percent of: E. Coli Salmonella Staphylococcus aureus (Listeria) K. Pneumonia
What's in the Box Sanitizing system includes the base unit, multi-purpose bowl with lid, trigger spray bottle, two microfiber cloths and one booster cartridge.
Warranty This product is covered by a limited one-year manufacturer's warranty.
Tersano's Tradition of Quality Technology and Elegant Design A Canadian developer of cutting-edge household sanitizing systems, Tersano is an innovative company that is changing the way the world thinks about cleaning chemicals -- and in the process, creating an entirely new market category. Tersano’s state-of-the-art technology improves quality of life and delivers peace of mind by providing consumers tools with which to reduce, if not eliminate, the need for toxic chemicals in their homes. Tersano's designers have focused on creating systems that are simple and elegant -- products that anyone would be proud to have in the kitchen, bathroom or baby's room. Their engineers have applied exacting standards in producing quality robust products that are strong enough to meet even the most demanding family requirements.

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Activeion ionator HOM Portable Cleaner and Sanitizer Review

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(More customer reviews)This device has generated controversy here on Amazon, bringing mostly either glowing five star or scathing one star reviews, and the technical discussion has been uninformed. Until such time as the product is evaluated by a neutral expert such as Consumer Reports, I hope to clear up a bit of the scientific side by taking a close look at the information put out by Activeion, a one year old marketing operation in Minneapolis. I have not tested the device myself - nor do I see how anyone could properly test it at home, since that requires a specialized laboratory. This is an engineering analysis; I studied a laboratory test of alleged bacteriocidal properties which the company sponsored and frequently refers to, I analyzed some of the company's patent applications, and I applied my own scientific background in physics and chemistry.
The Activeion product claims to convert ordinary tap water into a powerful cleaning agent and disinfectant by means of an electrochemical process implemented in a handheld spray bottle. The bottle incorporates a battery to pass a current through the water, together with a type of ion exchange (electrolytic) membrane. The basic chemistry is far from new; in fact the phenomenon of electrolysis and its use in producing bleach or chlorine were discovered in the late 1700's, around the time of Benjamin Franklin! It is important to know that the process relies not on water but on SALT water. The method used by the Tennant Company, a manufacturer of commercial cleaning equipment and the corporate parent of Activeion, yields what is usually called "Electrolyzed Water" or "Electrolyzed Oxidizing Water" (EOW). There are several places to read about the relevant chemistry, which can be found by Googling terms such as "electrochemistry" or "electrolysis," or on Wikipedia. Tennant is not the only company which offers this type of technology; there are others such as Electrolyzer Corp., Ecopep Electrocide, and EcaFlo Anolyte, the latter of which has been certified by the EPA as a broad spectrum disinfectant.
Without going into too much detail, the electrolysis process converts salt water into two streams, of which one side generates sodium hypochlorite (otherwise known as ordinary laundry bleach) solution, which of course is a widely used cleaning agent and disinfectant. (I note that Tennant claims in other patent applications, such as 2007/0187261 - which can be searched from the USPTO website - that a nanobubble mechanism also comes into play. More recently their website switched to talking about a third mechanism, "electroporation" as the antibacterial action. But let's keep this discussion to what seems the primary process.) In the version used by Activeion the two streams are recombined which means the two liquids cancel each other out, and revert to plain salt water. But by and large, the end effect is a short-acting solution which is not very different from adding a few drops of inexpensive bleach to one's water bottle, spraying and then quickly wiping it off.
There are some key factors to appreciate about the process. The first is that it is dependent on the incoming water containing a sufficient amount of salt (sodium chloride), without which the water will have no conductivity for electric current and also generate no hypochlorite. Thus pure distilled water or deionized water will not work at all, and in general the efficiency of the process is highly dependent on the exact analysis of the available water, how much salt, how much other minerals. In fact the Tennant patent referenced above says that the water needs to have a certain minimum of salt content to work properly, about 6 grams per liter. But everyone knows that tap water supplies around the U.S. vary tremendously in hardness and salinity.
Second, the process is energy intensive. A significant amount of electric power is required to convert part of the input salt water to bleach in any useful quantity. Third, the cleaning effect of the electrolyzed water is rather mild. Another of Tennant's patent applications, 2009/0120460, reports some measurements they made for carpet cleaning. In that case, by Tennant's own tests, it was only about 20% more effective than plain water, and not nearly as effective as a standard detergent solution. And this was for the large industrial version of the machine, not the handheld, and the solution was also allowed to soak into the carpet for several MINUTES before it was sucked up. So even under these idealized conditions, it had only a mild cleaning effect, and the required soak time makes it impractical for many tasks.
Even if the item being sold here works exactly as claimed, all it appears to do is convert salty water into a sort of temporary weak bleach solution, which is chemically the same as you would buy at the supermarket. The same. It is misleading to say that you will be using 'only pure water to clean, in place of harmful chemicals.' Activeion describes the cleaning as using an 'activated' form of water, which is inaccurate; it is more correct to say that the indispensable ingredient is sodium chloride. Salt may be benign, but once you break it up chemically into sodium and chlorine ions, it becomes potentially harsh. The chloride ion is highly reactive chemically and a well known bacteriocide (swimming pools, water treatment). In its pure form, chlorine gas is not only a 'harmful chemical' but highly toxic - it was used as a poison gas in World War I. The liquid produced by the Activeion is a temporary form of the identical chemical found in Chlorox; except for being short acting, it is not more green or less toxic. As Tennant themselves write in the first referenced patent filing, "the anolyte .. is acidic in nature and contains very strong oxidants in the form of active chlorine" .. and .. "care should be taken on surfaces having a potential for corrosion." In other words, Tennant says that the liquid sprayed out by this bottle could pit and scar a metal surface! It produces chlorine; only a quite expensive form of chlorine. Indeed, way more expensive, since $180 will buy you enough Chlorox to last an ordinary household hundreds of years. The only undeniably green thing about chlorine is its color - yellowish green.
Taking all this into account, the remaining question is really whether the scaled down, handheld device being sold here is actually effective in producing a strong enough solution to do anything useful. So next let's move from the theory to exactly what Activeion claims to be the laboratory proof that their handheld device is "99.99% effective in killing E. coli bacteria." The relevant document is posted on Activeion's website in the form of a report they sponsored from ATS Labs in Eagan, Minnesota, a company which carries out bacteriological tests for a fee. The key word here is "sponsored" - the company paid ATS to do this. Amazon won't allow posting of a link, but you'll find it if you look, or see Comment #1 below. I read this report carefully.
Now think back to junior high school. Suppose someone asked you to test a spray bottle which converts tap water into an antibacterial, how would you go about doing that? Well, if you had the expertise gained from taking ninth grade General Science, you would probably prepare three glass slides with a standard bacterial load on each (such as letting your dog lick each one). One you would keep aside as a control. The second you would dip in your local tap water - which of course you would obtain from your very own tap. Even better, you might use a range of tap waters from different sources. The third slide would be treated with the same water squirted through the magic spray bottle you were trying to test. This would make a great science project, and you might get to represent your school at the state fair!
Pretty logical, right? But - amazingly - this is not what ATS Labs did at all. Instead, they signed a contract with Activeion which required (this is all written down in the report) that ATS would use only the `tap water' provided to them by Activeion, and furthermore they had to promise NOT TO ANALYZE IT in any way. No suspense here by the way - it did end up killing the bacteria. Annihilated them. Are you surprised?
In fact, it is not quite accurate to say that Activeion insisted on providing the testing lab with their own preferred `tap water.' To be more precise, they supplied an UNKNOWN LIQUID. There is absolutely no way to know what was in that liquid - and significantly, ATS was also required to GIVE IT ALL BACK at the end of the tests, and not retain a sample - which I found a bit suspicious. It could have been some kind of tap water, or highly concentrated salt water, or distilled water, or it could have been not water at all but commercial bleach, or another disinfectant, or battery acid, or Chanel Number 5, or the kind of cheap tequila used at frat parties to make large volumes of bad margaritas. Activeion made sure there was no way to ever know.
Furthermore, it is considered a procedural error for a consumer product testing lab to accept the handheld spray/processing unit direct from the company; instead it should have been purchased from a regular retail channel. Normally I would not be concerned but in this case - given Activeion's unusually intense and fervent campaign to market this - the company might not be above providing a souped-up unit to fake the test, which they could do for example by replacing a cheap ion exchange filter with a more expensive, high performance version, or installing more powerful batteries. This is why, to eliminate any such doubts, Consumer Reports buys all their products at retail and accepts nothing direct from the manufacturer.
In other words, the ATS Labs antibacterial test pointed to by Activeion as a pillar of their credibility...Read more›

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Activeion strives to protect the health and safety of all people, and foster a more sustainable world, by creating revolutionary, chemical-free cleaning and anti-microbial technologies for everyday use. The ionator HOM from Activeion is aneasy-to-use, versatile appliance that removes dirt and kills 99.9% ofharmful germs without the use of chemicals when used as directed.It's designed for quick and portable cleaning around yourhome, in your car, or at your office. You can use it to easily cleanglass, stainless steel, marble, granite, tile, carpet, fabrics andmore.

From kitchens and bathrooms, to bedrooms and playrooms--youcan clean without leaving behind any chemical residue. With the ionatorHOM, you will significantly reduce the repeated high expense,potentially toxic harm, and enormous packaging waste that come fromusing general-purpose cleaning chemicals.


The science inside the ionatorHOM.

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