During a time where everyone is battling a worldwide viral pandemic, at times a good disinfectant is a must-have.
Now, with children going back to school, keeping play and work areas disinfected is more important than ever, as well.
But many disinfectants leave behind residues that aren’t safe for food surfaces, small children or pets. One company has tried to invent something to solve this problem, and thus created Enpuly.
The Crowdfunding Campaign
Enpuly have launched the campaign on Indiegogo and has gained quite a bit of traction, below we will take a deeper look into the product itself.
This article is based on our honest opinion and is not sponsored by Enpuly.
The Advertised Selling Point
Enpuly is a portable sanitizer. It’s marketed to be strong enough to kill most viruses and bacteria, but gentle enough to use around children and pets.
Because of its bacteria-fighting abilities, Enpuly can be used to remove odors from things like smelly shoes or gym bags.
Videos for the Enpuly show it being used to sanitize hands. It’s even advertised to disinfect the surface of fresh produce and remove pesticides from them.
And, what’s more, Enpuly does all of this without using harmful manufactured chemicals.
How does it do this? Well, you put water and salt in it, turn it on, wait 3 minutes and then you can spray the resulting disinfectant.
During that 3 minutes, the water is being electrolyzed, which makes a type of chlorine gas which is then neutralized in the water and turned into hypochloorus acid and hydroxide.
It sounds like the miracle sanitizing solution that we all needed. But does Enpuly live up to the hype?
Our Analysis and Review
Well, the first thing I wanted to know was whether the chemicals it produces as a result of electrolysis are actually safe.
As it turns out I was right to do research.
Hypochlorous acid is safe enough that it can be used on skin, and even eyes. Yes, eyes. Apparently it’s used in optometry. It’s a natural acid produced from our white blood cells that takes out pathogens it encounters.
The potential red flag
Okay, so what about hydroxide? Well, that’s the red flag I found. That’s not safe at all. Sodium hydroxide isn’t safe for skin.
It’s highly corrosive, so there will be burns on anything it touches. You can’t eat, drink or breathe it either.
Since you put salt in the device to make it work, there would most definitely be sodium hydroxide resulting from the electrolysis.
Now, there are probably small quantities of it that come from the Enpuly, but even in small quantities it seems like one wouldn’t want to be putting it on their skin or exposing children or pets to it.
If it’s questionable whether it’s safe to get on your skin, or to use around children, pets or food, what good is it?
We don’t actually know at what concentration the machine makes Hypochlrorous acid and sodium hydroxide. And we don’t know how the machine monitors the concentration levels.
What’s concerning the backers?
Backers have definitely asked about both issues, only to receive blurry pictures of a user manual that don’t answer their questions and certainly don’t calm their fears.
So, we could assume that levels of both of these chemicals are low in the resulting water solution, but who knows?
The Enpuly should produce similar results to that of a hydroxyl generator, as one backer pointed out.
And the thing about hydroxyl generators is that they don’t kill any mold that’s already attached itself to a surface. They only kill what’s floating around in the air.
That’s because the hydroxyls don’t last long enough to penetrate surfaces and remove the mold.
There are hydroxyl generators that have been proven to kill mold on surfaces, but the EPA hasn’t been able to clear any of them as safe to use in occupied spaces or residences due to the air quality after using it.
So, that’s a little disturbing, as well.
Is the effectiveness questionable?
The next thing I found was that when asked about the proof of how long it takes to kill germs and how many germs it was proven to kill, the creators provided a blurry certificate to backers.
When read, it indicated that 99% of germs were removed in 20 minutes.
Do you see the problem there? If you’re trying to use this as a quick hand sanitizer, it’s pretty much useless.
You’ve got to wait 3 minutes for it to power up and sanitize the water solution, then you’ve got to have it on your hands for 20 minutes before it kills all of the germs!
Shelf life
And the last drawback I want to discuss is the shelf life of the electrolyzed water.
After you electrolyze the water and it becomes a disinfectant, you’re only able to use it for 3 days. After 3 days, it’s not effective anymore and you have to discard it and make more.
So, every 3 days you have to make more disinfectant. If I buy a bottle of Pinesol and stick it in my cabinet, I don’t have to throw it out every 3 days.
Wrap Up
So, is Enpuly worth buying? We’re going to have to wait until backers receive theirs and tell us how they feel after using them.
But it’s a pretty safe bet that if you want to use a safe disinfectant around kids and animals, you’re better off getting a bottle of vinegar or using some other natural method of disinfecting your home.
At least you won’t have to wait 20 minutes for it to disinfect whatever surface you put it on!