Ozone - an in depth look at ozone

How does ozone work?  

While ozone is very powerful, it has a very short life cycle.  When it comes in contact with odours, bacteria, viruses, etc... the extra atom of oxygen destroys them completely by oxidation.  In doing so, the extra atom of oxygen is destroyed and there is nothing left including odours, bacteria, etc... except for plain stable oxygen.  How is ozone produced?  There are two types of ozone production.  The first one would be corona discharge which essentially is creating lightning and the second is ultra violet flourescent tubes.  Both forms are effective and personal preference and room size, Are the only deciding factors how long does ozone last?  Ozone lasts at the very most thirty minutes.  When there are a lot of pollutants in the air ozone, it will degrade at a very rapid rate and in some cases almost immediately.

What is ozone?  

Ozone is sometimes called the "activated oxygen".  It contains three atoms of oxygen rather than the two atoms we normally breathe.  Ozone is the second most powerful sterilant in the world and its function is to destroy bacteria, viruses, and odours.  Ozone occurs quite readily in nature, most often as a result of lightning strikes that occur during thunderstorms.  In fact that fresh smell after a thunderstorm is actually the smell of ozone.  Ozone is also created by waterfalls.  However, we are probably most familiar with ozone from reading about the "ozone layer" that circles the planet above the earths atmosphere.  Here the ozone is created by ultra-violet rays from the sun and subsequently helps to protect from the damaging ultra-violet radiation. Ozone generators are the most effective odor control devices available.  Odor is caused by airborne pathogens which float freely and come in contact with our nasal passages.  When generated ozone, or 0³ comes in contact with these pathogens one of the oxygen atoms detaches from the ozone molecule, attaching itself to the odor-causing pollutant.  This process, in essence, inactivates the odor causing particles in the air, leaving clean, fresh smelling air.  Growers report that a good ozone generator will completely eliminate airborne odors from the most pungent crops, but will not affect the dried boquet of the flowers.There has been some debate over the safety of ozone and humans, however The EPA, USDA and OSHA have approved the use of ozone at concentrations of 0.1 Parts Per Million, for an exposure period of eight hours, without any side effects.  Most home ozone generators produce less than .05 PPM, and exposure time is minimal.  With this in mind, ozone generation is a safe and effective method of odor control.  How to use Ozone While some growers place ozone generators outside the growing area in fear that ozone may damage plants, most choose to destroy the odor at the source.  In contrast to popular belief, ozone actually benefits the overall health of the plant, and the human, by removing pollutants such as bacteria, fugus and mold from the air.  Another benefit to marijuana is the creation of CO² (along with water and oxygen), when ozone comes into contact with formaldahyde (HCHO) Because ozone generation is a very potent method of odor removal, constant treatment is not necessary; Ozone generators are run off a timer, with a typical generation of 10 minutes on, every two hours.

Built an Ozone generater

I just thought I'd let people know that I finally took the plunge and built an ozone generator according to Greenman's plans.  THe smell was just getting to be too much, and though it was confied to the garage, I feared it would start seeping out.  I had to spend $50 at an electronics store for the 7000 volt transformer, but everything else was just a few bucks more.  Came home, spent 1/2 an hour putting it together, turned it on, and instant ozone.  Came back 1/2 hour later and there wasn't a whiff of smell anywhere to be found.  I'm posting this because anyone out there who might be intimidated by this project should put their worries aside and go for it.  I put it off too long thinking it had to be more complicated than I expected.  Better to kill the smell than go to hell.  THanks to this forum for spreading the info so well.

Ozone Generator Construction

Building an ozone generator  

green man's plans for an ozone generator.  Several people have expresed an interest in the plans for a home made ozone generator that I posted a while back.  This is a very simple set up that anyone can put together in five minutes after getting the parts.  It works as well as the expensive units costing $600 or more but it costs only about $20 or so.  The ones I made cost nothing it just depends on how good you are at scrounging.  A good source for the transformer is a shop that repairs or installs neon signs.  You can usually pick up a used one for next to zip.  If you go past their dumpster you might see one for free.  Keta says All Electronics has them for $20-htttp://www.allcorp.com Keta apparently put together one and he reports good results.  They work great for me.  Here are the plans: First you need a neon sign or similar transformer at about 6000v.  You need a small glass jar and a larger jar that will hold the smaller one.The larger jar can be glass or plastic, I have successfully used a plastic cup for the larger jar but the smaller one should be glass.  Lastly you need a small amount of aluminum foil and you may need a few short pieces of wire.  The transformer can be as small as 3000v but the more the better up to a point.  I use 7000v and that is plenty but you can use up to 15000v.  Put a small piece of aluminum foil (about 2" sq.)  inside the small jar at the bottom.  Cover the outside bottom of the small jar with foil so that it covers the same area as the foil inside.  You can cover the whole inside and outside of the jar, that may work better but just make sure the inner and outer foil layers do not touch or come too close.  Put the smaller jar inside the larger one.  Connect one high voltage lead to the foil inside and the other to the foil outside.  The larger jar just insulates the whole thing.  I would put the whole set up on a piece of wood or other insulator. Try not to cross the wires.  The bare part of the wire must touch the foil. If the insulation on the wire makes it difficult or if the wires are too short, you may use some other wire to extend them.  Be sure to keep the wires as short as possible you don't want to touch them they will give you a jolt.  Turn it on, you'll hear acrackling noise and if its dark you'll see a blue glow.  If theres a short you may see an arc, just turn it off and separate the conductors so that they don't short out.  The ozone will come out the top so don't plug it up.  Ozone is a very powerful deodorizor it also tends to kill mold and bacteria but will not harm your plants.  I try not to breath a lot of it though its not supposed to be dangerous in small amounts.  I run it at the beginning of the dark period with a timer.  I find 2 hours per day is enough but that will depend on your odor problem.  That's it, have fun.  I would be pleased to hear peoples experiences with this.  green man

I think I would set up the ozone generator a little differently.First, I would scrap the glass jar thing and use a small piece of glass with equal sizes of wire mesh mounted on both sides (these are called glass plates).My store-bought one mounted the wire mesh onto the glass with clear silicone caulking.I would mount the whole deal inside a wooden box (for safety reasons) with a top and two sides.I would mount a small computer type fan one one of the open sides to blow the ozone out.  Finally, I would install some sort of dimmer switch to regulate the ozone output.  The greater the voltage and the greater the wire mesh surface area, the greater the ozone output.  On a safety note, according to WCB, if you can smell the ozone - it's set too high and could be dangerous to you and the plants.

I'm writing about your comments that you put at the end.  Your idea of glueing the screen to each side of a glass plate sounds good.  Unfortunately this will reduce or stop the production of ozone.  You see, it's neccesary to have an air space between the electrodes.  That's where the oz.  is produced.  The glass jar provides some insulation but you must have an air gap between the conductor and the glass for it to work.  There is no reason you couldn't use metal screens for the plates.  You could glue them to glass sheets and have an air gap between the two plates.  You just couldn't glue them to the same plate.  As long as you maintained the gap, it wouldn't arc over and it would make oz.  I guess you could use a plastic grid or glue plastic spacers to the plates to make sure of the spacing.  Just be sure it's open to the outside air so the oz can circulate.  The safety of oz is debateable but it seems to be OK in small amounts.  I used it only during the dark cycle when I wasn't in there.  Vic High follow up.  thanks greenman for making this more clear.  In my mind, the idea of the silicone was to create the space but wasn't very clear about this.  Electricity arcing through the air is what creates ozone.

Yo HippyK, just finished the ozone gen., wow!

Yep, this thing's the cat's meow.  Just fired the gen.  up and it sure is great.  Gives off a bluish-purple hue, a little bit of a buzz (anyone know why the buzz?)  and a really nice, fresh odor like you're at a waterfall.  Very nice suttle smell of ozone - I plan to put it on a timer.  Construction: I worked with a free, used 7500V neon transformer that a sign vendor gave me, got some never used scrap alum.  window screen, an 8' 18/3 cord with a male plug, some wood screws, salvaged a cheap 3 1/2" X 5" piece of glass from a cheapo photo frame, and got after it.  Total cost, about $6.  Mounted the transformer using its base mounts to a 4" X 17" X 3/4" plywood board, attached the 18/3 to the primary side of the transformer including the ground wire for safety.  Cut two screens about 1/2" smaller than the outside dimensions of the glass.  I then folded one corner over, punched a hole with an ice pick through the corner and threaded some wire through the hole while twisting it around itself so it would be easy to solder.  I soldered the wire leads to the corner of the precut screens using a little flux for prepping, a heavy duty solder iron, and regular electronic solder.  After the wires were affixed to the screens, I mounted the screen patches to the plate glass, one on each side, using a hot glue gun with about one drop of hot glue at each corner of the screen.  The glue bleeds thru the screen and holds real well.  Mounted the plate glass with screens attached in a groove which I previously cut into the plywood.  The glass was mounted adjacent to the transformer's secondary side.  I connected the screen's wire leads to the secondary side of the transformer and fired it up.  Worked great the first time.  Just 1 Question though... :) If timer is needed because it puts out too much... Why not use a lower volt transformer???  Then no need for a timer!...Right???  Or am I just stoned?  :)

I hope you don't mind if I add your notes to my webpage.  I like the gluegun idea, sounds much better than my silicone idea.  I'm also using one of those 7500v transformers as well.  As for increasing and decreasing output, surface area of the wire mesh also plays a role.  My comercial model comes with different size plates and so you can adjust output by changing the nuber and size of the plates.  It also has a "volume" control which I suspect adjusts the voltage output.  Buzz comes from the thousands of tiny lightning strikes.  That is what that glow is as well.  BTW my homemade model kicks the comercial model big time.

Ozone Gen.  construction revisited - Conclusions!!! May post this to other rooms, so please bear with me, I feel this is important and want to share it.  I posted my ozone generator construction method the other day using a 7500V neon transformer, received a "congrats" from Vic High with a comment regarding the need for air surrounding (or in between) the aluminum screens.  I'll call the screens "plates" for the sake of discussion.  My original construction was based on placing a plate on each side of a single thickness glass, with only the glass separating the plates about 3/32".  Decided to play games with this, and this is what I found.  Disconnected the original leads and got to work.  Took two 4 X 5" pieces of single thickness glass, and affixed a plate on each using a hot glue gun.  With various thicknesses of spaces, I placed these screens facing each other, being careful not to short or ground out any areas.  No stray strands of aluminum screen were evident.  After using gaps between the plates ranging from about 3/32" to 3/8" I was disappointed but glad I went thru this experiment.  CONCLUSIONS: No matter the gap between plates, all I got was hot spots at various points along the plates resulting in considerable heat produced within a very short period of time, melting of the glue, very little, if any ozone production, and generally a failing system.  So.....went back to work after this exercise and piddled with my original configuration to try to get rid of the annoying buzz.  Did it!  Just added a few more drops along the perimeter and one drop in the middle, its now very quiet, and produces alot of ozone.  The plates were vibrating against the glass.  Yep, guess the single plate glass is just the right thickness, and it arcs just fine.  With lights out, there is a faint blueish-purple color, and lots of ozone.  Uncle Ben

Hello Vic, I can't really understand why two plates facing each other won't work, but I got more of a yellow fire than a nice suttle blueish-purple haze while using the two pieces of plates facing each other.  Yep, we don't need da fires!  Found out why a single plate is effective today!  Called Joe Blow the Electrician listed in the phone book, and asked about the insulated values of glass, since glass is used as an insulator in commercial applications.  Question was one of arcing if glass is an insulator.  As an example, take a look at the heavy glass insulators on utility poles, etc.  Well, seems that voltage levels are the key.  Lower voltages can't bleed thru glass while high voltages such as the 7500V+ that we use can.  So, this explains why this single plate of glass with a screen on each side is so effective.  It's just thin enough to keep the screens apart but thick enough to allow them to arc.  The thin glass I used is single strength and seems to be the key.  It is not showing any hot spots, remains at room temp.  Of course, if it does show hot spots after some period of use, I will go back to the drawing board.  BTW, do me a favor, and tell Greenman "Kip" says hello.  I really have alot of respect for that guy - fine temperment and character.  Later, "Uncle Ben"

When we last met, UBD had a problem with glue joints holding the glass plate, well I solved the problem and rebuilt the generator plates.  I had originally used a glue gun and a silicone type cement to attach the "plates" aka aluminum window screen on each side of the glass.  After some use the glue would vibrate loose so I went to work.  Stripped from the single plate glass the screens and remnants of glue and scrubbed the glass clean with some detergent.  I then applied Etching Cream, available at hobby stores, to both sides of the glass sheet in order to dull the sheen.  This etching cream has an acid as its active ingredient which after leaving it on for about 15 mins., completely frosts the surface.  Originally I recognized that glue had a hard time holding onto a glossy, virgin glass surface and that frosting of the glass would be needed.  After "roughing up" the glass with the cream and washing the surfaces clean, I cut new pieces of alum.  screen careful to keep them about 1/4" or more from the glass perimeter to prevent arcing.  I then soldered wire leads to each corner of the alum.  "plates" and mounted the plates to each side of the plate glass using a drop of hot glue at each corner, and one in the middle.  To cut down on the buzzing, I further applied "Goop", a type of multi-purpose glue, to various points around the perimeter.  And?  Works like a champ, very good output, and after extensive use, not one glue joint has failed.  Again cost was about $6.00 for the glass and the wire cord, the rest was free.  Am able to quickly and easily break the generator down and store in a box - the leads can be disconnected from the secondary on the transformer, the glass plate is just lifted up and out of the 1/4" deep channel I cut in the 3/4" plywood mount, and can then be packed away in a box.  Remember folks, da smeller is da fella.... Smellin' clean Uncle Ben

Folks, Here are (3) sources for ionizers (AKA negative ion generators).  Two are "DIY" kits that are excellent and easy to put together w/ just a soldering iron.  The last and larger one is a big mother than you can have custom built by the vendor for negative ion generation.  Please keep in mind that these devices, although safe, should be treated with respect, especially the larger units!  I should also mention that these units are far more effective and a fraction of the cost of "commercial units".  The prices on these kits range from $14.00 - $198.00 http://www.debco.com/db_online/kit3.htm#dk-57 http://www.electronickits.com/kit/complete/misc/ck1103.htm http://www.amazing1.com/voltage2.htm (this is the big mother) Enjoy, Cedar

Folks, Per some earlier threads, I followed the general directions and had a few mods to the last set of plans.  First, I secured a 15KV volt neon sign transformer ($35 used - it's one big mother).  Found the largest spaghetti sauce jar (10" in diameter)I could get my paws on.  Got some heavy mesh screen (1/4" grid) at the local builders supply as well as some heavy-duty wire.  Rolled a screen on the outside of the jar (6" wide) and, with some difficulty, did the same on the inside of the jar (a large moth jar helps a lot).  Soldered a lead to each of the screens and wired them to the transformer.  I then cut the bottom our of one of those ubiquitous "handy pails" at the hardware store (left a 4" lip on it).  I glued this to a piece of plywood (lip-up) and then epoxied the jar in the center of cut bottom.  I then got another pail, took the handle off and drilled 20 or so evenly spaced ½" holes all around what would be consider 2" below the bottom lip.  The then cut a hole in the bottom of this bucket and mounted a small 120v fan on top to blow air though the unit.  I then placed this bucket upsidedown over the jar and other cut bottom, running the wires out of one of the ½" holes.  After securing the top bucket in place and bolting down the transformer, I connected the fan and transformer to the same 120v switch and plugged it in.  It worked great!  That 15KV transformer puts out a hell of a lot of ozone (hence the need for a heavy screen), and the plastic buckets insulate everything, w/ the added bonus of reducing noise a bit.  I run this sucker on a timer 6x/day at 10 minute intervals and all I can smell is rain-fresh laundry!!

I don't have a garden but I do have an ozone generator that I like real well.Ozone at low levels is not poisonous....this misconception is from bad press and bad science.It has been used for many things for 100 years.www.oxytherapy.com has a lot of research.It is mothernature's way of cleaning our environment.Mine turned a musty/moldy smelling basement into a room that smells like fresh outdoor air....I have mold allergies and hated the smell.It doesn't just mask outdoor...it destroys what cause it...ie the mold in this case.A good unit also generates negative ions as part of the ozone generating process....nearly as much as an ion generator.Feel free to write...I have more info.

I've been using an ozone generator for quite a while now.  Before i got it I heard all the negative stuff about how dangerous they where from the grow shops that only had ionizers.  Problem was that many stinky worksites have them such as meatprocessors.  I approached WCB and asked them what the deal was with them and their reply was that they were safe as long as they weren't overdone.  Ozone is a strong oxidizer that can destroy lung cells.  WCB has adopted safe ozone levels for the workplace but then went on to say that basically if you can smell the distinctive sea breeze then you are damaging your lungs.  Now for my observations: First, I use one with an output adjustment and therefore don't use a timer and can't give advice here.  Second, mine has always been in my flower room with the plants.  It definately hasn't affected the odour or flavour of my finished product.  I do have trouble getting a good smell of the buds in the grow room though.  One negative observation: blueberry plants that are too close to the ozone output are prone to going slightly hermie.  I don't seem to get unwanted seeds from these but the hermied buds lose their blueberry smell and just stink.  They also don't get as big but strangely weigh the same.  ????  I was just reading the June high times issue and Ed R also suggests placing the generator in the same room as the plants.  Personally I would place the ozone generator near the room's intake.  This way any air leaking from the grow room is deoderized.  Hope this helps.  Vic

To elaborate on funks post, there are two different types of ozone generators commonly available which correspond to two different ways ozone is produced in nature.  Lightning creates ozone (the exact mechanism is a mystery to me, but funks description sounds logical) and one type of ozone generator uses this model, on a much smaller scale of course.  It forces electricty through the air, something like mini lightning, and that gives you your ozone.  This is what funk has.  The other place we're familliar with ozone is the ozone layer, produced by UV light from the sun.  Many machines (the one you're looking at) use this model to produce ozone.  They're basically a fluorescent UV tube (possibly the type found in a tanning bed?)  in a reflective sleeve with a small fan at one end.  I believe the "lightning" type (technically called corona discharge) produce more ozone and use more electricity than their UV cousins.  The UV based machines use very little electricity I think, good news for those who've already maxed out their hyrdo bill.  The price really depends on how much ozone the thing produces, measured in mg per hour.  Pacific northwest (who seem to know what they're doing) recomend 100mg per hour per light.  Most base model 100mg/hr (for one light) UV based units I see around here are 200-300 canadian dollars, which makes that home made corona discharge unit sounds pretty attractive ;-) Where to put it?  I would try to put it if not in, at least near the exhaust.  I think right in the exhaust might be too close to the ouside (depends on the distance between the exhaust intake in your room and it's outlet).  If the exhaust duct is long enough that air takes 30 seconds or more to reach unfriendly noses, then you're probably fine... if it's shorter you'll want to place to just get it close to the exhaust.  I wouldn't personally vent ozone into my home, but it is suposed to only last for about 30 seconds in average air (dirtier air will use it up faster) so probably it's safe.  Ozone basicly rusts most everything it touches.  Molecules in the air that smell like pot, bacteria, your furniture and worst of all your lungs if you inhale it.  If you can smell it (like funk says, you'll know) you're oxidizing your inards and should get away / turn it off etc.  Good luck webby, hope this helps...

you can easily make one of the uv types.  go to a industrial lighting supply shop and buy a germicidal lamp.  a 3 foot s35t6z 38 watt unit puts out 1 gram/hour and runs off a standard single tube flo ballast.  They also come in smaller units like the s15t6z 14 watt that puts out .1 gram/hour.  Stick it in a 4" pvc pipe and put that in line with your exhaust.  works great.  Bulb is about $30 can.  ballast about $15 for the big one and $30 for the small.  and don't look at the light, not so good for your eyes.