How clean is the air you breathe? According to the National Institute of Health, a cough produces approximately 3,000 droplets, whereas a sneeze releases an estimated 40,000 droplets into the air. Adding mold, mildew and other pathogens in the air we breathe, the want and need for improved indoor air quality has been at the forefront, with a higher focus placed on its importance during the COVID-19 pandemic. So, what do you do to clean the air you breathe?

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) categorizes cleaning into four distinct levels to ensure comprehensive sanitation and hygiene: sanitizing, disinfecting, sterilizing and cleaning. While sanitizing is typically used in food service and childcare settings where bacteria control is essential, the scale continues down to cleaning, which doesn’t kill germs — it removes them.

In 2024, a mid-sized U.S. city faced indoor air quality (IAQ) issues in one of its buildings. “The building was plagued by the Big Five: mold, bacteria, allergens, biofilm, and the bacteria causing ‘dirty sock’ syndrome,” says Patrick Fagerquist, senior vice president of HVAC and plumbing sales at Decon7 Systems. A city representative went into his local Hawkins Wholesale Supply pickup counter, seeking a solution. Fortunately, a Decon7 representative was also at the wholesaler counter, and jumped in to help with the challenge, and described his product. 

“There are many ways to deal with IAQ,” Fagerquist notes. “There are ultraviolet lights, HEPA filters, scrubbers and more. However, those are all mechanical solutions. We are the first true chemical product in the IAQ space addressing the Big Five.” 

Decon7 Systems is a long-time developer and producer of D7, a patented decontaminant that neutralizes biological and chemical contaminants, making it an effective disinfectant for HVAC systems. Developed initially to counter biochemical threats to national security, D7 today is used in various military, defense and public safety applications. 

It tackles the toughest contamination challenges, neutralizing toxic and deadly chemicals, bacteria and viruses within minutes, including norovirus, SARS-Co-V2 (the virus that causes COVID-19), and bacteria such as Staph and Legionella. Additionally, D7 has been verified as effective in eliminating several types of molds, including black mold. 

Its application is easy — it is dispersed through a sprayer to clean and disinfect evaporator coils, drip pans and other hard HVAC surfaces. It can also be fogged to clean and deodorize ductwork, or foamed into drains. And the product is an environmentally friendly solution that creates a more sustainable future.

“When the city employee realized how Decon7 could treat the building, we set an application meeting,” Fagerquist says. The Decon7 team started in the basement, tackled the HVAC and plumbing systems, and then fogged each floor in the building, except one. “There is a fire department canine training center onsite, and that is the only room we didn’t touch,” he says. 

And it’s not for the reason one might think. Rooted in science, D7 is a hydrogen peroxide-based product, safe for use around humans and effective in eliminating the problem. The product was not used on that floor for one simple reason. “If you kill bacteria, you are going to kill the smell, and there are bacteria in urine,” Fagerquist explains. “We didn’t want to clean or interrupt the canines’ ability to track smell.”

Upon completion of cleaning the city’s building, the Decon7 team recommended a six-month rotation to keep the building shipshape. “Now, we are going to the other 60 to 70 buildings the city owns to treat them as well,” he says. 

Necessity is the Mother of Invention

While new to the HVAC industry, D7 has been around for about 25 years. “It was born out of the bio-defense industry after a sarin gas attack in a Tokyo subway,” Fagerquist explains. The newly formulated product was used in the military to neutralize toxic substances such as sarin and mustard gas. It was quickly used to help first responders, police departments, fire departments, etc.

From there, the first commercial success was in the food processing industry. “In a food processing facility, everything gets completely washed down,” Fagerquist explains. “Because our product is food-grade contact-approved by the Federal Department of Agriculture, we are able to use it inside their facilities.” 

So, how does the product work?

The EPA classifies the efficacy of disinfectants by a term called “Log Kill.” The higher the Log Kill, the more effective the disinfectant. According to the Decon7 website: “Many common disinfectants found in a home have a Log Kill of 3. When applied to a surface, they eliminate 99.9 percent of a particular pathogen, which can be bacteria, viruses or fungi (mold, mildew, yeasts).” When an EPA-registered disinfectant/cleaner has a Log Kill of up to 6, that means it eliminates up to 99.9999 percent of the pathogenic microbes. Decon7 was named after the decontamination kill rate of 7. 

D7 is an EPA-registered disinfectant, deodorizer, sanitizer and powerful cleaner with a kill rate of up to 99.9999 percent. This provides contractors with a powerful solution to kill pathogens that collect in evaporator coils and fan blades; it can also be fogged into ductwork for deodorization (not for use in California) and foamed into drains as a deodorizer. 

It is a liquid solution made up of detergent, inorganic salts and hydrogen peroxide, which get mixed together to activate. “It’s around 10.3 percent hydrogen peroxide — a little bit higher than what is in your medicine cabinet,” Fagerquist notes. The product has a final pH of 9.8. 

Living organisms usually encase themselves in dirt, oil and hair. “The inorganic salts and detergents break down the outside layer of the organism, and the hydrogen peroxide goes down and kills it at a molecular level,” he explains.

Once the dry mix is mixed with water, an operator has 24 hours to use it. The solution can be applied directly to HVAC equipment, evaporator coils, plenums blowers, drip pans, etc. “To get technical, the product has one-quarter the surface tension transfer of a droplet of water, which means this very small droplet, negatively charged, can go into all the nooks and crannies of evaporator coil channels — places where conventional IAQ products do not reach,” Fagerquist says. “That’s why our product was so effective during COVID. You could do basketball stadiums, football stadiums, mega-churches, and more.” 

From spraying/foaming rooms (such as food manufacturing facilities) to spraying in ductwork or using the foam down drains, refrigeration, plumbing, garbage disposals, etc., there is no place the product cannot reach. 

According to Fagerquist, one of the industry’s biggest challenges is educating people on the difference between cleaning and disinfecting. “There are cleaners, there are sanitizers and there are disinfectants. The fourth, which is hospital-level, is sterilization. Nothing has to get registered with the EPA unless you make a kill plan. Decon7 is the highest level of disinfecting, and we are registered with the EPA.”

Fagerquist and the team at Dallas-based Decon 7 quickly point out that while the product may be new to the HVAC market, they have science and data to back up their disinfection claims. The only area where there is a change in terminology is when the product is applied into ducts; it is no longer considered a disinfectant; it is considered a deodorizer. “The EPA does not have a standard for disinfecting duct work, so for now, they have granted us a deodorizing claim and a disinfectant on hard services,” Fagerquist says. This is fine for The National Association of Duct Cleaning Association, which Decon7 became a member of in 2023. 

Preventative Steps

“We deal in scientific facts, and, quite simply, our product kills pathogens that cause problems,” Fagerquist says. In reality, the product only needs 10 minutes of contact time.

And it does so saving customers time and money. In food manufacturing, where customers use a 24-hour soak followed by a day of hosing down and cleaning, the amount of time saved in the process to bring plants back online can save companies millions of dollars eliminating extended downtime. 

As Decon7 is an expert in the field of decontamination, it understands that wholesalers are experts in the products they sell, which is why you won’t find Decon7 in the big box retailers or e-tailers. “We support wholesalers because they’re the experts in the industry,” Fagerquist says. 

This year, the company launched an initiative into the HVAC side of the industry and has built a strong sales force to represent its products, rapidly filling HVAC distributor shelves across the country. Decon7’s sales force travels the country, visiting distributors to provide the knowledge, use cases and educational opportunities to help distributors understand how carrying their product will help their contractor customers. 

And it’s not only about solving a one-time problem. HVAC contractors can incorporate the Decon7 product into their service plans, making it a win-win for a building/homeowner and for the contractor, who is able to stay ahead of any issues for its customers.

“We are an IoT product that is new to the HVAC industry,” Fagerquist says. “Our product can neutralize 130 different items, and we are registered with the EPA. That’s when I talk about science — the science of IAQ, the science of killing pathogens — we have it, and other people don’t.”