The technology is based on a physical method of destroying microorganisms called cell membrane electroporation.

Electroporation is a technique, in which an electric field is used to make pores in cell membranes. This phenomenon, discovered and described by biochemist Professor Eberhard Neumann at the end of the 20th century, was the basis for the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine awarded in 2007.

Electroporation is widely used to introduce foreign DNA into the cells of microorganisms and viruses. In this case, we are talking about electroporation in a liquid medium. The Potok technology is the first to apply electroporation in the air.

The Potok technology is used to decontaminate air by exposing microbial cells or viruses’ secondary and tertiary structure of proteins to constant electric fields of a given orientation and tension. The value of the electric field is designed to destroy (not just filtrate) any microorganisms, regardless of the type (incl. viruses, molds, and yeast).

Electroporation is irreversible. Microorganisms inactivated in this way cannot recover.

Stage 1: Microorganisms are repeatedly exposed to constant electric fields that rapidly vary in intensity and gradient and ions of opposite signs, which completely destroys the microbial cells or viruses’ secondary and tertiary structure of proteins.

Stage 2: The debris of the destroyed cells and particles is trapped on highly porous nanoelectrodes of an electrostatic precipitator with a high dust capacity.

The Potok equipment reduces the concentration of microorganisms in indoor air to a minimum and maintains it at this level. Moreover, living microorganisms do not accumulate inside the equipment elements, which means they will not be released after the air decontamination units are switched off and on again.