ORIGIN AND HISTORY
Silver-peroxide was first formulated by the late Mr Heinz Hungerbach in Germany during
the 70”s. The reasoning behind his invention was to create an environment friendly
alternative for chlorine and other traditional water treatment chemicals which are
generally quite toxic and harmful.
Mr Hungerbach’s original formulation which is now known as HUWA-SAN (now manufactured
by ROAM chemie) was rapidly copied by others whereby there are different types of
silver-peroxides on the world market. The best known of these are of course Huwa-San
(ROAM chemie nv in Belgium), Sanosil (Sanosil AG in Switzerland) and Herlisil (Tevan
BV in The Netherlands). A number of their clients/dealers resell under their own
brand names, though generally you can still recognise the origin from the way the
dealer promotes the silver-peroxide.
Silver-peroxides are all produced using different methods and ingredients (except
for the manufacturer no-one else knows exactly what ingredients any of the other
silver-peroxides contain, with the exception of hydrogen peroxide, silver nitrate
& phosphate.
Because of the differences in formulations between the different silver-peroxides,
there are significant differences in the effectiveness, stability, ease of dosing,
levels of silver, biofilm removal ability, etc. Each product differs in capability
and effectiveness, making some better than others, and some even difficult to work
with. We suggest you try it out for yourself (or just use Freebac)
PATENT CLAIM
Although some manufacturer may claim that he is the sole patent holder, one thing
is sure, there is no valid patent on silver- peroxide, no matter what anyone claims,
so each manufacturer keeps his silver peroxide “recipe” secret. The patent was broken
in Germany in a court case between Hungerbach GmbH vs Sanosil AG. Sanosil lost....(this
is a very long story... but once a patent has been broken in one country it is no
longer worth the paper it has been written on anywhere else.
MARKET RECOGNITION:
Silver peroxide took a long time to achieve recognition. The main reasons for this:
bad management, price structure, marketing strategy, lack of independent laboratory
tests and practical knowledge by the manufacturers on how to use the product properly.
For a long time there where only about 2 - 3 lab tests available and in fact some
where copied from each other and practically no “how to use” information available.
There was a lot of pioneer work to be done….
The other major problem with silver peroxide was that nobody was interested in yet
another disinfectant - especially the chlorine lobby! The fact that it is safer
to use than chlorine is not an issue - industry doesn’t cares about the environment
if it costs money... Industry only cares for a new product if it solves a problem
and if it saves money.
WHICH IS WHICH?
Huwa-San is the original silver-peroxide. Sanosil was “copied” from this although
it is formulated differently as they didn’t have complete access to the Hugerbach
formula. Herlisil is a direct copy of Sanosil. Novuswater is another attempt to copy
Huwa-San and was formulated by a former employee of ROAM chemie. Depending on the
manufacturer, silver-peroxide contains between 12 to 35 different chemicals.
Other silver peroxides
Some companies (such as Gemsan as, Istanbul, Turkey) are trying to get into the silver-peroxide
/ stabilised peroxide market by formulating their own version. As they generally
have little to no understanding of the chemistry behind silver-peroxide /stabilised
peroxides and that in all cases they obtained their product and technical information
by questionable methods, I have my doubts as to their ability to provide a good product,
service, technical support etc...
DID YOU KNOW: That the founder of Sanosil used to work for Mr Hungerbach
when he created silver-peroxide..
That Huwa-San was originally called Sanosil
when Mr Hungerbach created it...
That Hugerbach GmbH had to sue Sanosil AG
in order to be allowed to market their own invention...
