CONCORD, On – March 14, 2016: Blue-Zone Technologies Ltd. (“Blue-Zone”), a multi-award-winning cleantech company, is pleased to announce the allowance of an additional patent in the United States (related to US Patent Application No. 14/717,217). This patent allowance, with a 2009 priority date, relates to Blue-Zone’s Centralsorb® Anesthetic Recovery System, which enables recovery of waste anesthetic gases from a central location in a hospital.
During a typical surgery, 95% of the halogenated anesthetic drugs used are vented into the atmosphere. These anesthetics are very aggressive greenhouse gases. In North America, there are approximately 54,000 operating rooms, and annually those rooms can release the CO2 equivalent to well over two million cars. These toxic gases are stable, seven times heavier than air, tend to linger and amass in the area around a hospital for decades, and are an officially recognized occupational health and safety hazard. The use of anesthetic gases is forecast to grow globally by 10% to 15% per year, providing Blue-Zone’s patented technology with a significant growth opportunity.
Centralsorb®, as with Blue-Zone’s other patented system, Deltasorb®, prevents the release of these greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and offers a significant value-add to merely collecting and stockpiling, and/or incinerating the waste. These captured anesthetics are subsequently extracted, liquefied and used as raw material in the production of new, validated generic anesthetics at Blue- Zone’s facility. This ability to reprocess the recovered halogenated anesthetics – which is unique to Blue-Zone and not provided by any other company, worldwide – offers additional economic and security of supply benefits for hospitals that use Blue-Zone’s patented technology.
Blue-Zone currently services approximately 25% of Ontario operating rooms, many of them for over a decade. It is estimated that these operating rooms support about 200,000 surgical cases every year. In 2002, Blue-Zone installed Deltasorb®, the world’s first-ever system to collect and capture anesthetic gases in a hospital operating room. Centralsorb® collects these same gases but from a central location, thus requiring no involvement from operating room staff. The efficacy of Centralsorb® in centralized conditions was confirmed through pilot testing at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre and the Cleveland Clinic Foundation in 2010.
This new and exciting patent allowance, related to the overall Centralsorb® system, fits well with Blue- Zone’s previously-granted US Patent 9,039,808, related to the adsorbent that is used in the Centralsorb® system. The technology in these two patents will allow for the central, efficient and validated recovery of the captured emissions of halogenated anesthetic drugs. Patent applications remain pending on various other aspects of the central collection and anesthetic drug recovery technologies.
“We are very pleased to have been awarded this important patent, which reinforces our leading, global position in the halogenated anesthetic gas collection, reclamation and production industry,” says Dusanka Filipovic, P. Eng., the co-inventor of both Centralsorb® and Deltasorb®, and Founder of the company. “We are focused on providing our clients with best-in-class technology, service and support. Not only is Blue-Zone’s patented technology a Cradle-to-Cradle® solution to a global problem, we are reducing the carbon footprint, protecting public health and building valuable anesthetic production capacity, while doing something meaningful for mankind and generations to come.”
About Blue-Zone Technologies Ltd.
Blue-Zone is the world’s first pioneer in the area of halogenated anesthetic collection, recovery, and pollution prevention, with aspects of its technology dating back to 1999. Blue-Zone’s globally innovative technology for the capture and recovery of anesthetics was originally demonstrated with the Deltasorb® Canister System installed in operating rooms, developed in collaboration with the Department of Anesthesia at the University of Toronto. It has since evolved into the Centralsorb® System for collection at a central location in the hospital. Blue-Zone’s technology solutions are currently collecting halogenated anesthetic drug emissions from approximately 25% of the operating rooms in Ontario, with expansion into additional hospitals in the US. With its unique ability to Prevent the Vent® of halogenated anesthetics and recover them for future medical use, Blue-Zone is Canada and the world’s first and only company to offer a truly, sustainable Cradle-to-Cradle® environmental service to deal with this serious situation.
Blue-Zone has won the following awards in Canada: Waste Minimization Gold Award 2010 (Recycling Council of Ontario), Innovator of the Year 2010 (PROFIT Magazine), Innovations@Work Award 2010 (Rogers and PROFIT Magazine), Red Herring Top 50 Award 2008, Canadian Innovation Award for Environmental Technologies 2005 (Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters).
For further information, please contact:
Kipton Lade, CEO +1 (905) 761-1224
klade@blue-zone.ca
Blue-Zone Technologies Ltd.
www.blue-zone.com
