DIY Public Hand Washing Station- With Ozonated Water

Hey everyone! Right now we’re taking all sorts of steps to protect our health, and one of the most important steps is of course handwashing. Now for most of us it’s easy to wash our hands particularly if we are staying home or working in an office. But there’s all sorts of people we rely on, who may not have easy access to sinks. And the best way to protect ourselves is to protect our communities. We want to make sure our delivery drivers and construction workers and everyone else can wash their hands also- because we’re going to touch what they touch.

00:50 - So I thought I’d play around a bit with some ideas I had for a public hand washing station. Now, remember, I’m an entertainer, not an engineer. I’m not trying to save the world with any of these projects, just keep your spirits up and hope alive, give you something fun to watch that will maybe give you some good ideas. To start with, what I have here is an ozone the generator I bought for about $20 on Taobao. It uses high voltage to generate ozone, then pumps that gas through the water- creating ozonated water.

01:29 - There’s some good data to support the use of ozonated water for hand sanitizing, I’ll put the link in the description. Of course, you’d want to use soap also, but it’s like wearing a belt and suspenders using both ozonated water and soap will give you the best protection. And if you don’t have mains power available, or don’t have enough soap- one or the other will have you covered. Hold on, and let me get the rest of the parts over here and we’ll put it together. Okay, I’ve got all my stuff ready and in addition to the ozone generator which I just showed you.

02:09 - I have this pretty cool waterpump that is motion activated. I am going to show it to you later and I have these two big jugs I am going to fill it in with water too and this is basically just a camping sink with the funnel I 3D printed it. I am going to put the funnel in the jug and then put all the other accessories together. Okay, the pump is working fine but I do not want to test it indoor because it’s ozone. It’s not safe in here so I am going to move it outside and then let’s test it out.

04:26 - So as you can see the water is bubbling away down here and it becomes the ozonated water. I am going to show you with the automated spout. Obviously indoor we don’t want that, we know that ozone is bad for our lungs. But outdoor there is no problem and it seems it just drains to the other jug without any problem. It didn’t leak or anything, it goes straight down to the other jug. So let me demo it again. Obviously, you would want a motion-detecting soap dispenser here also. But if you don’t have soap and you are outdoor, you only have the ozonated water, it’s good for killing the virus and bacteria. But if you have the soap that would be better. It’s cleaner. Ok well, I’ve had that outside for a few days- so far the delivery guys really like it. I also added a motion-detecting soap dispenser.

05:38 - This version is designed assuming water is scarce, because in many parts of the world it is scarce. It has one jug for freshwater and another to capture the grey water so it can be reused for other things. If you have no water problems, of course, you could just hook it up to tap and drain. Same with the little electric pump, the motion-detecting is really handy- and it can be solar-powered, but a foot pump would work just fine. I was quite surprised at how clean my hands seem to get with just the ozonated water, the published research shows it’s very good for killing bacteria, although really we need some data on viruses before we rely on it too much.

06:27 - But it seems a good way you could make a lot of cheap sanitizing solution for a lot of people with just water and electricity. Overall, it seems a public hand washing station can easily be assembled from whatever parts you find at the hardware store- and I think we need to make a point of having them outside grocery stores and any place where people might be handling things. It’s cheap and effective protection. I hope this little project was interesting. I’ll see you all next time, and remember if I can do it, anyone can do it. .