Element Six and Oxi-Tech partner on diamond-enabled cleaning

Element Six (E6), a global leader in synthetic diamond and advanced material technologies and part of the De Beers Group, has finalised a commercial partnership with UK-based clean-tech innovator Oxi-Tech Solutions. The collaboration aims to accelerate the global industrial deployment of chemical-free disinfection systems powered by synthetic diamond electrochemistry.

Industrial cleaning regimes across agriculture, dairy farming, and food and beverage manufacturing are facing unprecedented operational pressures. Processors are navigating a tightening regulatory landscape focused on chemical runoff, heightened biological hygiene standards, and rising demands to cut energy and resource costs. Concurrently, traditional chemical sanitisers are facing diminishing returns against increasingly resilient waterborne bacteria.

To bypass the need for harsh, resource-heavy chemical inputs entirely, the partnership merges Oxi-Tech’s patented pulse xxidation engineering with Element Six’s industrial supermaterial manufacturing capabilities.

Harnessing supermaterials for industrial hygiene

Oxi-Tech’s field-proven systems generate ozone — a highly reactive, short-lived natural disinfectant capable of rapidly destroying waterborne bacteria, viruses, and complex biofilms — on-site using only ambient water and low-voltage electricity.

While electrolytic ozone generation has historically suffered from component degradation, the integration of Element Six’s proprietary boron-doped diamond (BDD) technology solves this longevity bottleneck. Doping synthetic diamond with boron transforms the material from an insulator into a robust electrical conductor. When built into electrochemical cells, these free-standing BDD electrodes provide extreme chemical inertness, high current density capacity, and unparalleled physical durability. This allows Oxi-Tech’s hardware to run efficiently at a high rate of sale and scale over prolonged lifecycles without material breakdown.

The partnership is already delivering measurable utility and ESG efficiencies within the commercial food sector. At Yoxter Organic Farm, operated by leading UK dairy producer Yeo Valley, the deployment of the diamond-enabled pulse oxidation system resulted in a 75% reduction in chemical consumption alongside a 75% reduction in the thermal energy required to heat traditional cleaning water, all while maintaining strict baseline hygiene compliance.

Siobhán Duffy, CEO at Element Six, stressed the broader sustainability objectives driving the venture: “This partnership is about making high-performance cleaning simpler, safer and more sustainable across a range of industrial sectors, including agriculture, farming and food production. By combining our synthetic diamond technology with Oxi-Tech’s systems, we can help customers improve hygiene while reducing reliance on chemicals and lowering costs.”

Paul Morris, CEO of Oxi-Tech, added: “We already know this technology works. Partnering with Element Six, the world leader in synthetic diamond industrial technologies, allows us to scale it faster, bringing safer, greener cleaning to more end-users at scale.”

Moving forward, the dual-company road map will prioritise migrating the technology out of localised agricultural applications and scaling it across high-throughput global food processing, beverage bottling lines, and municipal clean-in-place (CIP) infrastructures where sustainable, chemical-light validation is critical.