Why air matters
We can survive weeks without food and days without water, but only minutes without air. An adult breathes around 10,000 litres every day, making air our largest and most constant nutrient.
Light-Activated Oxygen
Why it matters.
The relationship between light and the air we breathe.
- The air we breathe is not just oxygen, but a dynamic blend of gases shaped by light from the sun — something humans have evolved alongside over time. Sunlight is constantly interacting with the air around us, influencing the quality of the air we breathe.
- These photons are not simply light. They excite oxygen molecules, and in doing so carry the fine energetic processes that run continuously between light and air. In natural environments, light and air are never separate.
- In modern life, exposure to natural light is often reduced or altered. This has led to growing interest in light-based technologies, such as red and near-infrared light, which are studied for how they interact with the body from the outside in.
In Nature
How Light Becomes Energy
Plants do this every day — with sunlight and oxygen.
When a plant takes in more sunlight than it needs, the excess energy is passed to nearby oxygen — held for a brief, energized moment, then emitted again as light.
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The long version
Five findings behind it.
The home page carries three cards. These are the five there was no room for — from cell energy to the photocatalyst.
-
70kg
of cell energy a day
Everything you do is paid for in the same currency
Every thought, every heartbeat, every cell division costs ATP — adenosine triphosphate. Estimates put the amount an adult body builds up and breaks down again at 40 to 70 kilograms a day, roughly its own weight. Yet it never carries more than a quarter of a kilo at a time: the store lasts seconds and is refilled a thousand times over.
-
90%
of the oxygen you breathe in
And that store is filled in one place only
Around ninety per cent of the oxygen you breathe is consumed in the mitochondria — the power plants of the cell. That is where the respiratory chain runs, with oxygen at its end and ATP as its output. Breathing and energy are not two subjects. They are one subject, seen from either end.
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1923
Gurwitsch, photon emission
And we give off light ourselves — measurably, not metaphorically
Since Alexander Gurwitsch it has been known that living cells emit light. Today it is counted with photomultipliers: a few to a few hundred photons per square centimetre per second. Too faint to see — bright enough to count. So when someone says we are beings of light, here that is not poetry but a measurement.
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8 min 20 s
The Sun · how long the light took to get here
It all begins with a delivery.
Light needs eight minutes and twenty seconds to travel from the Sun to the Earth. Everything that happens after that — in the leaf, in the device, in the cell — is paid for with that one energy.
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0 additives
The Device · what does not go in
The same principle, one floor down.
A photocatalyst inside the device follows the same path: light in, activated oxygen out. No added oxygen, no ionisation, no ozone.
These figures describe cell biology and physics. They are not a statement about what a device does for a person.
Forest Air recreates this same exchange — using specific frequencies of light and photosensitizers to activate the oxygen in the air you breathe, indoors.
Inside The Forest Air Device
Where Light Meets The Catalyst
Inside the device, specific wavelengths of light transfer energy to the oxygen by way of a catalyst.
The air is filtered and passes close by the catalyst. From above and below, the two light sources shine on it without pause. There the oxygen takes up the energy, is excited — and leaves the device as a gentle field of light-activated oxygen.
- Ground state O₂(³Σg⁻) — triplet
- Photon beams from the two light sources
- Excited oxygen O₂(¹Δg) — catalyst to nozzle
- Photon on falling back — O₂(³Σg⁻) + hν
The beams, the gold and the terracotta are a way of making this visible, not a picture of nature — no singlet oxygen is released as a gas.
Drag or use the arrow keys to turn the chamber
Five Steps
How The Air Is Activated
Five steps — filtered air becomes light-carrying air.
No ozone · No singlet oxygen gas released · Just light-carrying air
Filter
Ground-state triplet oxygen
O₂(³Σg⁻)
Room air is drawn in and filtered. What arrives in the chamber is ordinary oxygen in its ground state.
Light Sources
Two sources, the catalyst between them
Above and below the catalyst sits one near-infrared light source each. Both illuminate the photosensitiser at the same time. It takes in the light and passes the energy on — it is not consumed in the process.
Excited
Lifted by the light
O₂(³Σg⁻) → O₂(¹Δg)
The energy transfers to the oxygen passing the catalyst. Of its two parallel-spinning electrons, one flips its spin and jumps an orbital higher.
Singlet Oxygen
lasts only nanoseconds
O₂(¹Δg)
The excited state is short-lived. It holds for only a moment before falling back.
Released
Relaxes, emits light
O₂(³Σg⁻) + hν
As it falls back, the energy is released again as light. What reaches the room is light-carrying air.
Wavelengths
Light Is A Length
Drag the handle: the wave visibly stretches out.
Drag, arrow keys, page up/down · 380 to 1300 nanometres
660nmRed
The long end of the visible range. At the end of the respiratory chain sits an enzyme that takes up light in exactly this range — which is why light-based technology is built around it.
Quality over quantity
Not how much oxygen the cell receives — but whether it can use it.
“It’s not just how much oxygen we breathe. It’s how well we use it.” Dr. Otto Warburg · Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, 1931
What modern life has changed
Centuries ago, humans lived in harmony with nature, surrounded by clean, energy-rich air. Today, both indoor and outdoor environments are filled with pollution and synthetic materials. We spend most of our lives indoors, under artificial light, navigating chronic stress.
This quietly alters how oxygen interacts with our biology. The challenge today isn’t how much oxygen we breathe. It’s how well our cells can use it.
Quality over quantity
More than a century ago, Otto Warburg, Nobel laureate in physiology, demonstrated that cellular function depends on more than the volume of oxygen we take in.
Of the oxygen we breathe in, the body takes up only about a quarter — the rest is breathed out again. And more is not automatically better: when NASA had astronauts breathe oxygen-rich air in the 1960s, the surplus produced oxidative stress instead of recovery.
About the research & source
Dr. Otto Heinrich Warburg received the 1931 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine “for his discovery of the nature and mode of action of the respiratory enzyme” — foundational research into how living cells take up and use oxygen (cellular respiration).
The line above paraphrases the core principle of this work in our own words: what matters is not the amount of oxygen alone, but whether the cell can actually use it. Official source: NobelPrize.org.
The Physics In Numbers
Three values that describe the process
- 21%Oxygen in air
The share that light in a room can meet at all.
- 0.98eVEnergy gap
That is how much energy separates the ground state of oxygen from the excited state.
- 0Ozone
No ozone is produced, and no singlet oxygen is released as a gas.
Values from the physics of oxygen — not device specifications.
The Deeper Science
There’s a deeper physics behind this — studied with universities including Leicester and Nottingham Trent. If you’d like to learn more, we’re happy to walk you through it.
Connect With UsNot sure which device fits you?
Whether you practise or want Forest Air at home for yourself — good air does everyone good. Which of the two devices is right for that comes down to a few questions, and those take five minutes.