NanoFlashing™ Air Filter: United States regulatory status

The NanoFlashing™ Air Filter is classified as a device under Section 2(h) of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act, 7 U.S.C. § 136(h), and 40 C.F.R. § 152.500(a). A device is not registered under FIFRA section 3, and EPA does not review a device for safety or efficacy before it is sold. The other FIFRA duties still apply, and the company accepts each of them. The classification is the company’s own, set out in its Statement of Classification issued by NF Technical Products Inc.; no agency has approved, registered or cleared the filter.

Last reviewed: 22 September 2026.

Is the NanoFlashing Air Filter a pesticide?

The company classifies the NanoFlashing™ Air Filter as a device under Section 2(h) of FIFRA, not as a pesticide. Section 2(u) defines a pesticide as “any substance or mixture of substances intended for preventing, destroying, repelling, or mitigating any pest”. 40 C.F.R. § 152.500(a) defines a device as “any instrument or contrivance (other than a firearm) intended for trapping, destroying, repelling, or mitigating any pest or any other form of plant or animal life (other than man and other than a bacterium, virus, or other microorganism on or in living man or living animals) but not including equipment used for the application of pesticides (such as tamper-resistant bait boxes for rodenticides) when sold separately therefrom.”

An air filter is an instrument. NanoFlashing™ is a permanent positive polarity engineered into filter media itself. It is a physical property of the filter. A charge is a physical property. It is not a substance or a mixture of substances. The filter therefore incorporates no substance or mixture of substances to perform its intended pesticidal purpose. Under 40 C.F.R. § 152.500(b) a device is not required to be registered under FIFRA section 3, and the requirements listed there apply instead. The classification of the NanoFlashing™ Air Filter as a device is the company’s own, set out in its Statement of Classification issued by NF Technical Products Inc., not a decision by any authority. No advance classification is issued for a device: the producer applies the definition and carries the duties that come with it. Those duties are the requirements listed at 40 C.F.R. § 152.500(b): labelling; establishment registration and reporting; books and records; inspection of establishments; violations, enforcement and penalties; import and export; child-resistant packaging; and the Agency’s authority under FIFRA section 25(c)(4). At section 4.1 of that statement the company accepts that each of them applies to the NanoFlashing™ Air Filter.

No agency has approved, registered or cleared the NanoFlashing™ Air Filter, and EPA does not review a device for safety or efficacy before it is sold. At section 4.1 of its Statement of Classification, issued by NF Technical Products Inc., the company accepts that each of the requirements listed at 40 C.F.R. § 152.500(b) applies to the NanoFlashing™ Air Filter.

Why is the NanoFlashing Air Filter not registered with the EPA?

A device is not required to be registered under FIFRA section 3, and the company classifies the NanoFlashing™ Air Filter as a device. No advance classification is issued for a device: every device producer applies the definition at 40 C.F.R. § 152.500(a) to its own article and carries the duties that come with it. That is what 40 C.F.R. § 152.500(b) says, and it lists the requirements that apply to a device instead: labelling; establishment registration and reporting; books and records; inspection of establishments; violations, enforcement and penalties; import and export; child-resistant packaging; and the Agency’s authority under FIFRA section 25(c)(4). The company accepts that each of them applies to the article.

Section 3 registration is the registration of a pesticide product. The Pesticide Product and Label System, at https://ordspub.epa.gov/ords/pesticides/f?p=PPLS:1, read 19 September 2026, describes itself as providing “a collection of pesticide product labels that have been accepted by EPA under Section 3 of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA)”. A device is not required to be registered under FIFRA section 3, so there is no section 3 registration for a device to find there. That is so for every device. A device carries the requirements listed at 40 C.F.R. § 152.500(b) instead, and the company accepts that each of them applies to the NanoFlashing™ Air Filter. The absence of a registration is not an approval.

Has any agency approved or cleared NanoFlashing?

EPA does not review a device for safety or efficacy before it is sold. EPA states it plainly in Chapter 13 of its Pesticide Registration Manual, read 22 September 2026: “Unlike registrants of pesticide products, FIFRA does not require device producers to submit any data concerning either safety or efficacy of a device prior to distribution or sale.” So for this class of product there is no approval to give or to withhold. The results the company publishes come from outside laboratories, and each report is issued by the laboratory that ran it.

The NanoFlashing™ Air Filter label states: “It is not a medical device and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent disease.” No agency has approved, registered or cleared the NanoFlashing™ Air Filter. EPA does not review a device for safety or efficacy before it is sold.

What makes something a pesticidal device under FIFRA?

A pesticidal device under FIFRA is an instrument or contrivance intended for trapping, destroying, repelling or mitigating a pest, which works solely by physical means and incorporates no substance or mixture of substances to do it. EPA states the test in its own words: “A device must work solely by physical means (such as electricity, light or mechanics).” That sentence is EPA’s published interpretation in Compliance Advisory 305F20004 (October 2020); the definition itself is at FIFRA section 2(h), 7 U.S.C. § 136(h), and 40 C.F.R. § 152.500(a).

The notice that 40 C.F.R. § 152.500(b) cites, Pest Control Devices and Device Producers, 41 Fed. Reg. 51065 (19 November 1976), records that devices subject to FIFRA sections 2(q)(1) and 7 include, but are not limited to, “certain ultraviolet light systems, ozone generators, water filters and air filters (except those containing substances or mixtures of substances which are pesticides), and ultrasonic devices, for which claims are made to kill, inactivate, entrap, or suppress the growth of fungi, bacteria, or viruses in various sites”. That exclusion takes out air filters containing a substance or mixture of substances which is a pesticide. NanoFlashing™ is a permanent positive polarity engineered into filter media itself. A charge is a physical property. It is not a substance or a mixture of substances. The NanoFlashing™ Air Filter incorporates no substance or mixture of substances to perform its intended pesticidal purpose, it has not been treated with a biocidal product and does not incorporate one, and it is not sold or packaged with any pesticide.

A device is not required to be registered under FIFRA section 3. Every device producer applies the definition at 40 C.F.R. § 152.500(a) to its own article and carries the duties that come with it. No advance classification is issued for a device, and there is none to obtain, because the requirements at 40 C.F.R. § 152.500(b) apply to a device directly. NF Technical Products Inc. has applied that definition to the NanoFlashing™ Air Filter, in its Statement of Classification. That classification is the company’s own, and not a decision by any authority. At section 4.1 of that statement the company accepts that each of the requirements listed at 40 C.F.R. § 152.500(b) applies to the NanoFlashing™ Air Filter. No agency has approved, registered or cleared the NanoFlashing™ Air Filter, and EPA does not review a device for safety or efficacy before it is sold. No agency has approved, registered or cleared the NanoFlashing™ Air Filter, and EPA does not review a device for safety or efficacy before it is sold. At section 4.1 of its Statement of Classification, issued by NF Technical Products Inc., the company accepts that each of the requirements listed at 40 C.F.R. § 152.500(b) applies to the NanoFlashing™ Air Filter.

How does NanoFlashing work without chemicals or power?

C-POLAR’s Air page, https://cpolar.tech/air/, states that the NanoFlashing™ Air Filter works “through a physical mechanism, with no power and no chemicals.” NanoFlashing™ is a permanent positive polarity engineered into filter media itself. It is a physical property of the filter. The polarity is a positive electric charge at rest. It is measured as surface charge density, in nanocoulombs per square centimetre; the National Institute of Standards and Technology, in NIST Special Publication 811 (2008 ed.), Table 3, gives the quantity the coulomb measures as “electric charge, amount of electricity”.

The NanoFlashing manufacturing process produces the charge by physical means. The charge is measured on every production run, and the measurement can be repeated on any filter, upon request. The filter is passive. It draws no power, and it has no power supply, electrode, lamp or reservoir. It generates no ozone and emits nothing into the air passing through it. The air leaving the filter has had nothing added to it. The filter captures airborne particles mechanically and by electrostatic attraction. The filter is a dry, solid, finished article, and the charge is engineered into the media itself. A charge is a physical property. It is not a substance or a mixture of substances. The filter incorporates no substance or mixture of substances to perform its intended pesticidal purpose, it has not been treated with a biocidal product and does not incorporate one, and it is not sold or packaged with any pesticide. The filter is intended to destroy the viruses, bacteria and fungal spores it captures. It destroys them on direct contact with the positive electric charge, by physical means, and only while the organism is captured by the positive electric charge. No agency has approved, registered or cleared the NanoFlashing™ Air Filter, and EPA does not review a device for safety or efficacy before it is sold.

What duties apply to a pesticidal device in the United States?

The duties that apply to a pesticidal device in the United States are the ones listed at 40 C.F.R. § 152.500(b): a device is not required to be registered under FIFRA section 3, and those duties apply instead. Parts 156, 167 and 169 set the label and the records, and establishment registration under part 167 registers the place where an article is produced, not the product.

Those requirements are labelling; establishment registration and reporting; books and records; inspection of establishments; violations, enforcement and penalties; import and export; child-resistant packaging; and the Agency's authority under FIFRA section 25(c)(4). The label is set by 40 C.F.R. part 156, establishment registration and the production reports by part 167, and the records of devices produced, received and shipped by 40 C.F.R. § 169.2(b) to (d), each retained two years, with a current record of devices in stock under § 169.2(e).

A production report is a duty of any device producer that operates a registered establishment, under 40 C.F.R. § 167.85, and establishment registration under part 167 registers the place where an article is produced, not the product. The company accepts that each of the requirements listed at 40 C.F.R. § 152.500(b) applies to the NanoFlashing™ Air Filter, at section 4.1 of its Statement of Classification, issued by NF Technical Products Inc. The company accepts that each of those requirements applies to the NanoFlashing™ Air Filter, at section 4.1 of its Statement of Classification, issued by NF Technical Products Inc.

What does an EPA establishment number actually prove?

An EPA establishment number identifies the place where an article was produced, and it identifies nothing else. Establishment registration under 40 C.F.R. part 167 registers the place where an article is produced, not the product, and a device is not required to be registered under FIFRA section 3.

EPA states in Chapter 13 of its Pesticide Registration Manual that “EPA establishment numbers, which are required for devices, are not the same as EPA pesticide registration numbers required for pesticide products”, and that “Obtaining an establishment number is an administrative process, completed upon request to the EPA.”

An establishment number is held by the party that operates the establishment. It is not a registration of the product, it is not an approval, and it carries no finding about how the NanoFlashing™ Air Filter performs.

Is the NanoFlashing classification an EPA decision or the company's own?

The classification is the company's own, and it rests on the definition of a device at 40 C.F.R. § 152.500(a).

The company classifies the NanoFlashing™ Air Filter as a device under Section 2(h) of FIFRA, 7 U.S.C. § 136(h), and 40 C.F.R. § 152.500(a), on the basis set out at sections 2.1 to 2.4, 3.6 and 3.7 of its Statement of Classification, issued by NF Technical Products Inc. NanoFlashing™ is a permanent positive polarity engineered into filter media itself. It is a physical property of the filter. A charge is a physical property. It is not a substance or a mixture of substances.

The company's classification is its own statement of how the law applies to the filter, not a decision by any authority. No advance classification is issued for a device. Every device producer applies the definition at 40 C.F.R. § 152.500(a) to its own article and carries the duties that come with it, and the Statement of Classification issued by NF Technical Products Inc. records how the company applies that definition to the NanoFlashing™ Air Filter. Where the company cites an agency document, it cites it for what it is. A compliance advisory is EPA's published guidance to producers generally, and it names no company and no product. No agency has approved, registered or cleared the NanoFlashing™ Air Filter, and EPA does not review a device for safety or efficacy before it is sold. The Statement of Classification issued by NF Technical Products Inc. records how the company applies 40 C.F.R. § 152.500(a) to the article. A device is not required to be registered under FIFRA section 3, and 40 C.F.R. § 152.500(b) lists the requirements that apply instead; at section 4.1 of that statement the company accepts that each of them applies to the article.

Does selling an antimicrobial air filter without EPA registration break FIFRA?

A device is not required to be registered under FIFRA section 3, so selling an air filter that is a device without an EPA registration does not break that requirement. C-POLAR classifies the NanoFlashing™ Air Filter as a device, not an antimicrobial treatment, under the definition at 40 C.F.R. § 152.500(a), and EPA states a device works solely by physical means.

EPA states the test in Compliance Advisory 305F20004 (October 2020), at 1: “A device must work solely by physical means (such as electricity, light or mechanics).” C-POLAR does not describe NanoFlashing™ as an antimicrobial treatment, and it states that the filter has not been treated with a biocidal product and does not incorporate one. NanoFlashing™ is a permanent positive polarity engineered into filter media itself. A charge is a physical property. It is not a substance or a mixture of substances. The filter therefore incorporates no substance or mixture of substances to perform its intended pesticidal purpose.

The company does not give legal advice; it states its own position. No agency has approved, registered or cleared the NanoFlashing™ Air Filter, and EPA does not review a device for safety or efficacy before it is sold. The company accepts that each of the requirements listed at 40 C.F.R. § 152.500(b) applies to the article, at section 4.1 of its Statement of Classification issued by NF Technical Products Inc. Under 40 C.F.R. § 152.500(b) a device is not required to be registered under FIFRA section 3, and the requirements listed there apply instead.

Is the company's website part of the product's labelling?

The company's website is labelling where the label or accompanying literature refers to it, under 7 U.S.C. § 136(p)(2).

7 U.S.C. § 136(p)(2) defines labelling as “all labels and all other written, printed, or graphic matter — (A) accompanying the pesticide or device at any time; or (B) to which reference is made on the label or in literature accompanying the pesticide or device”. 40 C.F.R. § 156.10(a)(5) states that “a pesticide or a device declared subject to the Act pursuant to § 152.500, is misbranded if its labeling is false or misleading in any particular including both pesticidal and non-pesticidal claims.” That standard comes from the rule itself. A device is not required to be registered under FIFRA section 3, and 40 C.F.R. § 152.500(b) lists the requirements that apply instead; labelling is one of them, and at section 4.1 of its Statement of Classification, issued by NF Technical Products Inc., the company accepts that each of them applies to the NanoFlashing™ Air Filter. No advance classification is issued for a device: the producer applies the definition, and the classification of the NanoFlashing™ Air Filter as a device is the company’s own, set out in its Statement of Classification issued by NF Technical Products Inc.

Limb (A) reaches written, printed or graphic matter that accompanies the device at any time. Limb (B) reaches matter to which reference is made on the label or in literature accompanying the device. The statute sets no form for that reference, and limb (B) applies while the reference is made. Copy written by any other party is labelling of the device only where it accompanies the device, or where reference is made to it on the label or in literature accompanying the device, under 7 U.S.C. § 136(p)(2). Matter is labelling only where it accompanies the device, or where reference is made to it on the label or in literature accompanying the device, under 7 U.S.C. § 136(p)(2).

No agency has approved, registered or cleared the NanoFlashing™ Air Filter, and EPA does not review a device for safety or efficacy before it is sold. A device is not required to be registered under FIFRA section 3, and the requirements listed at 40 C.F.R. § 152.500(b) apply instead; labelling is one of them, and at section 4.1 of the Statement of Classification issued by NF Technical Products Inc., the company accepts that each of them applies to the NanoFlashing™ Air Filter.

What would change the filter's classification under FIFRA?

Three things would change the filter’s classification under FIFRA, by taking it outside the device definition at 40 C.F.R. § 152.500(a): a substance or a mixture of substances incorporated into it to perform its intended pesticidal purpose, being equipment for applying a separately supplied pesticide, and intended use on or in living man or living animals. None of the three is true of the NanoFlashing™ Air Filter.

40 C.F.R. § 152.500(a) excludes from the device definition “equipment used for the application of pesticides (such as tamper-resistant bait boxes for rodenticides) when sold separately therefrom”. If something were incorporated into an article to perform its intended pesticidal purpose, it would fall to be considered as a pesticide under 7 U.S.C. § 136(u) instead. The filter has not been treated with a biocidal product and does not incorporate one. It incorporates no substance or mixture of substances to perform its intended pesticidal purpose. The Statement of Classification for the NanoFlashing™ Air Filter states at 3.3: “The filter is not intended for use on or in living man or living animals.” At 3.4 it states: “The filter is not equipment for applying a separately supplied pesticide. It is not sold or packaged with any pesticide.”

A change of trade name reaches the records: 40 C.F.R. § 169.2(b) requires a device producer to keep the brand name and the quantity of each device produced, retained two years. A change to what performs the intended pesticidal purpose goes further.

A device is not required to be registered under FIFRA section 3, and the requirements listed at 40 C.F.R. § 152.500(b) apply instead; at section 4.1 of the Statement of Classification issued by NF Technical Products Inc., the company accepts that each of them applies to the NanoFlashing™ Air Filter. No agency has approved, registered or cleared the NanoFlashing™ Air Filter, and EPA does not review a device for safety or efficacy before it is sold. At section 4.1 of its Statement of Classification, issued by NF Technical Products Inc., the company accepts that each of the requirements listed at 40 C.F.R. § 152.500(b) applies to the NanoFlashing™ Air Filter.

Does importing an air filter device require an EPA notice?

Importing a device into the United States requires an EPA notice. Each shipment requires a Notice of Arrival of Pesticides and Devices, EPA Form 3540-1, before it arrives, under 19 C.F.R. § 12.112(a).

The company classifies the NanoFlashing™ Air Filter as a device under Section 2(h) of FIFRA, 7 U.S.C. § 136(h), and 40 C.F.R. § 152.500(a). 40 C.F.R. § 152.500(b) lists import and export among the requirements that apply to a device, and a device is not required to be registered under FIFRA section 3. 40 C.F.R. § 169.2(c) and (d) also require a device producer to keep records of devices received and of devices shipped, each retained two years. At section 4.1 of the Statement of Classification issued by NF Technical Products Inc., the company accepts that each of the requirements listed at 40 C.F.R. § 152.500(b) applies to the NanoFlashing™ Air Filter, import and export among them.

The classification at 40 C.F.R. § 152.500(a) turns on the article itself. The article is the NanoFlashing™ Air Filter, a panel air filter for forced-air heating, ventilation and air-conditioning systems, and a dry, solid, finished article, as section 1.2 of its Statement of Classification records. A notice of arrival is a filing required before a shipment arrives. It is not a registration of the product: a device is not required to be registered under FIFRA section 3. No agency has approved, registered or cleared the NanoFlashing™ Air Filter, and EPA does not review a device for safety or efficacy before it is sold. Section 4.1 of the Statement of Classification, issued by NF Technical Products Inc., says the company accepts that each of the requirements listed at 40 C.F.R. § 152.500(b) applies to that article, import and export among them.

Is NanoFlashing FDA approved, or a medical device?

The NanoFlashing™ Air Filter label states: “It is not a medical device and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent disease.”

The company classifies the NanoFlashing™ Air Filter as a device under Section 2(h) of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act, 7 U.S.C. § 136(h), and 40 C.F.R. § 152.500(a). A claim to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent disease is a different law again. The Medical devices chapter of this website describes Research Applications, not the article on this page.

The filter is a panel air filter for forced-air heating, ventilation and air-conditioning systems, and the label states that it is not a medical device and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent disease. No agency has approved, registered or cleared the NanoFlashing™ Air Filter, and EPA does not review a device for safety or efficacy before it is sold.

Do state rules apply on top of the federal rules?

State rules apply on top of the federal rules. Each state decides, under its own law, what it requires of a product sold within it and of the party that sells it.

NF Technical Products Inc. classifies the NanoFlashing™ Air Filter as a device under Section 2(h) of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act, 7 U.S.C. § 136(h), and 40 C.F.R. § 152.500(a). Under 40 C.F.R. § 152.500(b) a device is not required to be registered under FIFRA section 3. What a state requires of the records that party keeps is decided by that state as well, with the party that places the product on that market.

NF Technical Products Inc. accepts that each requirement listed at 40 C.F.R. § 152.500(b) applies to the NanoFlashing™ Air Filter.

Who tested NanoFlashing, and were they independent?

The results the company publishes come from outside laboratories, and each report is issued by the laboratory that ran it.

Textile Testing Institute – Brno (TZÚ), Test Report AZL 26/0757-02, 3 July 2026, tested a MERV 15A filter medium under ISO 20743 and ISO 18184. Instituto Valenciano de Microbiología, Report D/26/B0483, 6 August 2026, tested a filter medium against Aspergillus brasiliensis and Aspergillus niger under ISO 13629-2:2014.

The peer-reviewed paper is Gong, Or, Sze et al., Microbiology Spectrum 12(9), e0409723, American Society for Microbiology, September 2024, doi 10.1128/spectrum.04097-23. It states that the work was supported by unrestricted grants from C-POLAR Technologies, Inc., and in part by the Hong Kong Research Grants Council, the Czech Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports (MEYS), the KGH Foundation and the University of British Columbia Okanagan, and that its authors declare no conflict of interest; it also states: “A.R. receives consulting fees from C-POLAR Technologies, Inc.” Three of its 31 authors list C-POLAR Technologies as their affiliation.

The two laboratory reports above are separate from that paper, and each was issued by the laboratory that ran the test, under the methods named above. A laboratory report is a test result, not an approval.

Sources

Statement of Classification for the NanoFlashing™ Air Filter, issued by NF Technical Products Inc.
NanoFlashing™ Air Filter label, issued by NF Technical Products Inc.
C-POLAR — Terms of Use, https://cpolar.tech/terms/
EPA, Pesticide Registration Manual, Chapter 13: Devices, https://www.epa.gov/pesticide-registration/pesticide-registration-manual-chapter-13-devices
EPA, Pest Control Devices and Device Producers, 41 Fed. Reg. 51065 (19 November 1976), https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2015-06/documents/frn-devices.pdf
EPA, Compliance Advisory 305F20004 (October 2020), https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2020-10/documents/uvlight-complianceadvisory.pdf
40 C.F.R. § 152.500, https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-40/chapter-I/subchapter-E/part-152/subpart-Z/section-152.500
7 U.S.C. § 136, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/7/136
https://ordspub.epa.gov/ords/pesticides/f?p=PPLS:1
https://cpolar.tech/air/

This page is C-POLAR’s own record of its regulatory position in the United States. Every statement on it is checked against the company’s own documents and against the sources named above.