Urban Electric Power, a battery manufacturer in Pearl River, is amping up production for hand sanitizer.

The local company says a gelling agent used in batteries is also a key component in sanitizer. 

Sanitizer should be applied to your hands for at least 30 seconds to kill bacteria, and the gelling agent makes it possible.

Urban Electric Power representatives say they named the sanitizer Ohm to pay tribute to their batteries that sparked the idea. Ohm is a formula for current flow.

“We repurposed our equipment for making these gels instead of making batteries, we started making sanitizing gel,” says Sanjay Banerjee, executive chairman and founder of Urban Electric Power. “We are chemists and chemical engineers so we were able to work out a formula.”

The company noticed a huge demand for the product so they decided to expand their product line to include wipes, automatic dispensers and spray.

News 12 is told the company is currently profiting $30,000 per month in sales. So far, the products are sold to a number of local school districts, including Rockland BOCES and Nanuet Union Free School District, as well as eight states - New York, Hawaii, New Jersey, California, Oregon, Kansas, Ohio and Colorado.

Hudson Valley residents can purchase the sanitizer at DeCicco’s or directly from the company’s website.