How a Potential Coronavirus-Killing Airplane Sterilizer Was Born
An orthopaedic surgeon with a background in mechanical engineering,
who was already familiar with ultraviolet-C light sterilization, because of
its use in operating rooms, along with his son, have developed a simple
system to help sterilise the cabin and toilet areas within aircraft, quickly,
easily and cheaply.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Samuel K. Moore, IEEE Spectrum
Dr. Arthur Kreitenberg and his son Elliot got some strange looks when they began the design work for the GermFalcon, a new machine that uses ultraviolet light to wipe out coronavirus and other germs inside an airplane. The father-son founders of Dimer UVC took tape measures with them on flights to unobtrusively record the distances that would form the key design constraints for their system.
“We definitely got lots of looks from passengers and lots of inquiries from flight attendants,” Dr. Kreitenberg recalls. “You can imagine that would cause some attention: taking out a tape measure midflight and measuring armrests. The truth is that when we explained to the flight attendants what we were doing and what we were designing, they [were] really excited about it.”
Quote:
Originally Posted by Samuel K. Moore, IEEE Spectrum
GermFalcon uses a set of mercury lamps to bathe the airline cabin, bathrooms, and galley in ultraviolet-C light. Unlike UV-A and UV-B, that 200 to 280 nanometer wavelength doesn’t reach the surface of the Earth from the sun, because it’s strongly absorbed by nitrogen in the air. And that’s a good thing, because it’s like kryptonite to DNA. Using 100-amps from a lithium-iron-phosphate battery pack, GermFalcon’s mercury lamps’ output is so strong that the company claims the system can wipe out flu viruses from an entire narrow-body plane in about three minutes: one pass up the aisle, one pass down the aisle, and a minute for the bathrooms and galley.
Flu prevention was the original inspiration for GermFalcon. Dr. Arthur Kreitenberg, an orthopaedic surgeon with a background in mechanical engineering, was already familiar with UV-C sterilization, because of its use in operating rooms. “Our motivation was to take it outside of the hospital into other areas where people are concerned about germs,” he says. With SARS and MERS and annual influenza, it seemed clear that airplanes are a major mode of transmission. It was also clear that nobody was effectively disinfecting aircraft.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Samuel K. Moore, IEEE Spectrum
Lacking a suitable lab for such a dangerous germ, Dimer UVC hasn’t tested the system on the virus that causes COVID-19. But Kreitenberg expects it will be similarly susceptible to UV-C as influenza and other germs are. The dose can be easily adjusted by slowing GermFalcon’s roll down the aisle. The company has offered GermFalcon's services free of charge to airlines operating from a handful of U.S. airports.
Danish company is on a winner with their UV robots
In a different article today at IEEE Spectrum Magazine, Evan Ackerman
reports on how a Danish company called UVD Robots is making robots
that are able to disinfect patient rooms and operating theaters in hospitals.
The Danish company is on a winner and can't ship them fast enough.
Additional markets in the future include cruise ships, GP surgeries
dental surgeries, nursing homes, day care centres, schools.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Evan Ackerman, IEEE Spectrum
each robot is a mobile array of powerful short wavelength ultraviolet-C (UVC) lights that emit enough energy to literally shred the DNA or RNA of any microorganisms that have the misfortune of being exposed to them.
The company’s robots have been operating in China for the past two or three weeks, and UVD Robots CEO Per Juul Nielsen says they are sending more to China as fast as they can. “The initial volume is in the hundreds of robots; the first ones went to Wuhan where the situation is the most severe,” Nielsen told IEEE Spectrum. “We’re shipping every week—they’re going air freight into China because they’re so desperately needed.” The goal is to supply the robots to over 2,000 hospitals and medical facilities in China.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Evan Ackerman, IEEE Spectrum
It takes between 10 and 15 minutes to disinfect a typical room, with the robot spending 1 or 2 minutes in five or six different positions around the room to maximize the number of surfaces that it disinfects. The robot’s UV array emits 20 joules per square meter per second (at 1 meter distance) of 254-nanometer light, which will utterly wreck 99.99 percent of germs in just a few minutes without the robot having to do anything more complicated than just sit there. The process is more consistent than a human cleaning since the robot follows the same path each time, and its autonomy means that human staff can be freed up to do more interesting tasks, like interacting with patients.
Originally, the robots were developed to address hospital acquired infections, which are a significant problem globally. According to Nielsen, between 5 and 10 percent of hospital patients worldwide will acquire a new infection while in the hospital, and tens of thousands of people die from these infections every year. The goal of the UVD robots was to help hospitals prevent these infections in the first place.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Evan Ackerman, IEEE Spectrum
The robots, which cost between US $80,000 and $90,000, are relatively affordable for medical equipment, and as you might expect, recent interest in them has been substantial. “Once [hospitals] see it, it’s a no-brainer,” Nielsen says. “If they want this type of disinfection solution, then the robot is much smarter and more cost-effective than what’s available in the market today.” Hundreds of these robots are at work in more than 40 countries, and they’ve recently completed hospital trials in Florida. Over the next few weeks, they’ll be tested at other medical facilities around the United States, and Nielsen points out that they could be useful in schools, cruise ships, or any other relatively structured spaces.
