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there is so much misinformation around UV especially cleaning products. how to prove your lenses are going to sprout green if you dont buy one? or that your existing care practices are fine? you wont buy two identical lenses to test over then next decade will you? no, nor will anyone else, so the marketers say whatever they want knowing you can't prove them wrong or even try. uv is not uv, uv c is not uvc either. its all ranges centered at a value, like a bell curve. UV light is invisible, it NOT BLUE or purple and the shorter wavelength end in strong amounts like emitted by the sun causes damage so you get sunburnt on cloudy days. the longwave end it up near 400nm where visible blue is part of the spectra and a small amount of uva which is enough to excite the ink in a fluro marker. but at the shortwave end down near 260nm is the dangerous high energy UVC. Its difficult to make emitters, thus genuine lamps are expensive, plus the associated health risks. security features in use often are tuned to a specific wavelength and have reader units filtered to those wavelengths. Often there are multiple security features and only one show up under the typical uv lamps consumers find, the second or third features remain invisible until the shorter wavelengths become present. its a simple method to check something and also make forgery so much more difficult as some ingredients in the inks is controlled and if the forger manages multiple inks they must be tuned to the reader devices that expect a certain strength reaction at several specific wavelengths.
there are some affordable cleaning/hygiene lamps that you can find though that may help prevent mould (but you wont know if you dont buy two lenses and usely use the lamp on one and your regular method on the other plus have a way to measure mould growth and count). some actually state this wavelengths and usually it'll be 365nm at the lowest, you need something peaking at around 265nm. many people maintain humity control is the key factor anyway. from the professions of stamps collecting/investing, book preservation, wines etc which are all at risk of ruin by mould and temperature/humidity factors to more of a degree than whatever rubbish camera gear consumers can buy. the answer universally is a wine fridge, it maintains a safe constant temp/humidity level to deter growth of micro-organisms. but if you want to insist a uv lamp is the answer than go for it, let us know your method and findings to back it up against the existing evidence.
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