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.
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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.”
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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.
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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.
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Article here :-
https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/...terilizer-news
Company web site with photos and videos here :-
https://www.germfalcon.com/
Video :-
https://youtu.be/WPeIrSTELJc