Portable UV Disinfection Chambers Could Help Address PPE Shortage
Portable disinfection chambers that use ultraviolet (UV) light to inactivate virus particles could allow emergency medical technicians, police officers, healthcare workers, pharmacy technicians, and others to quickly disinfect their personal protective equipment (PPE) as they need it.
Researchers at the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) have built two prototype chambers to evaluate PPE disinfection using different sources of UV-C light: mercury vapor lamps and light-emitting diodes (LEDs). They used the prototypes to evaluate different power levels and disinfection times with a variety of face shields and face masks used to protect workers from the coronavirus.
“There are tradeoffs in terms of cost, lifetime, and potential heat generated,” says T. Robert Harris, a GTRI research engineer. “We wanted to evaluate these issues so that when others use UV-C for disinfecting PPE, they will have information to make good choices.”
The goal was to provide disinfection chambers as small as possible to allow portability. The chambers were built to accommodate face masks and at least one face shield – a curved sheet of clear plastic that covers the entire face and protects against large droplets that could contain coronavirus. The portability of the chambers could allow them to be used anywhere PPE disinfection is needed.
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