
Far-UVC light used to control the spread of airborne-mediated microbial diseases - udli3
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-21058-w
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contingencies
This is awesome. Our team at Infinite Food have been working with UVC light
for our food robotics project, and the area is very dynamic. Traditional UV
lights were broad spectrum and had spikes in output at various wavelengths
that could not be controlled, consequently they were only effective with vast
power consumption. Newer UVC LEDs are able to target specific wavelengths
identified through research like this as particularly damaging to pathogens,
thus enabling very low energy, high effectiveness machine sterilization.
Current germicidal applications are mostly in industrial settings, water and
air conditioning, however I believe we will see a lot more UVC deployment.
There are only a handful of manufacturers in the world that can achieve high
longevity products right now. Lower spec products last only hundreds of hours,
higher spec products are rated to 5000-10,000 hours. A complicating factor in
deployment can be protecting the LEDs - quartz glass must be used as emissions
in these wavelengths cannot pass through traditional glass.

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28941399](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28941399)
and [http://www.infectioncontroltoday.com/articles/2008/11/uv-
lig...](http://www.infectioncontroltoday.com/articles/2008/11/uv-light-s-
germicidal-properties-aid-in-fight-aga.aspx) are examples of prior
information.

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ggm
How about targetted use? eg lighting the doorways either side of toilets, or
entry/exit points? Might be lower cost retrofit than entire venues, for close
to same benefit.

Huge potential in schools, if this is kidsafe.

And cruise ships, floating gastro-enteritis factories.

Or on Aircraft.

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udli3
I did not see any references to acquired UV resistance in this or other
articles. Could this be a short-lived solution?

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IntronExon
That doesn’t really work; it would be like a human trying to acquire
resistance to being riddled with bullets. Strong UV is more or less a sort of
machinegun if you’re a microorganism. You can produce more of your existing
defenses, but it will be so far from what’s required to gain a reproductive
advantage that you won’t evolve.

Maybe you could induce resistance to very brief exposure, but that’s it.

