> GUV can easily and silently kill half of the germs floating in indoor air every two minutes or less. It was developed and tested beginning in the 1930s using some of the same technology in fluorescent light fixtures. It is still commonly used in TB wards, as well as some major hospital systems and homeless shelters.
> There are three types of ultraviolet light rays: UVA, UVB and UVC. GUV uses UVC, which, unlike the UVA and UVB in sunlight, doesn’t cause skin cancer because it cannot sufficiently penetrate the skin. The conventional GUV technology could cause temporary eye irritation and therefore is mounted above people’s heads in rooms with ceilings around nine feet or higher. It is also best used alongside ceiling fans to make sure germs in a room are blown up into the zone where the GUV can render them harmless.
> Newer, commercially available GUV technologies are even safer for skin and do not irritate the eyes.
There's a big "but":
> A major barrier to wider use is that GUV technologies need to be expertly installed and require a set of technical skills different from what’s needed to improve a building’s ventilation and filtration systems (both of which are still critically important).
The piece concludes:
> GUV is commercially available right now, and building owners and operators should be encouraged to adopt it through subsidies and tax incentives.
> Newer, commercially available GUV technologies are even safer for skin and do not irritate the eyes.
If this is using UV, how does it avoid sunburning the retina if looked at? Sunburn is pretty bad as people can attest to. When I did experiments in uni, lining up emitter tubes in front of spectrometers made nice vertical tans on my nose...
https://ghdcenter.hms.harvard.edu/guv-lighting
> GUV can easily and silently kill half of the germs floating in indoor air every two minutes or less. It was developed and tested beginning in the 1930s using some of the same technology in fluorescent light fixtures. It is still commonly used in TB wards, as well as some major hospital systems and homeless shelters.
> There are three types of ultraviolet light rays: UVA, UVB and UVC. GUV uses UVC, which, unlike the UVA and UVB in sunlight, doesn’t cause skin cancer because it cannot sufficiently penetrate the skin. The conventional GUV technology could cause temporary eye irritation and therefore is mounted above people’s heads in rooms with ceilings around nine feet or higher. It is also best used alongside ceiling fans to make sure germs in a room are blown up into the zone where the GUV can render them harmless.
> Newer, commercially available GUV technologies are even safer for skin and do not irritate the eyes.
There's a big "but":
> A major barrier to wider use is that GUV technologies need to be expertly installed and require a set of technical skills different from what’s needed to improve a building’s ventilation and filtration systems (both of which are still critically important).
The piece concludes:
> GUV is commercially available right now, and building owners and operators should be encouraged to adopt it through subsidies and tax incentives.