> A whole room UV simulation demonstrated a far UV-C lamp (207-222 nm) could further reduce SARS-CoV-2 by 50-85% compared to ventilation alone and with both far UV-C and high ventilation the SARS-CoV-2 viral count was reduced by 90% in 6 minutes and 99% in 11.5 minutes Footnote 5.
I wonder if this is something that I could add to my pre-existing home ventilation system; no concerns at all about skin exposure (which doesn't seem to be an actual issue based on this Boeing paper), and it shouldn't be so hard.
* I found this (https://faruv.com/) but I don't know how reliable they are.
That said, if this really was that effective, I don't understand how viruses and bacteria are able to survive outside with our fusion-powered UV ray generator in the sky.
-edit- * I feel dumb, here it is at the end of the summary. Looks like Boeing is working w/ faruv.
> Boeing recently entered into patent and technology
licenses with Healthe® Inc. and FarUV Technologies.
Under these licenses, both companies will produce and
distribute a commercial Far-UV 222 nm mobile wand,
helping airlines and potentially others reduce the impact of
the coronavirus pandemic.
> That said, if this really was that effective, I don't understand how viruses and bacteria are able to survive outside with our fusion-powered UV ray generator in the sky.
There is a reason that even during the height of the pandemic, that outdoor events were not a large source of transmission.
People going into bars or houses after marching/protesting/partying were a problem, but standing around in the sunshine, even in a reasonably dense crowd, wasn't ever really a problem. (AFAIK, I remember news articles going "well that didn't turn out as bad as we all thought it would")
There are a few different ways I've read about far UV being deployed, one of the interesting ones is illuminating the upper few feet of a room. Exhaled breath tends to rise so apparently doing just the top of the room is more effective than you might expect. I hope this pans out to be effective, it would be a way to improve air quality without adding more noise to the space.
Edit: The article's claim is that because far UV is absorbed in the upper atmosphere there's not really any evolutionary pressure for organisms to develop protection. Larger organisms just happen to be protected by virtue of our size.
Wouldnt it be best to create a modular off-the-shelf instalable, positive pressure man-trap (extendable to walkable tunnel length, in the entrances to large public areas (stadiums, airports, trains, malls, etc)
turn that wand into wall panels and let people walk through it - just like any other clean-room-style man-trap?
The wand will be useless unless they hold it above the area for 30+ seconds, which probably won't happen. Or unless the light is extremely intense which sounds dangerous.
I tested this at work. 222nm, 265nm, 275nm, 290nm. Petri dishes colonized with human underarm flora were prepared, closed, then incubated for an hour at 80F. tested times were 30 seconds, 60 seconds, 2 minutes, 3 minutes, 5 minutes.
222nm doesn't take even 30 seconds to wipe things out. Every dish was totally clean.
265nm needed about 2 minutes to sterilize.
275nm almost got the job done at 3 minutes and had the 5 minute dish totally clean.
290nm was frankly pathetic. All of the dishes survived with barely-decreasing colony count across increasing times. I estimate it'd take an hour of exposure to clean the dish.
https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/services/diseases/201...
> A whole room UV simulation demonstrated a far UV-C lamp (207-222 nm) could further reduce SARS-CoV-2 by 50-85% compared to ventilation alone and with both far UV-C and high ventilation the SARS-CoV-2 viral count was reduced by 90% in 6 minutes and 99% in 11.5 minutes Footnote 5.
I wonder if this is something that I could add to my pre-existing home ventilation system; no concerns at all about skin exposure (which doesn't seem to be an actual issue based on this Boeing paper), and it shouldn't be so hard.
* I found this (https://faruv.com/) but I don't know how reliable they are.
That said, if this really was that effective, I don't understand how viruses and bacteria are able to survive outside with our fusion-powered UV ray generator in the sky.
-edit- * I feel dumb, here it is at the end of the summary. Looks like Boeing is working w/ faruv.
> Boeing recently entered into patent and technology licenses with Healthe® Inc. and FarUV Technologies. Under these licenses, both companies will produce and distribute a commercial Far-UV 222 nm mobile wand, helping airlines and potentially others reduce the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.