In January 2024, I wrote a big article on a relatively new, promising new approach, to fight respiratory diseases such as tuberculosis, tuberculosis, and fear. It is called “FAR-UUVC”, which is a type of ultraviolet light, in wavelengths
The capabilities here are huge. Imagine that you are able to put some lamps in the main rooms where the transmission of diseases is common – such as schools, daytime offers, hospitals, retail stores and offices – and kill the vast majority of diseases that spread through the air. Benefits, whether in immediate public health and the ability to get rid of the spread of epidemics such as Covid in their early days, will be huge. Lamps You can kill more than 99.9 percent of the Coffeted viruses In the air – it will be similarly effective against new outbreaks spread in the air.
So why don’t we have the Far-UVC process now? There has been at least two main factors who have been returning technology so far, but in the year and a half since my article appeared, we got some promising information about each of them.
Now, if you want to get 222 nm of UV light (the standard for FAR-UVC), then you need the so-called Excimer lamp. This works in the way in which fluorine lamps operate: by placing an electrical charge in a tube containing gas, forcing the gas to emission of light. You can use different gases and interactive elements to get different wavelengths of light; In FAR-UVC, the usual mix is Krypton and Clorine Gas.
This approach has some problems. Krypton-kloride lamps are produced Mostly 222 nm light, but not Exclusively. Excimer lamps should include filters to avoid emission of other wavelengths; Some filters work better than others, and it can be a risk malfunction by leaving more dangerous wavelengths. The Krebon chloride tubes do not last forever and should be replaced periodically, raising the purification price in the remote UVC.
Dream, then, was the “solid state” lamps. This will abandon the gas approach in the tube in favor of the mechanisms that emit only a specific wavelength of light. The most prominent approach so far was LED lights, such as those used in computer/television and modern lights. LEDS Get The less efficient the more the wavelength you useThis is a challenge. However, we finally got the LED lights from which the blue light is emitted, which is ultimate NS nanotech I have come a long way to make LEDS for FAR-UVC.
Big news this week, though, in another approach: the second consensus. Basically, you can design crystals, when the laser is photographed through it, the frequency of the laser light, which is the length of the wave. So, if you shot a 444 nm blue laser in a suitable crystal, you will get a light of 222 nm of UVC lighting exactly.
Exit from the ghost this month, RayAn young company based in Rally, in which a group of veteran guest engineers works and supported by $ 6.6 million of seed money, that they had worked this process in their laboratory. The blue laser is an old technique at this stage (it is where the name Blu-ray comes), and it has a mature supply chain, which means that its construction is relatively cheap and easy.
The crystalline crystal is made of aluminum nitrid, which is not quite difficult to come – “abundant aluminum and nitrogen abundant”, as CEO Scott Boroz told me. “This does not require a complete new technology or infrastructure in order to build these devices,” Buroz continued. “Once we realized this, we also realized how this was put in his position in order to expand a very fast range.”
It is difficult to overestimate the importance of this type of emitter far from UVC, as soon as it goes to the market. The remote UVC lamps can see the cost discounts reflected on the sharp drops In LEDS and other chips over the years. Make a distant disinfection UVC significantly cheaper can start making the prevailing idea and adopting speed.
A large part of the FAR-UUVC’s attractiveness is that, unlike UV rays of higher length-which can cause sunburn, eye lens, and worse than that-UVC is far to human eyes and leather. But its effect on air quality was less clear. As I explained in my article:
When the distant UV light strikes oxygen molecules, it breaks some to form the O3-known as ozone. Ozone itself is dangerous, and Responsible for about 365,000 deaths all over the world. Ozone also interacts with volatile organic compounds (VOCS), small carbon -based molecules suspended in the air … These compounds interact with ozone to create particles. And particles in the air – smoky fog, mainly – can also be killed.
This seems bad, but basic chemistry leaves many important questions without an answer. How much ozone and physical pollution that UVC lamps are actually distant in practice? How difficult is ventilation to clarify this? Are additional exposure levels great enough to be a great concern?
There is still a lot that we don’t know here. your A new report from the BluePrint Biosecurity Research group explainsA lot of uncertainty about UVC ozone, is really an uncertainty about why ozone is bad for you.
If the effect of ozone on the deaths due to the ozone itself, the ventilation rooms inside the interior may be harmful; There is more ozone outside the interior, and the best ventilation will pull it inside. But if ozone is mostly harmful because it creates other secondary pollutants, then ventilation is a good idea.
We don’t know, and this makes understanding the best way to use technologies like Far-UVC and very difficult ventilation.
However, some new research makes me more initially optimistic that the effects of the ozone of FAR-UUVC are not big. He studied a modern paper office Where the UNGC lamp was either placed (as recommended by the manufacturer) or four (ultra -recommended). The single lamp did nothing for ozone or particles levels in the room. The four lamps did. The conclusion, then, is that if it is used in moderation, distant UVC lights may be purified without destroying the inner air.
Another sheet Have you found higher levels of ozone modestly with one lamp in UVC- but it was found that if the lamp is placed on the ceiling, it reduces exposure to ozone by humans, and increases the effectiveness of the lamp when clearing the air.
These are still the first days of FAR-UUVC, both in the engineering challenge of designing effective lamps in terms of cost, and in the epidemic challenge of understanding their effects on the air. What we need more than anything is an additional search.
But I am more confident than last year because we are heading towards a world where these lamps are everywhere. Possible friendly threats, such as bird flu, or even the new serious respiratory virus designed in a laboratory with the help of Amnesty International, face a huge new enemy that can kill them in the air. With luck, within 10 or 20 years, childhood infection, tuberculosis, and even epidemic viruses can be ignored by the efforts of this new weapon.
