UV Devices Could Keep Indoor Air Free of Viruses
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Re: UV Devices Could Keep Indoor Air Free of Viruses
#2I don't understand why there hasn't a lot of resources put into approaches like this.
Re: UV Devices Could Keep Indoor Air Free of Viruses
#3I don't understand why there hasn't a lot of resources put into approaches like this.
Looks like researchers are looking into it "The technique works well, says William Bahnfleth, an architectural engineer at Pennsylvania State University in University Park who focuses on indoor air quality."
Also the article notes there's a safety aspect
Re: UV Devices Could Keep Indoor Air Free of Viruses
#4When you talk to Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) most are uncomfortable with UV. Reason being that while you can get rid of viruses, you can also create volatile compounds. Our homes' air is like a soup of natural and synthetic chemicals. From your flooring wear to your decor off-gassing to cooking, there are elements in your air that may be safe as they are, but they can completely change when they hit something volatile like ozone (from cars). Subsequently there can be a chain reaction with other compounds, potentially causing particles in your air that are bad for your health. If you could see that with magical glasses it would seem as if there are fireworks happening in your air triggered by those volatile compounds. So while UV has clear benefits, the byproducts that the lab conditions usually don't catch, make the applications limited.
Re: UV Devices Could Keep Indoor Air Free of Viruses
#5I don't understand why there hasn't a lot of resources put into approaches like this.
It works, but it's hard to do.
* The far-UV lamps cost way too much.
* There are a sizable number of fake ones out there.
* There aren't standards and inspection tools for this.
A useful tool would be a UV detector on a stick. You touch it to the ceiling, and it reports on whether there's enough UV in the right wavelengths to kill viruses. The idea is to have emitters which radiate horizontally, with most of the UV up near the ceiling. You also need a handheld device which checks at eye level for excessive near UV. With both of those, you could quickly tell if a room had reliable virus protection.
Re: UV Devices Could Keep Indoor Air Free of Viruses
#6Obligatory Derek Lowe link: https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/two-twenty-two
Re: UV Devices Could Keep Indoor Air Free of Viruses
#7Would like to see what my mini office heater can do. The air it outputs is about 75C and I like to think that would kill any viruses, but I guess it depends on whether the split second at that temperature would kill it or not.
Re: UV Devices Could Keep Indoor Air Free of Viruses
#8I don't understand why there hasn't a lot of resources put into approaches like this.
I know of at least one company that is deploying them: https://gangigermicidalsystems.com.au/
Re: UV Devices Could Keep Indoor Air Free of Viruses
#9When you talk to Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) most are uncomfortable with UV. Reason being that while you can get rid of viruses, you can also create volatile compounds. Our homes' air is like a soup of natural and synthetic chemicals. From your flooring wear to your decor off-gassing to cooking, there are elements in your air that may be safe as they are, but they can completely change when they hit something volatile l…
My uncle has ozone generators in his home. One of them is industrial strength and he only runs it when he is leaving his house for awhile. Does ozone produce by products? I vaguely recall hospitals used ozone to clean n95 masks.
Re: UV Devices Could Keep Indoor Air Free of Viruses
#10If this is used inside homes and offices, how does one train their immune system, which requires constant low level exposure to foreign entities?