At SGA we have been extremely busy trying to best protect Australia & our community against Coronavirus. We have led the way conducting Coronavirus Deep Reactive cleans all over Australia in food production facilities and restaurants.
Now we are trying to engineer solutions with the capacity to help people on a global scale.
One problem we identified was the shortage of masks globally, especially in 3rd world countries.
Immediately the team began to brainstorm, since then we have been developing a cost effective & accessible solution for sanitising masks allowing them to be re-used and hence reducing the wastage and supply nightmares associated with disposable masks.
The Solution:
Our Ultraviolet C emitting LED light box.
It is the equivalent of a germicidal microwave for masks – Keep in mind this is prototype and is enlarged on a 3:1 scale (purely for demonstration purposes) of what an official unit would be.
The best part – We will be releasing all of the information required to make one of these units to the general public. In hopes that it can help places quickly & cost-effectively copy the design to solve the number of mask related issues apparent all around the world.
How Does The Box Work?
The shell/housing has been 3D printed with a design file SGA will release very shortly. Inside the 3D printed housing is some thin penetrable shelving for the mask to sit on. Either side of the mask on both the roof and the floor of the box sit high powered UV-C (Ultraviolet in the C wavelength range) LED light diodes connected to a pair of custom-made circuit boards to power the LED’s. The door is able to be opened and closed to protect users from the UV-C light rays whilst the wavelengths killing any bacteria, including coronavirus if existent within seconds to a few minutes of exposure time.
How Does The UV-C Kill Bacteria & Pathogens?
UV-C has long been proven effective at killing bacteria, the issue has been how UV-C light was created, which has been via mercury gas lamps. Not only is the glass extremely fragile and shatters into a fine mist, but the mercury gas inside is toxic. In addition, these lamps couldn’t just be switched on and off… they need to warm up and cool down for long periods of time. Traditional UV-C lamps given high enough irradiance levels and expose time could already kill 99% of bacteria alone (Andersen, et al. 2006).
LED diodes that emit UV-C light can be customized to specific wavelengths, in which 265nm offers the most effective killing capacity for the broadest spectrum of bacteria and applications. Mercury lamps are limited to 253.7nm wavelengths (Bullock, 2017), so have a slightly worse killing capacity – although very marginal.
Furthermore, LED’s offer the capacity to greatly reduce the exposure time needed to completely eradicate the unwanted germs, simply adding more diodes to a board increases the output capacity of the lights and the intensity (irradiance) levels – ultimately dramatically reducing the time to kill bacteria.
Conclusion
SGA’s UV-C lightbox harnesses LED emitting diodes at 265nm housed in a 3D printable housing to affordably allow those in need to kill coronavirus droplets and other germs that might get trapped on or inside a facemask in a matter of seconds.
Our vision is places such as hospitals or the less fortunate can either have one of these in their facilities or available to communities so the nurses or people can safety and quickly disinfect their facemasks – resulting in less wastage, solving supply shortages and reducing the cost to those tight on money.
Stay tuned for all of our files which are to be released in the near future so organisations can print their own.
If you know someone who would appreciate such a device, don’t hesitate to share.
Stay safe – The SGA Team
Download Source Files for 3D Printing