Killing the COVID-19 coronavirus with a handheld UV light device

According to researchers at Pennsylvania State University, University of Minnesota, and two Japanese universities, a personal portable device that emits high-intensity UV light to disinfect the area by killing the new coronavirus is now feasible. ..

There are two commonly used methods for disinfecting and disinfecting areas from bacteria and viruses-chemicals or UV irradiation. Ultraviolet light is in the range of 200-300 nanometers and is known to be incapable of destroying viruses and causing them to replicate and infect. Today’s pandemics call for widespread adoption of this efficient UV approach, but need a UV radiation source that emits a sufficient amount of UV light. Currently, these high-dose devices exist, but UV radiation sources are typically mercury-containing gas discharge lamps that require high power, have a relatively short life, and are bulky and expensive.

The solution is to develop a high performance UV light emitting diode that is more portable, long lasting, energy efficient and environmentally friendly. Although these LEDs exist, passing current through the LEDs for emission is complicated by the fact that the electrode material must also be transparent to UV light.

“We need to have enough UV radiation to kill all viruses,” said Roman Engelherbert, associate professor of materials science, physics, and chemistry at Pennsylvania State University. “This means we need high performance UV LEDs that emit high intensity UV light. This is limited by the transparent electrode materials currently in use.”

Finding transparent electrode materials that work in the visible spectrum of displays, smartphones, and LED lighting has been a long-standing problem, but even more difficult with UV light.

“There is currently no suitable solution for UV transmissive electrodes,” said Joseph Ross, a PhD in materials science and engineering in Pennsylvania. “Currently, we are using current material solutions that are commonly used for visible light applications despite being over-absorbing in the UV range. There are no material choices.”

Finding new materials with the right composition is key to improving the performance of UV LEDs. The Pennsylvania State University team, working with materials theorists at the University of Minnesota, early recognized that a solution to the problem might be found in a new kind of recently discovered transparent conductor. When the theoretical predictions pointed to strontium niobate, researchers contacted a Japanese collaborator to obtain a strontium niobate film and immediately tested its performance as a UV transparent conductor. While these films retained their promise of theoretical predictions, researchers needed a deposition method to integrate them in a scalable manner.

“We tried to grow these films quickly using a standard industry-wide film growth technique called sputtering,” Ross said. “We succeeded.”

This is an important step towards technology maturity and enables the mass integration of this new material into UV LEDs at low cost. And both Engel Herbert and Ross believe this is necessary during this crisis.

“The first motivation in the development of UV transparent conductors was to build an economical solution for water disinfection, but this breakthrough discovery provided a potentially inactivating solution. I am now aware COVID-19 (New Coronavirus Infection) (# If there is no character limit, add parentheses when first appearing It is part of the aerosol that may be distributed in the building’s HVAC system,” explains Ross. Other areas of application of virus disinfection are areas of high population density and frequent living, such as theaters, sports arenas, public transportation such as buses, subways and planes.

###

Reference: “SrNbO_Three Yunsan Park, Joseph Ross, Daichi Oka, Yasushi Hirose, Tetsuya Hasegawa, Alpita Paul, Alexei Pogrebnyakov, Venkatraman Gopalan, Turan Virol, Roman Engel Herbert, June 1, 2020, Physical communication..
DOI: 10.1038 / s42005-020-0372-9

Their findings are published online today (1 June) in Nature Group publications Physical communication.. Co-authored with Roth and Engel-Herbert were Yoonsang Park, Alexej Pogrebnyakov, and Venkatraman Gopalan of Penn State. Tohoku University’s Oka Daichi; Tokyo University’s Yasushi Hirose and Tetsuya Hasegawa. Alpita Paul and Turan Virol at the University of Minnesota. The paper titled “SrNbO3 as a transparent conductor in the visible and UV spectrum” is accessible online for free.

The National Science Foundation supported this work through the DMREF program, the Graduate Research Fellowship, and the JSPS Grants-in-Aid Program.