Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic has challenged societies around the globe. Technologies based on ozone, a powerful oxidant, have been evaluated to inactivate this virus in aerosols and fomites. However, the high data diversity hinders the possibility of establishing a common ground for determining best practices for the use of these technologies. Furthermore, there is a lack of consensus regarding which are the main mechanisms of ozone virus inactivation. This critical review examined the most relevant information available regarding ozone application in gas-phase for different viruses inactivation (including recent publications dealing with SARS-CoV-2), and pointed towards envelope alteration as the main reaction pathway for enveloped viruses, such as is the case of SARS-CoV-2. It could also be concluded that gaseous ozone can be indeed an effective disinfectant, successfully inactivating viruses such us influenza A H1N1, MERS-CoV, SARS-CoV-1 or even SARS-CoV-2 in aerosols or fomites. In reviewed works, low ozone exposures, just around 0.1-0.4 mg L
-1
min, achieve about 4 log
10
of inactivation in aerosols, while exposures between 1 and 4 mg L
-1
min may be needed to guarantee an inactivation of 3-4 log
10
in different fomites. Although further studies are required, ozone is an effective candidate to be used against SARS-CoV-2 or other viruses in surfaces and indoor locations.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.