Inanimate objects or surfaces contaminated with infectious agents, referred to as fomites, play an important role in the spread of viruses, including SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic. The long persistence of viruses (hours to days) on surfaces calls for an urgent need for effective surface disinfection strategies to intercept virus transmission and the spread of diseases. Elucidating the physicochemical processes and surface science underlying the adsorption and transfer of virus between surfaces, as well as their inactivation, is important for understanding how diseases are transmitted and for developing effective intervention strategies. This review summarizes the current knowledge and underlying physicochemical processes of virus transmission, in particular via fomites, and common disinfection approaches. Gaps in knowledge and the areas in need of further research are also identified. The review focuses on SARS-CoV-2, but discussion of related viruses is included to provide a more comprehensive review given that much remains unknown about SARS-CoV-2. Our aim is that this review will provide a broad survey of the issues involved in fomite transmission and intervention to a wide range of readers to better enable them to take on the open research challenges.

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The objective of this study is to understand light emission characteristics of fracto-mechanoluminescent (FML) europium tetrakis(dibenzoylmethide)-triethylammonium (EuD4TEA) crystals under high strain-rate compressive loading. As a sensing material that can play a pivotal role for the self-powered impact sensor technology, it is important to understand transformative light emission characteristics of the FML EuD4TEA crystals under high strain-rate compressive loading. First, EuD4TEA crystals were synthesized and embedded into polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) elastomer to fabricate EuD4TEA-PDMS composite test specimens. Second, the prepared EuD4TEA-PDMS composites were tested using the modified Kolsky bar setup equipped with a high-speed camera. Third, FML light emission was captured to yield 12 bit grayscale video footage, which was processed to quantify the FML light emission. Finally, quantitative parameters were generated by taking into account pixel values and population of pixels of the 12 bit grayscale images to represent FML light intensity. The FML light intensity was correlated with high strain-rate compressive strain and strain rate to understand the FML light emission characteristics under high strain-rate compressive loading that can result from impact occurrences.

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Despite their rarity in peripheral blood, basophils play important roles in allergic disorders and other diseases including sepsis and COVID-19. Existing basophil isolation methods require many manual steps and suffer...