Inactivation of airborne SARS-Co-V2 using NTP-UVGI hybrid process

Abstract

Indoor environments such as healthcare centers are known as one of the key centers in the outbreak of viral infectious diseases. In the present study, the pathogenic agents' treatment system (PATS) was designed by the combination of non-thermal plasma (NTP) with the ultraviolet germicidal irradiation (UVGI) processes. Then, the treatment efficiency of PATS was measured for the "SARS-Co-V2." The exhaled air of the confirmed case of "COVID-19" was considered as the viral source of "SARS-Co-V2" and directed to the upstream of PATS. The treatment process was done by passing directed air through two steps of treatment (NTP and UVGI). The treatment efficiency of PATS was measured by sampling at the sampling points (before and after the treatment process). According to the energy emission pattern (corona discharge, UV rays) in the designed system, during two steps, the high efficiency of treatment for the collected pathogens was achieved. Based on the real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) results, the CT value was lower than 29 (CTs < 29), and after the treatment using PATS was upper than 40 (CTs > 40) confirming the highest removal efficiency of "SARS-Co-V2." Also, the treatment efficiency of each reactor in individual operation was at the optimum level. The findings suggested, the present PATS may eliminate the viral pathogens with hospital sources and also, be applicable in the other intensive care unit (ICU) wards with the same risk thus, significantly reducing the possible exposure risk of healthcare and sick companions, and preventing the outbreak of infectious diseases.

A Systematic Review on the Application of Ultraviolet Germicidal Irradiation to HVAC Systems

“…Yarahmadi et al [69], using CFD simulations with radiation, collected respiratory droplets and evaluated the effectiveness of a specially designed slotted hood, taking into account geometric and aerodynamic factors, to reduce the risk of virus spread in intensive care units under real-life operating conditions.…”

“…In 15 of the papers considered [4,15,18,20,30,32,33,35,36,38,45,53,65,68,69], both numerical and experimental analyses were carried out to validate the latter. More specifically, refs.…”

“…[4,36,45,68] investigated the irradiation field; refs. [15,32,33,35] referred to CFD simulations; and in [18,20,30,33,38,65,69], both fluid dynamics and radiation aspects are covered.…”

“…Not Reported [38] x [4] x [39] x [40] x [2] x [41] x x [42] x [43] x [44] x [45] x [46] x [47] x [1] x [48] x [49] x [50] x [51] x [52] x [53] x [54] x [55] x [56] x x x [57] x [58] x [59] x [60] x [61] x [62] x [63] x [64] x [65] x [66] x [67] x [68] x [69] x [70] x [71] x [72] x [3] x…”

“…Research has also been carried out on the use of devices (mobile or not), with articles [24,58] addressing the issue from a mathematical perspective, while [2,13,14,31,46,55,57,60,62] studied it from an experimental perspective, and [38,45,69] used a mixed approach.…”