Mangaluru: In the fight against COVID19, the researchers at NITK Surathkal have come up with a simple technique to disinfect the Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) kits, surgical masks, vegetables, packed food items, currency notes and day to day items without damaging them.
Dr Arun M Isloor, Professor and Head, Department of Chemistry, National Institute of Technology Karnataka, (NITK) Surathkal along with research scholar Syed Ibrahim have used this lockdown to develop a very simple disinfection chamber which they have named ZERO-COV.
The purpose of this chamber is to control surface contamination of bacteria and viruses including COVID-19.
Learning that health care providers were washing these disposable items themselves for reuse, the NITK researchers decided to come up with a simple solution to fight this crisis in India. This can also be used in every household, as a preventive measure.
In the backdrop of COVID-19, people are always advised to not only wash their hands but also to keep their surrounding clean and maintain social distancing.
But the real problem for the people is when they purchase liquids in bottles, vegetables, books, ready to eat food items and also currency notes as they could be contaminated by germs.
When vegetables and fruits can be disinfected by dipping in a disinfectant solution, people are confused about the way to disinfect currency notes, books, papers and such materials.
This is when the Zero-Cov comes handy.
“By placing items in the disinfection chamber for 15 minutes one can ensure destruction or inactivation of bacteria and viruses by 99.9 per cent. We have used UV-C radiation, which has a wavelength of 254 nanometers and can destroy the nucleic acids of any germs present on the surfaces. UV technology is well proven and accepted by the scientific community and WHO has recommended this technology for surface disinfection,” Prof Arun Isloor narrates.
Prof Isloor and his team have prepared this chamber by using an old unused refrigerator as a chamber and used three Ultraviolet-C lamps, each one that consumes 11 watts of electricity.
“A small chamber prepared using a single UV lamp will cost around Rs 500. Any unused material made of metal, plastic or wood can be converted into the chamber. People can keep them at the entrance of the house or office,” Prof Isloor added
"I am ready to technically assist anybody ho wants to do this on their own," Isloor added.
The chamber built out of an old refrigerator was handed over to Prof K Uma Maheshwar Rao, Director, NITK and his wife Neeraja Rao at their residence on Monday.
