Self-contained ozone controller for routine Covid-19 inactivation

用于常规 Covid-19 灭活的独立臭氧控制器

• 批准号: 65783
• 金额: $ 9.45万
• 依托单位: EMC HYCAL LIMITED
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Feasibility Studies
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2020 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=65783
• 关键词: Self; contained; ozone; controller; routine

Covid-19 has caused global devastation largely due to its capacity to remain highly infectious for long periods outside the human body. Early indications are that it can survive in air for up to 3 hours, on cardboard for 24 hours, and 2--3 days on plastic and steel surfaces. Whilst specific areas and objects may be manually de-contaminated by wiping with bleach or surgical spirit, this procedure is labour intensive, costly, and limited to easily accessible regions. The Covid-19 crisis has necessitated severe changes to the way humans interact, and a similar step change is needed in our approach to decontamination in order to maintain a safe environment. There is a pressing need for an aggressive, effective, decontamination solution that can easily and safely be applied to commercial, educational and medical areas, to enclosed spaces containing goods, equipment and food, to care homes, and to the transport industry.Ozone gas is a powerful oxidant with well documented anti-microbial and anti-viral properties. Due to its gaseous nature, it is able to access and treat all regions including underneath surfaces of furniture, crevices, and fabrics. Unlike conventional cleaning methods (e.g. bleach), it leaves no residue, decomposing naturally back to oxygen. Ozone has been used to disinfect water on an industrial scale for decades, and has found niche applications such as medical instrument sterilisation, for which it has FDA approval. However, widespread adoption of ozone sterilisation has been precluded by the technical inadequacy of existing solutions, originating from their use of ambient air as a source of oxygen for ozone generation. The alternative to ambient air is to feed the generator with pure oxygen from a gas bottle or external gas line, making the final device heavy, cumbersome, with the additional cost and inconvenience of obtaining and re-filling oxygen cylinders.Our proposal is to develop a precision ozone controller employing a generator fed by ultra-pure oxygen, obtained by pumping oxygen from the air across an oxygen-permeable zirconia ceramic membrane. This innovative approach overcomes the performance issues associated with generating ozone directly from air, because ultra-pure oxygen is generated in situ inside the analyser, and delivered immediately to the generator inlet. This solution has the potential to be highly technically effective, low cost, lightweight, silent and low power.Following prototype development, an extensive beta testing program will be conducted to ensure that the product is suitable for the UK market in terms of performance, certification, and user acceptance. This will be conducted in collaboration with a leading UK manufacturer and supplier of ozone machines, and will lead to design refinements resulting in a production-ready, CE compliant design suitable for batch production and supply to the UK market.

Covid-19 之所以造成全球性破坏，很大程度上是因为它在离开人体后仍能长期保持高度传染性。早期迹象表明，它在空气中可存活长达 3 小时，在纸板上可存活 24 小时，在塑料和钢表面上可存活 2--3 天。虽然特定区域和物体可以通过用漂白剂或手术酒精擦拭来手动去污，但该过程是劳动密集型的、成本高昂的，并且仅限于容易到达的区域。 Covid-19 危机要求人类互动方式发生重大变化，我们的净化方法也需要做出类似的改变，以维持安全的环境。迫切需要一种积极、有效的净化解决方案，可以轻松、安全地应用于商业、教育和医疗领域、包含货物、设备和食品的封闭空间、疗养院和运输行业。臭氧气体是一种强氧化剂，具有充分记录的抗微生物和抗病毒特性。由于其气态性质，它能够进入并处理所有区域，包括家具表面下、缝隙和织物。与传统的清洁方法（例如漂白剂）不同，它不会留下残留物，会自然分解回氧气。几十年来，臭氧一直用于工业规模的水消毒，并且已经找到了一些利基应用，例如医疗器械消毒，并获得了 FDA 的批准。然而，由于现有解决方案使用环境空气作为产生臭氧的氧气源，技术上的不足阻碍了臭氧灭菌的广泛采用。环境空气的替代方案是从气瓶或外部气体管线为发生器提供纯氧气，这使得最终设备笨重、笨重，并且会增加额外成本，而且获取和重新填充氧气瓶也不方便。我们的建议是开发一种精密臭氧控制器，采用超纯氧气供给的发生器，超纯氧气是通过将空气中的氧气泵过透氧氧化锆陶瓷而获得的。 膜。这种创新方法克服了与直接从空气中产生臭氧相关的性能问题，因为超纯氧气是在分析仪内部原位产生的，并立即输送到发生器入口。该解决方案具有技术高效、成本低、重量轻、静音和低功耗的潜力。原型开发后，将进行广泛的 Beta 测试计划，以确保该产品在性能、认证和用户接受度方面适合英国市场。该项目将与英国领先的臭氧机制造商和供应商合作进行，并将导致设计改进，从而形成适合批量生产和供应给英国市场的可立即投入生产且符合 CE 标准的设计。