Self-contained ozone controller for routine Covid-19 inactivation

Covid-19已经造成全球破坏，主要是因为它能够在人体外长时间保持高度传染性。早期迹象表明，它可以在空气中存活长达3小时，在硬纸板上存活24小时，在塑料和钢铁表面上存活2- 3天。虽然可以通过用漂白剂或手术酒精擦拭来手动去除特定区域和物体的污染，但这一过程是劳动密集型的，成本高昂，并且仅限于容易到达的区域。Covid-19危机迫使人类互动方式发生重大变化，我们需要在去污方法上做出类似的步骤改变，以维持安全的环境。迫切需要一种积极有效的去污解决方案，这种解决方案可以轻松安全地应用于商业、教育和医疗领域，用于包含货物、设备和食品的封闭空间，用于养老院和运输行业。臭氧气体是一种强大的氧化剂，具有良好的抗菌和抗病毒特性。由于其气体性质，它能够进入和处理所有区域，包括家具的下表面，裂缝和织物。与传统的清洁方法（如漂白剂）不同，它不会留下任何残留物，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，并在医疗器械消毒等领域找到了合适的应用，它已获得美国食品药品监督管理局（FDA）的批准。然而，由于现有的解决办法使用环境空气作为臭氧生成的氧气来源，技术上的不足妨碍了臭氧灭菌的广泛采用。替代环境空气的方法是从气瓶或外部气体管道中向发生器提供纯氧，这使得最终装置沉重、笨重，而且成本额外，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的臭氧控制器，使用由超纯氧发生器提供氧气，通过从空气中泵送氧气通过透氧氧化锆陶瓷膜获得。这种创新的方法克服了直接从空气中产生臭氧的性能问题，因为超纯氧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效率高、成本低、重量轻、静音和低功耗的潜力。在原型开发之后，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。这将与英国一家领先的臭氧设备制造商和供应商合作进行，并将导致设计改进，从而使生产就绪，符合CE标准的设计适合批量生产并供应给英国市场。

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.