Automatic No-Touch Open/Close Toilet Minimising Infection Risks from Airborne Pathogens and Surface Contamination

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COVID-19, the highly infectious disease caused by the recently discovered coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, has two major transmission routes: (1) airborne pathogens and (2) smear infections through contaminated surfaces. Toilets, especially installations with multiple cubicles in washrooms of public venues and larger organisations, are an overlooked infection risk:Toilet flushing is known to introduce aerosolisation, where microscopic air droplets that can promote the airborne spread of pathogens, are released into the air. With residence times long after toilet users have left the cubicle, these droplets can travel tens of meters. There is also evidence that SARS-CoV-2 is present in faeces (Xiao et al 2020, Peng et al 2020) and on surfaces of objects that were previously handled by virus-positive persons (Döhla et al 2020). This makes toilets a significant source of smear infections. Involuntary, reflexive hand-to-face contact (e.g. while sneezing or coughing) occasionally overrides cautious behaviour even in people that are conscious of COVID-19 infection risks and seek to avoid them. Public toilets therefore pose a two-fold threat, because the average toilet user can neither detect aerolised pathogens nor the infectious matter on toilet parts that usually require manual operation, like push-to-flush buttons or toilet lids.User studies have long suggested that most people do not like to touch toilet seats in public washrooms due to hygienic and health concerns, so these toilets are usually flushed with the lid open. Against the backdrop of COVID-19, the health concerns in connection with the microscopic water droplets this habit produces have now been raised more urgently than ever before. A novel solution is required that ensures the toilet lid is securely fixed in the "down"-position and sealed airtight before flushing, so that water droplets cannot escape into the surrounding air. At the same time, the acute user need of a "no touch" activation mechanism to start the toilet flush must be addressed.The current state-of-the-art does not offer a safe, robust, mass market-ready and affordable technology to meet the demand for such a solution. In this project, we therefore propose to develop a prototype toilet that integrates a novel "no touch" activation method with a motor-driven mechanism to safely open and close toilet lids automatically, without the need for any manual operation. Most importantly, these advancements will be integrated into a toilet that is inherently designed to reduce aerolised pathogens by up to 95% by locking and sealing the lid tightly before flushing.