Pulsed UV light decontamination of naturally-produced, virus-laden airstreams

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Topnotch wishes to examine the potential of their pulsed UV light system in decontaminating pathogen containing airflows, having shown it can disinfect solid surfaces of pathogen load, faster, using less energy, than competitive methods (for B.subtilis, MRSA, E.Coli and Staphylococcus aureus). It is hypothesized that this technology can be applied to disinfection of air travelling past the pulsed UV source. The proposed research will allow quantification of potential improvements to the company's existing systems that could then be applied to a new generation of "clean" air handling equipment with enhanced effectiveness and efficiencies, as well as to the study of new pathogens and their removal. Such equipment can be used to improve air quality in hospitals and long-term care facilities, while reducing the chances of airborne pathogen transfer around the facility. The project initiates an innovative program, commencing with a study of respiratory virus in realistic, naturally-occurring, as well as artificially created, virus-laden airstreams. Experiments will be conducted in the new 2x2x2m cough chamber facility at Western with 25 subjects recruited to the lab from Student Health Services by doctor referral. They will cough into the chamber several times and air samplers will sample droplets (for viral RNA analysis) at distances of up to 2m from the mouth with and without the pulsed lamp operating. Airflow velocity measurements of the subject's coughs will be made using particle image velocimetry (PIV) at approximately 1m away from the mouth to quantify the strength of that subject's coughs. To ensure adequate data from the study, in separate experiments artificially-generated aerosols containing known concentrations of a level-1 RNA bacteriophage (phi6 of the Cystoviridae virus family) will be introduced into the chamber and the effects of different pulsed UV lamp settings on reducing viral content of the droplets assessed.Future work will encompass the disinfection efficiency of pulsed UV light on a range of airborne micro-organisms to provide a new classification database of microbial inactivation curves for the disinfection of various airborne pathogenic micro-organisms.