Developing surfactant-based disinfectants and cleansers for environment contaminated with Covid-19

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The Covid-19 pandemic has caused significant challenges all over the world. One major pathway of Covid-19 transmission is through touching a surface or object that has the virus on it and then touching one's mouth, nose or eyes. It has been recently discovered that this virus can transmit into water causing contamination and possible spread through water systems. Various disinfectants have been applied to cleaning and disinfecting the surfaces and there is an urgent need to find solutions for decontaminating virus-contaminated water. However, the current disinfectants have drawbacks including being irritating to human skin, risk of fire hazards, explosion, and generating secondary hazardous products. It is highly desirable to develop more environmentally friendly and secure alternatives for disinfecting and cleaning virus-contaminated surfaces and water systems. This one year project aims to comprehensively understand and investigate the effect of surfactants on the distribution, survival, and activity of the virus in the aqueous environment and on the various surfaces. This research will provide a better understanding of disinfecting and cleaning virus-contaminated systems achieved by surfactants and could help better design and develop environmentally friendly surfactant-based disinfectants and cleansers.