Self-contained ozone controller for routine Covid-19 inactivation

新型冠状病毒（COVID-19，即2019冠状病毒病）之所以造成全球性破坏，很大程度上是因为其在人体外长时间保持高度传染性的能力。早期的迹象表明，它可以在空气中存活3小时，在纸板上存活24小时，在塑料和钢铁表面上存活2- 3天。虽然特定区域和物体可以通过用漂白剂或医用酒精擦拭来手动去除污染，但该过程劳动密集、成本高昂，并且仅限于容易到达的区域。新型冠状病毒肺炎（COVID-19，即2019冠状病毒病）危机迫使人类互动方式发生重大变化，我们的去污方法也需要发生类似的步骤变化，以保持安全的环境。目前，人们迫切需要一种高效、有效的净化解决方案，能够方便、安全地应用于商业、教育和医疗领域，以及包含货物、设备和食品的封闭空间、护理院和运输行业。臭氧气体是一种强大的氧化剂，具有良好的抗微生物和抗病毒特性。由于其气体性质，它能够进入和处理所有区域，包括家具，裂缝和织物的下表面。与传统的清洁方法（如漂白剂）不同，它不会留下残留物，自然分解回氧气。几十年来，臭氧一直被用于工业规模的水消毒，并发现了一些利基应用，如医疗器械消毒，并获得了FDA的批准。然而，由于现有解决方案的技术不足，臭氧消毒的广泛采用被排除在外，这源于它们使用环境空气作为臭氧产生的氧气源。环境空气的替代方法是从气瓶或外部气体管线向发生器供给纯氧，这使得最终设备笨重、笨重，并且额外的成本和获得和重新填充氧气瓶的不便。我们的建议是开发一种精密的臭氧控制器，该臭氧控制器采用由超纯氧供给的发生器，通过将氧气从空气中泵送穿过氧气可渗透的氧化锆陶瓷膜而获得。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，因为超纯氧在分析仪内原位产生，并立即输送到发生器入口。该解决方案具有高技术效率、低成本、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，从而产生适合批量生产和供应英国市场的生产就绪，符合CE标准的设计。

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.