LIFFE: Light Induced Fluorescence For the Environment

提高英国的可持续性和推动净零排放的两个重要因素是能源使用和减少废物。封锁后重返工作岗位的多个行业面临的挑战是，由于清洁制度和个人防护装备的使用增加，生产率大幅下降，废物产量增加。目前，这些措施被认为是必要的，但从长远来看，这些措施在环境上是不可持续的，尤其是对一个推动清洁增长的经济体而言。能够在工作场所“看到”当前的病毒、Covid-19和未来的人畜共患病毒，将使行业能够在大流行期间继续安全运营，降低封锁的严重程度，消除不必要的清洁，从而提高生产率，减少能源浪费和化学品使用，并允许有针对性地使用新的高能耗去污方法（深紫外线）。这种能力也将提高个人防护装备的可持续性，这被视为NHS的必需品。NHS产生了大量的垃圾，这些垃圾无法再利用或回收，而是通过焚烧造成空气污染，或者通过垃圾填埋场造成水道/餐桌污染。如果个人防护装备可以重新使用，那么这将节省稀缺的资源，包括能源和材料，减少塑料废物，并且不会导致第一波大流行期间所经历的严重短缺。至关重要的是，缺乏任何即时手段来确定是否发生了生物污染，以及在进行清洁（例如通过深紫外线照射破坏病毒核酸）后是否仍然存在生物污染。目前没有可接受的清洁可重复使用个人防护装备的质量控制方法。因此，“看到”危险污染的能力将是一项可行的技术。同样，配备手持设备的清洁人员也可以使用这种成像系统来检查众所周知的污染源，例如可能存在感染的水闸，并完成适当的针对性消毒。LIFFE是一个可行性项目，旨在研究光谱荧光在室内环境中检测生物材料的潜力，特别是在个人防护用品面罩、医院消耗品以及最终在空气中飞沫中的应用。此外，LIFFE将研究Covid-19检测特异性的可行性，最终将作为手持式检测系统的一部分部署。

Two large elements of improving the UK's sustainability and drive towards net zero are energy use and waste reduction. A challenge seen throughout multiple industries returning to work after lockdown has been a dramatic loss in productivity and increased waste production resulting from increased cleaning regimes and PPE use. Currently, these are tolerated as necessary steps, but these are not environmentally sustainable long-term, especially for an economy pushing for clean growth.An ability to 'see' the current virus, Covid-19 and future zoonotic viruses in workplaces would enable industries to continue to operate safely during pandemics, reducing the severity of lockdowns, remove unnecessary cleaning, resulting in productivity gains, reduce energy wastage and chemical usage, plus allow targeted use for new, energy-hungry decontamination methods (deep-UV). This ability would also improve the sustainability of PPE, seen as a necessity in the NHS. The NHS produces a huge amount of waste, which is not able to be re-used or recycled and instead contributes to airborne pollution through incineration or watercourse/table pollution through landfills. If PPE could be re-employed then this would save scarce resources, both energy, and materials, reduce plastic waste and not lead to the acute shortages experienced during the first pandemic wave. Critical to this is the lack of any instantaneous means to determine if biological contamination has taken place and whether it is still present after cleaning is performed such as via deep-UV irradiation to destroy the virus nucleic acid. There is no currently acceptable method of quality control of cleaning reusable PPE. The ability to 'see' dangerous contamination would thus be an enabling technology. Similarly, armed with a handheld device, cleaning staff could also employ such imaging systems to inspect sources of contamination which are well-known such as sluices where such infections can linger, and complete adequate targeted disinfection.LIFFE is a feasibility project to examine the potential of spectral fluorescence to be employed to detect biological material within an indoor environment, specifically on PPE visors, hospital consumables and, ultimately, in airborne droplets. Furthermore, LIFFE will examine the feasibility of detection specificity for Covid-19, ultimately to be deployed as part of a hand-held detection system.