An eco-friendly solution to workplace infection risk durng the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.

摘要/摘要 2020年，新冠肺炎疫情肆虐全球，工薪阶层受到的影响不成比例： 医护人员、紧急服务人员(警察、消防)、敬老院工作人员、儿童保育人员 工人、清洁工、酒店业、公共交通、出租车司机、零售业工人 购物中心都面临着与公众互动的风险增加。美国国务院 劳工部职业安全与健康管理局(OSHA)要求使用个人防护措施 为所有工人提供的设备(PPE)，其中大部分是一次性使用的和一次性的。个人防护装备医学近况 据报道，中国大流行期间的废物从40吨/天增加到240吨/天，增加了350% 西班牙增加了925吨/月，印度增加了两倍(包括额外的11.4吨/月 来自家庭的危险废物)。这些受污染的废物已经超出了废物的容量。 许多国家的管理制度，导致对具有感染潜力的旧个人防护用品的不当处置 以及微塑料对环境的污染。因此，次要的环境危机现在迫在眉睫。 据估计，每个月有1290亿个口罩被丢弃。可有效清理二手物品的分散式解决方案 重复使用的个人防护装备对于对工作场所的感染风险作出无害环境的长期反应是必不可少的。 Fathhome开发了一种基于臭氧的无水设备，可以快速高效地在 工作场所。我们的技术能够将SARS-CoV-2感染颗粒数量减少到7倍以下 在概念验证实验中，与20分钟的消毒周期的实验对照相比。同样，可行的 在我们的设备中，织物上的大肠杆菌减少了99%。为进一步为市场作好准备，我们的 该项目的总体目标是进一步调整我们的设备对SARS-CoV-2和细菌的杀菌效果 病原体(金黄色葡萄球菌和铜绿假单胞菌)，并确保室内排放总体安全 使用。我们将简要曝光口罩和面罩材料上发现的SARS-CoV-2和细菌病原体 至单一的消毒周期，并列举幸存的生物体。我们的设备在专有的情况下运行 基于真空的技术，确保臭氧排放得到控制，并使用催化臭氧洗涤器来 在循环结束时，将臭氧转化为氧气。然而，臭氧在杀灭微生物的浓度下对人类是有毒的。 该应用程序的主要工作将集中在设计和实施臭氧排放保障措施上 (包括对我们的催化转化器进行可靠的测试)，以确保设备安全运行。在过去的25年里，15 已经发生了通过空气传播的全球传染病的重大爆发，这不会是最后一次 威胁美国工人。在工作场所实施像Fathhome的臭氧系统这样的技术 现在将允许在未来大流行的情况下安全地重复使用个人防护装备，平衡安全和 环境可持续性。

SUMMARY/ABSTRACT The COVID-19 pandemic has ravaged the globe in 2020, with a disproportional effect on the working class: healthcare workers, emergency services personnel (police, fire), workers in homes for the aged, childcare workers, cleaners, workers in the hospitality industry, public transport, and taxi drivers, workers in retail sectors and shopping malls are all at increased risk of exposure from interactions with the public. The US Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration has (OSHA) mandated using personal protective equipment (PPE) for all workers, most of which is single-use and disposable. A recent review of PPE medical waste during the pandemic reports an increase from 40 tons/day to 240 tons/day in China, a 350% increase (with an added 925 t/month) in Spain, and a two-fold increase in India (including an additional 11.4 tons of hazardous waste from households). These volumes of contaminated waste have exceeded the capacity of waste management systems in many countries, resulting in improper disposal of used PPE with infectious potential and pollution of the environment with microplastics. Consequently, a secondary environmental crisis now looms due to an estimated 129 billion discarded facemasks/month. A decentralized solution to effectively sanitize used PPE for re-use is essential for an environmentally sound long-term response to infection risk in the workplace. Fathhome has developed a waterless ozone-based device to sanitize items quickly and efficiently in the workplace. Our technology was able to reduce SARS-CoV-2 infectious particle counts to levels >7 log-fold lower than experimental controls with a 20-minute sanitization cycle in proof-of-concept experiments. Similarly, viable Escherichia coli on fabric was reduced by >99% in our device. To advance towards market readiness, our overall goal for this project is to tune further our device's microbicidal effects against SARS-CoV-2 and bacterial pathogens (Staphylococcus aureus and Pseudomonas aeruginosa) and ensure overall safe emissions for indoor use. We will briefly expose SARS-CoV-2 and bacterial pathogens spotted onto masks and face shield material to a single sanitization cycle and enumerate surviving organisms. Our device operates under proprietary vacuum-based technology to ensure ozone emissions are contained and uses a catalytic ozone scrubber to converter O3 to O2 at the end of the cycle. However, ozone is toxic to humans at microbiocidal concentrations. This application's main effort will be concentrated on engineering and implementing ozone emission safeguards (including robust testing of our catalytic converter) to ensure safe device operation. In the past 25 years, 15 major global outbreaks of airborne infectious diseases have occurred, and this will not be the last pandemic to threaten the American worker. Implementing technologies like Fathhome's ozone-based system in workplaces now will allow the safe re-use of PPE in the case of future pandemics, balancing the need for safety and environmental sustainability.