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

TOPNOTCH希望检测他们的脉冲紫外光系统在净化含有气流的病原体方面的潜力，该系统已经证明，与竞争方法(针对枯草杆菌、MRSA、大肠杆菌和金黄色葡萄球菌)相比，它可以更快、更少地对病原体负载的固体表面进行消毒。据推测，该技术可以应用于经过脉冲紫外线光源的空气的消毒。拟议的研究将使该公司现有系统的潜在改进得以量化，然后可应用于提高效力和效率的新一代“清洁”空气处理设备，以及新病原体及其清除的研究。这种设备可用于改善医院和长期护理设施的空气质量，同时减少设施周围空气传播病原体的机会。该项目启动了一项创新计划，首先在现实的、自然发生的以及人工创造的携带病毒的气流中研究呼吸道病毒。实验将在西区新的2x2x2m的咳嗽室内设施中进行，25名受试者将通过医生推荐从学生健康服务中心招募到实验室。他们会向房间咳嗽几次，空气采样器将在脉冲灯工作和不工作的情况下，在距离口腔最远2米的地方对液滴进行采样(用于病毒RNA分析)。受试者咳嗽的气流速度将使用粒子图像测速仪(PIV)在距离口腔约1米处进行测量，以量化受试者咳嗽的强度。为了确保从研究中获得足够的数据，在单独的实验中，将把含有已知浓度的1级RNA噬菌体(囊病毒科病毒家族的phi6)的人工产生的气雾剂引入舱内，并测试不同脉冲紫外灯设置对降低液滴中病毒含量的影响。未来的工作将包括脉冲紫外光对一系列空气微生物的消毒效率，以提供一个新的微生物灭活曲线分类数据库，用于对各种空气中致病微生物的消毒。

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.