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

2019冠状病毒病疫情在全球各地造成重大挑战。新型冠状病毒传播的一个主要途径是通过触摸带有病毒的表面或物体，然后触摸自己的嘴、鼻子或眼睛。最近发现，这种病毒可以传播到水中，造成污染，并可能通过水系统传播。各种消毒剂已被用于清洁和消毒表面，迫切需要找到用于净化病毒污染的水的解决方案。然而，目前的消毒剂具有缺点，包括对人体皮肤有刺激性、火灾危险、爆炸的风险以及产生二次危险产物。非常需要开发用于消毒和清洁病毒污染的表面和水系统的更环境友好和安全的替代方案。这个为期一年的项目旨在全面了解和研究表面活性剂对水环境和各种表面上病毒的分布，存活和活性的影响。这项研究将提供一个更好的了解消毒和清洁病毒污染的系统实现的表面活性剂，可以帮助更好地设计和开发环境友好的表面活性剂为基础的消毒剂和清洁剂。

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.