Breakthrough: Discover a way to neutralize the coronavirus in less than a second | the Chronicle

A group of scientists from the American University of Texas A&M discovered a way to neutralize the coronavirus responsible for covid-19 in less than a second, according to an article published in the news aggregator Phys.org.

The researchers designed an experimental system that demonstrates that exposure of SARS-CoV-2 to elevated temperatures, even if it lasts less than a second, it may be enough to neutralize the virus so that it can no longer infect another human host.

The experts heated the section of a stainless steel tube to nearly 72 degrees Celsius, through which the solution containing the coronavirus, for about half a second, cooling it right after.

In this way, they realized that the thermal process can reduce the amount of virus in solution by 100,000 times, which would be enough to neutralize it and prevent transmission in a much shorter time than previously thought (between one and twenty minutes).

“The potential impact is enormous”, Explain Arum han, professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Texas A&M University and co-author of the study. “I was curious how high the temperatures are that we can apply in such a short time and to see if, in fact, we could heat-inactivate the coronavirus in a very short period of time,” added.

In order to find out if they could do something to alleviate the current health emergency, the professor believes that the method found could be implemented with existing heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems.

In this regard, Han noted that could be used to fight other viruses such as influenza, which also spreads through the air, if they manage to develop an air purification system from this finding.

The goal of these researchers now is to build a microfluidic-scale test chip that allows them to heat treat viruses for much shorter periods, say tens of milliseconds, in the hope of identifying a temperature. which allows to leave it inactive even. with such a short exposure time.