[ad_1]
ANN ARBOR – Dangerous viruses suspended in the air are rendered harmless on the fly when they are exposed to charged and energetic air molecules fragments, researchers have shown. University of Michigan.
They hope someday to exploit this ability to replace a hundred-year-old device: the surgical mask.
UM engineers have measured the speed of virus removal and the efficiency of non-thermal plasmas, ie ionized or charged particles that form around landfills such as sparks. A non-thermal plasma reactor was able to inactivate or eliminate 99.9% airflow from a tested virus, the vast majority of which was due to inactivation.
Achieving these results in a split second in an airflow is promising for many applications requiring a sterile air supply.
"The pathway of the most difficult disease to protect is air, because we have relatively little to protect ourselves when we breathe," said Herek Clack, associate professor of U-M research in civil and environmental engineering.
Professor Herek Clack (left), professor of civil and environmental engineering, and members of his team have developed a laboratory-scale non-thermal plasma device whose inactivation has been proven inactivated at more than 99% infects the E. coli bacteria in the pig farm of the Barton Farms family in Homer, MI. Image Credit: Robert Coelius / Michigan Engineering
To evaluate the effectiveness of non-thermal plasmas, the researchers injected a model virus – harmless for humans – into a stream of air at the moment of its entry into a reactor. Inside the reactor, borosilicate glass beads are packaged in a cylindrical form. The viruses in the air pass through the spaces between the balls and are therefore inactivated.
"In these empty spaces, you create sparks," said Clack. "While crossing the bed of packing, the pathogens in the air stream are oxidized by unstable atoms called radicals. What remains is a virus that has a reduced ability to infect cells. "
Tian Xia monitors the levels of methane coming out of a pig pen before installing a non-thermal plasma-scale device at the laboratory in the Barton Farms family pig farm at Homer, MI. Image Credit: Robert Coelius / Michigan Engineering
The experiment and its results are published in the Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics.
During these tests, the researchers also tracked the amount of viral genome present in the air. In this way, Clack and his team were able to determine that more than 99% of the effect of sterilization in the air was due to the inactivation of the virus present, the rest of the effect being due to its filtering of the airflow.
"The results tell us that non-thermal plasma treatment is very effective at inactivating airborne viruses," said Krista Wigginton, assistant professor in civil and environmental engineering. "Since air disinfection technologies are limited, it is an important discovery."
This parallel approach – combining filtration and inactivation of airborne pathogens – could provide a more efficient way to provide sterile air than the technologies currently used, such as filtration and filtration. ultraviolet light. Traditional masks work using only filtration for protection.
Ultraviolet irradiation can not be sterilized so rapidly, nor with a complete or compact non-thermal plasma.
Clack and his research team began testing their reactor on the ventilation airflow at a farm near Ann Arbor. Livestock and its vulnerability to contagious livestock diseases, such as avian influenza, have highlighted the immediate need for such technologies.
More information:
[ad_2]
Source link