(Daily News Scan - DNS English) Can UV Light Kill Corona Virus?
Everyday a new theory or a new concept regarding the novel coronavirus is available. Now a new research has been revealed declaring that coronavirus can be killed with ultraviolet rays. Yes you heard it right, researchers have published this report and its findings in the Nature Group journal Physics Communications.
In this DNS WE WILL KNOW ABOUT THE NEW THEORY GIVEN BY THE RESEARCHERS.
Ultraviolet light is commonly used method to kill bacteria. But can one kill coronavirus with UV light? Yes, you can.
But with this comes a hurdle. For such an approach a device is needed that would emit sufficient amounts of ultraviolet light while being, at the same time, energy-efficient and portable. Not only this, it should also be feasible enough. Now, researchers have reported that such a device is feasible — personal, handheld, and built from a newly discovered class of conductors. They have reported their findings in the Nature Group journal Physics Communications.
Let us first know about Ultraviolet light
Electromagnetic radiation comes from the sun and transmitted in waves or particles at different wavelengths and frequencies. This broad range of wavelengths is known as the electromagnetic (EM) spectrum. The spectrum is generally divided into seven regions in order of decreasing wavelength and increasing energy and frequency. Ultraviolet light falls in the range of spectrum between visible light and X- rays. The wavelength of ultraviolet radiation is between 10 nanometres and 400 nanometres (1 nanometre is a billionth part of a metre).
Pennsylvania State University, which was involved in the new
research claims that Ultraviolet radiation in the 200-300 nanometre range is
known to destroy the virus, making it incapable of reproducing and infecting.
Ultraviolet radiation is one of two methods for sanitising and disinfecting
public spaces from bacteria and viruses. Whereas the other method being
chemicals.
Both chemicals and ultraviolet radiation are meant to disinfect public spaces only, not human skin. As the World Health Organization points out: “Ultra-violet (UV) lamps should not be used to disinfect hands or other areas of your skin. UV radiation can cause skin irritation and damage your eyes.”
Talking about the hurdles associated with this concept,
To disinfect areas from the coronavirus with UV radiation, one needs sources that emit sufficiently high doses of UV light. Such devices do exist, but as Pennsylvania State University points out, these radiation sources are “typically an expensive mercury-containing gas discharge lamp, which requires high power, has a relatively short lifetime, and is bulky”.
The solution is to develop UV light-emitting diodes (LEDs), which would be portable and energy-efficient. Diodes are, specialised conductors that transmit electricity in one direction. LEDs that emit UV light, too, exist. But again, “applying a current to them for light emission is complicated by the fact that the electrode material also has to be transparent to UV light”. The challenge was to find such a material.
To this challenge -
The Pennsylvania State University team, in collaboration with materials theorists from the University of Minnesota, figured out a solution. The solution to this challenge lies in a recently discovered new class of transparent conductors that use a material called strontium niobate.
The researchers reached out to Japanese collaborators to obtain strontium niobate films, and tested their performance as UV transparent conductors. They immediately tried to grow these films using the standard film-growth technique widely adopted in industry, called sputtering. They were successful in this work.
The researchers said this is a critical step towards technology maturation which makes it possible to integrate this new material into UV LEDs at low cost and high quantity.
