UVHEAL SAFEAIR: A UV Based Air Disinfectant That Can Be Monitored Using Mobile App
By Sandhya Mishra
Ankit Sharma, Director, Airific Systems introduces UV Heal SafeAir to break the spread of airborne diseases including viruses such as COVID-19
UV technology has been used for over 70 years now for air and water disinfection, essentially in hospitals and clinics particularly in operation theatres and emergency room. Since 1950, the bulk of the research on ultraviolet germicidal irradiation (UVGI) focused on controlling the spread of tuberculosis (TB). Over the time, the UVGI systems went under a lot of modification and so its use reached to residential buildings, offices, hotels and other industries. Now, the UVGI are in news to overcome the biggest challenge of the pandemic, that is to break the spread of COVID-19 viruses.
What is UVGI?
Ultraviolet germicidal irradiation, or UVGI, is the use of ultraviolet (UV) energy to kill viral, bacterial, and fungal organisms. UVGI fixtures produce UV-C energy, which has shorter wavelengths than more penetrating UV-A and UV-B rays and pose less risk to human health.
Ankit Sharma, Director, Airific Systems introduced ‘UVHEAL™ SAFEAIR’ – an ultra-modern UV-based HVAC air disinfectant that is doing rounds on internet. UVHEAL™ SAFEAIR is tested and certified by ICMR-CSIR, Virology Lab (CCMB) for 99 per cent disinfection for SARS-CoV-2 that causes COVID-19. It uses an in-built software to create an intensity map, and portrays the kill percentage of various types of pathogens present in the air that allows to trace the performance of the system in real time through a mobile app. This makes the UVHEAL™ SAFEAIR one of its kind and exclusive product not only in India but in the world.
“In the West, UVGI technology has been used extensively to eradicate problems caused by Sick Building Syndrome (SBS), a condition that's thought to be caused by being in a building or other type of enclosed space. It's attributed to poor indoor air quality due to mold and fungi accumulation are in air circulation units of buildings. UVGI systems for air disinfection is something we always discussed as a company to implement within our campuses, but for one reason or the other, it never came to fruit, until COVID-19 struck. It quickly became apparent how important it is to disinfect the air that we breathe in indoor environments, and unfortunately (or fortunately for me) there were no organized players here in India that developed such systems, and the ones abroad were too busy with their own internal requirements. It was then that we decided that we will manufacture our own systems, develop our own design software, and provide clean air to as many people as we can,” says Ankit, an engineer by qualification, from the University of Texas at Austin.
Whether UVHEAL™ SAFEAIR is a substitute to High efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filters?
UVHEAL™ SAFEAIR is more of centralized air conditioning solutions, which basically means that it's for the big buildings and hospitals. The system is alone sufficient to keep the air clean and safe. However, those hospitals with HEPA filters installed in their HVAC would still need UVGI to make sure pathogenic tiny viruses do not escape the filters, as guided by American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) guidelines.
Also, UVGI systems can be retrofitted in buildings unlike HEPA filters. Let's say a building already had their air tubes installed with normal MERV-13 filter, then it becomes virtually impossible to change those MERV-13 filters and place HEPA filters because of two reasons;
HEPA filter has a different pressure drop than a MERV-13 filter
AHUs are designed differently with respect to different filters. To install the HEPA in retrofit areas, one would actually have to change its whole AHU and the cost of replacing the AHU and installing HEPA will cost one more than the cost of those HEPA filters itself.
"Whereas these UV systems are cost effective and can be easily retrofitted. We've done over a hundred projects; I think over 90 of them have been done as a retrofit process. But retrofitting, HEPA filter is very difficult because of the cost and also technical difficulties,” says Ankit.
How does UVHEAL™ SAFEAIR system works?
"Through many iterations, and long hours spent in the office and at our manufacturing facilities, we have finally come up with what we believe as the perfect technology to deal with the issues that we see today. There are two ends to this product, and without one joining the other, the process of getting the correct solution to our clients fails. The first component is obviously getting the right hardware setup. It was very important to realize that we must design a system that we can mass produce. One whose production can be scaled up several notches if required, and in that capacity we were able to create a modular design that requires very little customization that allows us to provide quick delivery times to our customers, and reduces the overall cost as well. The second component is software. To get the right output, it is very important that each and every system is designed on the basis of site specifications and customer equipment parameters. We have developed a software that takes in various input parameters in a 3D format, and on the basis of these input parameters, we are able to determine the number of lamps required to achieve 99% disinfection of certain viruses, bacteria etc. in the air. The software also creates an intensity map, and portrays the kill percentage of various types of pathogens present in the air and displays the performance of the system in real time through an app.
"India for the longest time has been a country that has not taken hygiene seriously but due to COVID-19 that has now changed right before our eyes. And, our aim is to make every building as hygienic as possible. We are working with a lot of hospitals right now and Healthcare being a key domain, we are very excited for what the future holds in terms of India,” concludes Ankit.