IIT-AIIMS Team Builds World's 1st Machine That Kills Coronavirus In Air With Ionised Water

With COVID-19 spreading around the country like wildfire, we¡¯re taking personal hygiene as well as cleanliness in our surroundings to an entirely new level.

Reuters

Some of us have turned into extreme germophobes -- avoiding to touch surfaces and constantly washing hands from fears of contracting the novel coronavirus.

Authorities are spraying disinfectants on streets and commonly touched surfaces for preventing the spread of the coronavirus. However, Dr Debayan Saha from IIT Kharagpur and Shashi Ranjan from AIIMS has created a novel device that performs loads better than conventional disinfectant sprays.

The machine is called Airlens Minus Corona and it takes an entirely different approach to nip the novel coronavirus in the bud. The machine looks like a humanoid robot from a movie in the ¡¯60s (very reminiscent of the tin man from the Wizard of Oz). the machine basically disperses water droplets which are made of ionised water.

This water is ionised with the corona discharge. This water when it comes in contact with COVID-19, it oxidises the viral protein, rendering it not harmful. The machine can be used on the streets with crowded people to sanitise these mass-gathering places efficiently.

PerSapien Innovations

The company is called PerSapien Innovations. According to Sashi Ranjan, ¡°Diving deeper into the scientific research I did at NUS, Singapore, I realized that oxidation is one of the most potent antimicrobial tools which can sterilize the entire city.¡±

He further added, ¡°Our technology uses an optimal combination of electric energy and water atomization techniques to induce a charge on water droplets while creating the most potent oxidative entities, Hydroxyl radicals that can oxidize and kill the coronavirus.¡±

Now you might be wondering why do we need this when we already have alcohol-based dispersion systems that are commonly being used. Debayan has an answer to this.

¡°Alcohols (like ethanol or IPA) are known to inactivate viruses by denaturing their protein coat. But the alcohol-based hand sanitizer is useful for individuals or for sanitizing surfaces at a smaller scale (home, offices, etc.) in the fight against Coronavirus. However, this is insufficient in such an emergency as it is impractical to use alcohol for sanitizing cities.¡±